Mailgun Free Plan

Here’s the thing about Mailgun’s free plan: it’s gotten pretty stingy over the years. We’re talking 100 emails per day—that’s it. And honestly, when you’re trying to build something real, that constraint hits faster than you’d expect.

I’ve been watching this space for a while, and the question isn’t really whether Mailgun offers free email delivery anymore. It’s whether what they’re offering actually helps you get anything meaningful done. Spoiler alert: for most people, probably not.

What is the Mailgun Free Plan?

Think of Mailgun’s free plan as a very basic testing sandbox. It’s built for developers who want to kick the tires on their API without pulling out a credit card first. Makes sense, right? Except the limits are so tight that you’ll hit them almost immediately if you’re doing any real development work.

Mailgun has always positioned itself as the developer’s email service—all APIs and SMTP relays, no fancy drag-and-drop builders. That’s fine if you’re technical, but it means you’re getting a pretty bare-bones experience even when you pay.

What’s interesting is how this compares to something like Sender.net, which gives you 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails monthly for free. That’s not just more generous—it’s from a different planet entirely. And they throw in actual marketing tools too.

A Quick Overview of Mailgun and Its Features

Mailgun is essentially email infrastructure as a service. Sinch owns it now, and it’s designed for sending transactional emails—password resets, order confirmations, that kind of thing. Not newsletters or marketing campaigns.

The platform does what it says on the tin pretty well. RESTful APIs, SMTP relay, email validation (if you pay for it), and solid analytics. They handle billions of emails monthly, so the infrastructure is definitely robust.

But here’s where it gets weird: Mailgun doesn’t really do marketing email. No visual editors, no automation workflows that normal humans can set up. If you need both transactional and marketing capabilities, you’re looking at multiple tools—which kind of defeats the purpose of having an integrated platform.

What Do You Get with the Mailgun Free Plan?

Not much, if we’re being honest. The 100 emails per day thing is the headline limitation, but there are other restrictions that pile up quickly. One domain, basic API access, and tracking that disappears after 24 hours.

It’s clearly designed to get you testing quickly and then push you toward a paid plan. Which I get from a business perspective, but it’s frustrating when you’re trying to prototype something or just need a simple email setup for a side project.

The daily reset happens at midnight UTC, by the way. So if you blow through your limit early in the day, you’re stuck waiting. No burst capacity, no overage options—just a hard stop.

Key Features of the Free Plan

Email Sending Capacity

That 100-email daily limit sounds reasonable until you start thinking about real applications. User signups with welcome emails? Password resets? Order confirmations? You’ll hit that wall pretty quickly with anything beyond the most basic setup.

And it’s not like you get 3,000 emails monthly that you can use however you want. It’s strictly 100 per day, every day. Miss a day? Those emails don’t roll over.

Compare that to Sender.net’s 15,000 monthly emails with no daily cap, and Mailgun starts looking pretty restrictive. Sure, different audiences, but the contrast is stark.

API and SMTP Access

This is actually where Mailgun shines, even on the free plan. You get the same API endpoints as paid users, which means you can build your integration properly from day one. The SMTP relay works just like you’d expect—drop in your credentials and start sending.

The documentation is solid too. Code examples in multiple languages, clear explanations, good troubleshooting guides. Whether you’re using Python, Ruby, PHP, or something else, you’ll find what you need.

But here’s the catch: all the advanced stuff requires upgrades. Email validation? Paid feature. Send time optimization? Paid feature. Dedicated IPs? Definitely paid.

Basic Analytics and Tracking

You get delivery confirmations, open rates, click tracking—the usual suspects. The dashboard is clean and shows you what you need to know. Webhooks work fine too, so you can build real-time integrations.

The killer limitation? Logs only stick around for one day. Try debugging an issue that happened last week and you’re out of luck. Even basic troubleshooting becomes nearly impossible.

That one-day log retention is honestly a deal-breaker for anything serious. You need those logs for debugging, compliance, understanding user behavior—basically everything important about email delivery.

What’s Missing in the Mailgun Free Plan?

Restricted or Limited Features

Email validation is completely off the table, which means you’re sending to whatever addresses people give you and hoping for the best. Bad addresses mean bounces, and bounces hurt your sender reputation. Not ideal.

You’re also stuck on shared IP addresses with other Mailgun users. If someone else on your IP starts sending spam or gets blacklisted, it can affect your deliverability too. Honestly, that part surprised me—seems like something they’d want to protect better.

No inbound email parsing, no advanced routing, no send time optimization. Basically, if it makes email smarter or more automated, it’s behind a paywall.

Hidden Costs and Limitations

Only one user per account on the free plan. So if you’re working with a team, everyone needs to share login credentials or you need to upgrade immediately. Not great for security or workflow.

One domain limit means you can’t test multiple projects or brands. Want to test your main app and a side project? That’ll be two paid accounts, please.

Support is tickets only, and response times can be slow. When you’re stuck on an implementation detail at 2 AM, that live chat option starts looking pretty valuable.

Who’s the Mailgun Free Plan Perfect For?

Honestly? It’s getting harder to recommend the free plan for much beyond basic API testing. If you’re a student learning email integration or building a tiny personal project, it might work.

Solo developers doing proof-of-concept work can probably squeeze some value out of it. Testing API calls, checking deliverability, understanding how the platform works—that stuff is doable within the limits.

But if you’re building anything that real people will use, even at a small scale, you’ll outgrow the free plan pretty quickly. And at that point, you might want to look at alternatives that offer more room to grow.

Feature Comparison

The jump from free to Foundation is dramatic—you go from 100 emails daily to 50,000 monthly. That’s a 500x increase for $35, which actually isn’t terrible if you need the volume.

But notice how email validation doesn’t show up until the $90 Scale plan? That’s a pretty essential feature locked behind a pretty high paywall. Same with dedicated IPs and decent log retention.

The pricing structure feels designed to push you toward Scale if you want anything approaching a professional setup. Not everyone would agree, but it seems like they’ve intentionally made the lower tiers less useful over time.

When It Makes Sense to Upgrade

If you’re hitting that 100-email limit regularly, you’re already past the point where the free plan makes sense. Same if you need multiple domains or team access.

The real question is whether you upgrade within Mailgun or jump to something else entirely. For pure transactional email, Mailgun’s paid plans are solid. But if you need marketing features too, platforms like Sender.net start looking more attractive.

Email validation and dedicated IPs are pretty much required for any serious email operation. So you’re really looking at the Scale plan ($90/month) as the minimum viable option for production use. At that point, you might want to shop around a bit.