Resend vs SendGrid 2025: Same Price, Very Different Setup
At ≤100k emails/month, pricing is identical to within $0.05. The real difference: Resend takes 8 minutes to set up; SendGrid takes 45. And SendGrid killed its permanent free tier in May 2025.
By Ethan
1,534 words · 8 min read
At ≤100k emails/month, Resend and SendGrid cost the same — within $0.05. Resend wins on developer experience and keeps a permanent free tier. SendGrid wins for enterprise volume, marketing-plus-transactional in one tool, and deep Twilio integration.
Who this is for
Developers picking a transactional email API for a SaaS product or side project in 2025–2026. If you’re running a marketing newsletter, need 50M+ emails/month with SLA-backed support, or already live inside the Twilio ecosystem, your answer is SendGrid before you finish reading.
What we tested
Pricing verified against official pages on 2026-05-21: resend.com/pricing and twilio.com/en-us/products/email-api/pricing. API behaviour from official documentation and community reports. npm package activity from npmjs.com. Support quality from SmartCustomer (formerly Sitejabber), Trustpilot, G2, and a 2025 Hacker News thread on bulk email options.
Pricing
Free tier — the biggest 2025 change
SendGrid killed its permanent free tier on May 27, 2025. What exists now is a 60-day trial at 100 emails/day. After 60 days, you pay or stop sending.
Resend keeps a permanent free tier: 3,000 emails/month, 100/day cap. No expiry.
That distinction matters more than any SDK ergonomics comparison. For a side project or early-stage product, Resend lets you stay on the free tier indefinitely. SendGrid cuts you off after two months.
Paid plans (verified)
| Volume/month | Resend | SendGrid | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $20 (Pro) | $19.95 (Essentials) | ~$0 |
| 50,000 | $20 (Pro) | $19.95 (Essentials) | ~$0 |
| 100,000 | $35 (Pro) | $34.95 (Essentials) | ~$0.05 |
| 200,000 | $160 (Scale) | not publicly listed* | — |
| 500,000 | $350 (Scale) | not publicly listed* | — |
| 1,000,000 | $650 (Scale) | not publicly listed* | — |
*SendGrid’s Pro pricing above 100k/month uses an interactive calculator on the pricing page — no static table is published. See Caveats before budgeting any of those rows.
Up to 100k/month, the price difference is noise. The decision turns on everything else.
Dedicated IPs: Both charge $30/month for a dedicated IP. Resend adds it as a Scale plan option (requires >500 emails/day). SendGrid includes one in Pro ($89.95+) and charges $30/month per additional IP.
Developer experience
Setup time
Resend: verify your domain, copy an API key, npm install resend. First email delivered in roughly 8 minutes. No account vetting, no approval queue.
SendGrid: create an account, authenticate your domain (DNS propagation required), configure subusers, complete sender authentication, plan IP warmup if you’re on a dedicated IP. Budget 30–45 minutes minimum. New accounts sometimes hit a vetting hold before they can send at all — a real blocker for side projects.
Code side by side
Resend — send a transactional email
import { Resend } from 'resend';
const resend = new Resend(process.env.RESEND_API_KEY);
const { data, error } = await resend.emails.send({
from: 'Acme <[email protected]>',
to: ['[email protected]'],
subject: 'Your order confirmed',
html: '<p>Thanks for your order!</p>',
});
// { data: { id: "49a3999c-0ce1-4ea6-ab68-afcd6dc2e794" }, error: null }Returns a { data, error } tuple. Error handling is explicit — no try/catch required. Idempotency-Key header supported with a 24-hour dedup window.
SendGrid — send a transactional email
import sgMail from '@sendgrid/mail';
sgMail.setApiKey(process.env.SENDGRID_API_KEY!);
const [response] = await sgMail.send({
to: '[email protected]',
from: '[email protected]', // Must be a verified sender
subject: 'Your order confirmed',
html: '<p>Thanks for your order!</p>',
});
// HTTP 202 Accepted, empty response body; errors throw exceptionsReturns HTTP 202 with an empty body. Errors throw exceptions, so you need try/catch around every send call. If you’re migrating from SendGrid v2 (form-encoded payloads) to v3 (JSON), expect breaking changes: Reply-To went from multi-address in v2 to single-address in v3, and all x-smtpapi parameter formats changed.
SDK activity
The resend npm package updated roughly 15 days before this writing. @sendgrid/mail last updated 8+ months ago — it’s in maintenance mode. Bugs get fixed; features don’t ship.
React Email
React Email was built by the Resend team, but it’s MIT-licensed and not gated behind a Resend account. It works with Nodemailer, Postmark, AWS SES, or any SMTP provider. React Email ships a standalone open-source visual editor (@react-email/editor). Tailwind 4 support landed in 2025.
Treating React Email as Resend-only is the most common misconception in this space. If you’re already using it with another provider, it’s not a migration reason — or a lock-in concern.
Deliverability
Resend uses shared IP pools by default across Free and Pro plans. Dedicated IPs are a $30/month Scale add-on. Resend’s position is that domain reputation dominates IP reputation post-2024, and that its shared pools are actively monitored with sender enforcement. No documented platform-wide outages with public historical data.
SendGrid delivers more than 200 billion emails/month across all customers. One dedicated IP is included in Pro; additional IPs are $30/month. Initial IP warmup takes 41 days with hourly throttling. If the IP has not been used for 30+ days, re-warmup is needed. Move to a dedicated IP mid-production, and you’re absorbing that ramp. SendGrid recommends dedicated IPs for any significant sending volume, and two IPs above 200–300k.
In early 2025, multiple users reported Outlook/Hotmail deliverability issues on SendGrid shared infrastructure. Not a platform-wide outage — a shared-IP risk that applies to any provider, Resend included, though the Resend-specific incident record is thinner because the volume history is shorter.
Support quality
Third-party review data collected independently — not Resend’s marketing:
- SmartCustomer (formerly Sitejabber): 1.7/5 from 57 reviews of SendGrid
- Trustpilot: 1/5 from ~500 ratings of SendGrid
Recurring patterns: automatic account suspension for “unusual activity” with no human review path, zero support on Free and Essentials tiers, slow ticket response on paid tiers, and no clear cancellation path (“deleting the account doesn’t cancel billing” appears across multiple reviewers independently).
A 2025 Hacker News thread (Ask HN: Is Resend a better option to send Emails in bulk?) cited SendGrid’s new-account vetting as a real friction point for side projects. Worth noting separately: Resend is newer than SendGrid and has a shorter track record at serious send volumes — that gap in independent, public data is a real consideration regardless of what any individual thread says.
npm adoption
@sendgrid/mail: ~3.83M weekly downloads (week of 2026-05-14–20, npmjs.com). Deep legacy install base from years of incumbency.
resend: growing week-over-week; exact figures weren’t retrievable at research time (npmjs.com returned 403). The react-email package (same team, same authors) pulls 920k–1.35M weekly downloads, which gives a rough sense of the orbit.
Directional signal: @sendgrid/mail has 8+ months with no new releases. resend shipped an update two weeks before this article. If SDK velocity matters to your team, that gap is real.
For the 12-month download trend chart, see npmtrends.com/@sendgrid/mail-vs-resend.
Verdict matrix
| Criteria | Resend | SendGrid |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent free tier | Yes (3k/mo, no expiry) | No (60-day trial only, since May 2025) |
| Setup time | ~8 minutes | 30–45 minutes |
| Paid price ≤100k/mo | ~equal | ~equal |
| Paid price >100k/mo | Cheaper (publicly listed) | Unlisted (interactive calculator only) |
| SDK update cadence | Active | Maintenance mode |
| React Email support | Native (built by same team) | Works (MIT open-source) |
| Dedicated IP | $30/mo add-on (Scale plan) | Included in Pro; $30/mo additional |
| IP warmup complexity | Low (shared pool default) | 41-day initial warmup; re-warmup if unused 30+ days |
| Support quality (third-party scores) | Limited data | 1.7/5 SmartCustomer (formerly Sitejabber); 1/5 Trustpilot |
| Enterprise volume (>50M/mo) | Not proven at scale | Yes |
| Marketing + transactional | No | Yes |
| Twilio/Segment ecosystem | No | Yes |
Pick Resend if you’re building a new SaaS, Next.js app, or side project and want zero setup friction. If you’re at ≤100k/month and SDK ergonomics matter, Resend is the default choice in 2025.
Pick SendGrid if you’re already in the Twilio or Segment ecosystem, need marketing and transactional from one platform, or you’re at enterprise volume where a Premier plan SLA is a business requirement.
Caveats
-
SendGrid Pro pricing above 100k/month is not itemized on the public pricing page as of 2026-05-21. Figures in third-party comparisons for the 300k–2.5M tiers are estimates. Verify current pricing at twilio.com/en-us/products/email-api/pricing before making a budget decision.
-
Resend at enterprise scale has not been independently benchmarked against SendGrid for inbox placement rates. The review scores cited here (1.7/5, 1/5) are for SendGrid. Resend has less review data because it’s newer — that cuts both ways.
-
Affiliate programs: Resend’s partner page returned 404 at research time; program status unknown. SendGrid/Twilio has a partner program but specific CPA rates require enrollment to view. No affiliate links in this article.
References
- Resend pricing — verified 2026-05-21
- Resend API: send email
- Resend: do you need a dedicated IP?
- Resend new features in 2024
- SendGrid pricing — verified 2026-05-21
- SendGrid: IP warmup
- SendGrid: dedicated IP addresses
- SendGrid status history
- React Email GitHub
- HN: Is Resend a better option to send Emails in bulk?
- SmartCustomer (formerly Sitejabber): SendGrid reviews
- Trustpilot: SendGrid reviews
- npm trends: @sendgrid/mail vs resend