European Alternatives to SendGrid
Looking for a European alternative to SendGrid? SendGrid is part of Twilio Inc., a Delaware corporation in San Francisco, and for EEA, UK and Swiss customers Twilio's terms name Twilio Ireland Limited as the contracting party.
Eleven European providers of SMTP relay and email API, from developer-first services to platforms that also send campaigns, each checked against its own imprint, terms and price list. For Twilio's SMS and voice, see the Twilio page.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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1
European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA or Switzerland, and processes customer data in Europe. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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2
Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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3
Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
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11 European Alternatives to SendGrid
Brevo
Paris platform with SMTP relay and API, campaigns, SMS and WhatsApp, and a free plan of 300 emails a day
EmailLabs
Vercom S.A. in Poznan, with 9,000 free emails a month, a dedicated IP on PRO and an ISO 27001 mark
Scaleway Transactional Email
Pay-as-you-go email from a Paris cloud, EUR 0.25 per 1,000 after 300 free
Sweego
MINDBAZ SAS in Lille, with email and SMS API, published tiers and log retention per plan
Lettermint
Dutch developer email service from Zwolle with a public subprocessor list and ISO 27001
turboSMTP
Independent Italian SMTP relay since 2009, with a free tier and prepaid credits valid for a year
MailPace
Transactional-only email from OhMySMTP Ltd, from USD 10 a month, with subprocessors published
Mailjet
French email API and campaign tool in the Sinch Email group, free plan of 6,000 emails a month
SMTPeter
Copernica's Amsterdam relay on Dutch servers, EUR 55 a month for 25,000 messages with a dedicated IP
Mailrelay
Madrid email marketing platform with 80,000 free emails a month and transactional sending as an add-on
Bird
Amsterdam email, SMS and WhatsApp platform, with a US entity for email customers in the United States
Key takeaways
- SendGrid is part of Twilio Inc., a Delaware corporation. For EEA, UK and Swiss customers Twilio's terms name Twilio Ireland Limited as the contracting entity, under English law.
- Eleven European providers are listed here, based in France, Poland, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Each names its contracting company on its own site, and Mailjet belongs to the Swedish group Sinch.
- Brevo (Paris) is the nearest in scope: transactional email over SMTP and API, campaigns, SMS and WhatsApp, with a free plan of 300 emails a day. EmailLabs (Poznan) has the largest free allowance, 9,000 emails a month.
- Scaleway, Lettermint, MailPace, SMTPeter and turboSMTP publish their prices: from EUR 0.25 per 1,000 emails at Scaleway to a EUR 55 monthly licence at SMTPeter.
- Mailgun is not here: its terms name Mailgun Technologies, Inc. in Texas, even though its parent Sinch is Swedish. MailerSend (MailerSend, Inc., New York) and Mailtrap (Railsware Products Studio LLC) are excluded for the same reason.
- The UK is not the EU: MailPace is a UK company with Hetzner backups in Germany. Bird is Dutch, but for email its terms send US customers to Bird.com Inc. in Delaware.
Why people leave SendGrid
SendGrid is the default answer when a developer needs to send password resets, receipts and notifications from an application. It offers an SMTP relay and a Web API, and its own site claims more than 200 billion emails delivered every month. That scale is real, and so is the reason a lot of teams stay on it: the libraries, the integrations and the habit.
The issue is the contract. SendGrid is part of Twilio, and Twilio Inc. is a Delaware corporation in San Francisco. Twilio's terms name Twilio Ireland Limited in Dublin as the contracting party for customers in the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, under English law with the courts of London, which is better than a straight US contract. The parent group is still American, and every recipient address and delivery log you send passes through it.
This page is about email only. If the thing you want to replace is Twilio's SMS, voice or WhatsApp, that is a different list, on our Twilio page. Below are eleven European providers of SMTP relay and email API, from developer-first services such as MailPace and Lettermint to platforms such as Brevo and Mailjet that also send campaigns.
- The group above your contract is American For customers in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Twilio's terms name Twilio Ireland Limited, registered in Dublin, as the contracting entity, under the law of England and Wales. Outside those regions the terms say California law and the courts of San Francisco. Twilio Inc. remains the Delaware corporation at the top, so a data protection officer still has to account for a US parent.
- Delivery logs are personal data A transactional email service stores the recipient address, the subject and the delivery events of every message it sends, for as long as your plan retains logs. Retention differs by provider, from one day on EmailLabs' free plan to 90 days on Sweego's Scaleup, so check how long the records you create stay on someone else's server.
- Pricing you cannot check from outside Twilio's pricing page points to a free trial with no credit card, but the amounts were not readable for this page, so no SendGrid price is quoted here. Most of the European providers below publish theirs, including per-thousand overage rates at Scaleway, Lettermint and SMTPeter, which makes a cost comparison possible before you sign up.
- Most of these are narrower, and that can be the point SendGrid also sends marketing campaigns, and Twilio sells SMS, voice and a customer data platform next to it. MailPace and Lettermint do transactional (and in Lettermint's case broadcast and inbound) mail only, and several providers here have no marketing editor at all. If you use SendGrid for both, Brevo, Mailjet and Mailrelay are the nearer fit; if you only need an API that delivers, the narrower services are simpler.
What you have to replace, not just match
Start with what you actually send. Password resets and receipts need an SMTP relay or an API, a verified sending domain and logs. Newsletters need list management and an editor. If you use SendGrid for both, you may end up with two tools, which is cheaper and simpler than it sounds.
Move in stages. Authenticate your domain with the new provider (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), send a small share of real traffic through it for a week and compare delivery and bounces, then switch the rest. Keep SendGrid running until the new provider has handled a full billing cycle, because a sender reputation takes time to build on new IP addresses.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Brevo | Paris, France | Free (300 emails/day, unlimited contacts) / from about €8/month | EU (France) |
| #2 | EmailLabs | Poznan, Poland | Free STARTUP up to 9,000 emails a month (300 a day) / Essential 30 at €23 a month for 100,000 / PRO 100 at €69 a month with a dedicated IP and €1.02 CPM overage / Enterprise above 1M | EU (Poland) |
| #3 | Scaleway Transactional Email | Paris, France | From about €0.0025/hour (DEV1-S) | EU (France) |
| #4 | Sweego | Lille, France | Free 100 emails a day / Individual €10 a month (€8 annual) for 20,000-50,000 / Startup €79 (€63) for 100,000-200,000 / Scaleup €270 (€216) for 500,000-1,000,000 / Unicorn on quote. SMS is a separate credit system from about €0.04 a message | EU (France) |
| #6 | turboSMTP | Milan, Italy | Free up to 200 emails a day for the first six months / Basic €14.95 a month for up to 15,000 emails / Pro €79.95 a month, adding a dedicated IP, custom routing, a 365-day analytics database and up to 100 subaccounts / Enterprise custom pricing above 2.5 million emails a month; prepaid pay-as-you-go credits from €49 for 50,000 emails up to €790 for 1 million, unused credits expiring after a year | EU (Italy) |
| #7 | MailPace | United Kingdom | $10 a month for the first 10,000 emails, then usage-based; every feature is on every plan | UK |
| #8 | Mailjet | Paris, France | Free tier / from about €15/month | EU (France) |
| #9 | SMTPeter | Amsterdam, Netherlands | €55 a month for 25,000 messages on one IP and one domain, then €0.23 per 1,000, falling to €0.22, €0.17, €0.06 and €0.05 as volume rises; optional support contract €89 a month | EU (Netherlands) |
| #10 | Mailrelay | Torrelodones, Madrid, Spain | Free for 80,000 emails a month to 20,000 contacts; transactional email is an add-on at €14.95 a month after a 30-day trial; paid plans are priced from a volume slider rather than a published table | EU (Spain) |
| #11 | Bird | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Free 1,000 emails a month / Startup from $15 a month (50,000-100,000) at $0.30 per 1,000 / Growth from $80 a month up to 2.5M / Enterprise above that; dedicated IP $24.95 a month | EU (Netherlands) for customers outside the United States |
How each alternative compares to SendGrid
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
- Independently checked. GDPR.
Best for: Teams that send application email and marketing campaigns, and want SMS or WhatsApp in the same account
Brevo is the trading name of Sendinblue SAS, registered with the Paris Trade and Companies Register under number 498 019 298, with its terms under French law and the commercial court of Paris. It was founded in 2012 and is a platform rather than a single-purpose relay.
For application email, it offers an SMTP relay and API, inbound parsing and templates, with transactional SMS and WhatsApp in the same account. Its free plan sends up to 300 emails a day, and paid plans start from 5,000 emails a month, though the prices are shown in the browser and are not quoted here.
It does more than SendGrid's core job, which is also its trade-off: you are buying a broad platform with a CRM and campaign tooling next to the API. We did not find a hosting location on its pages, so ask where your data is stored.
What Brevo does better than SendGrid
- French company under French law, where SendGrid's parent is a Delaware corporation
- Transactional email, campaigns, SMS and WhatsApp in one account
- Free plan of up to 300 emails a day
- Inbound parsing alongside SMTP relay and API
Where Brevo is a step down from SendGrid
- The free plan caps sending at 300 emails a day
- A broad platform, so more to learn than a pure relay
- Prices not readable from outside the browser
- Hosting location not stated on the pages we read
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only provider here that puts SMTP, campaigns, SMS and WhatsApp behind one French contract.
EmailLabs
a listed Polish company with the largest free allowance and an ISO 27001 mark
- Which law reaches it. EU (Poland). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EEA — the vendor states that all data is processed in the EEA, on servers located in Central and Eastern Europe.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
- Independently checked. ISO 27001, ISO 27018, Certified Senders Alliance (Essential plan and above).
Best for: Teams that want a focused transactional service with a documented company behind it
EmailLabs is operated by Vercom S.A. in Poznan, with KRS number 0000535618, and its pricing page notes that it is part of a publicly traded company. Its terms are written under the Polish act on providing services by electronic means.
The free STARTUP plan covers up to 9,000 emails a month and 300 a day, with an API, SMTP relay and one day of log retention. Essential 30 covers 100,000 emails a month at EUR 23 or EUR 29, depending on the new-customer rate, with seven days of logs and Certified Senders Alliance certification. PRO 100 adds a dedicated IP and 15 days of logs at EUR 69 or EUR 115.
It shows an ISO 27001 mark on its homepage, and says in its own documentation that its Cloudflare firewall uses a Data Localisation Suite so that data stays within the EEA. It is a sending service, not a marketing suite.
What EmailLabs does better than SendGrid
- Polish company, listed on the stock exchange, under Polish law
- Free plan of up to 9,000 emails a month
- ISO 27001 shown on its homepage
- Published euro prices and a dedicated IP on PRO
Where EmailLabs is a step down from SendGrid
- Free plan keeps only one day of logs
- The pricing page shows two prices per paid plan, one a new-customer rate for three months
- No campaign or list-management tooling that we could verify
- Smaller developer ecosystem than SendGrid
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only service here that is part of a publicly traded company and shows an ISO 27001 mark.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw — EU only.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
Best for: Developers who already run on Scaleway or want pay-per-email billing with no subscription
Transactional Email (TEM) is a product of Scaleway SAS, registered in Paris under SIREN 433 115 904 at 8 rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. It sits inside a European cloud account alongside compute, storage and databases.
The Essential plan includes 300 emails per organisation free, then pay as you go at EUR 0.25 per 1,000, with no dedicated IP and no SLA. The Scale plan is EUR 80 a month with 100,000 emails included, EUR 0.20 per 1,000 after that, a dedicated IP and a 99.9% SLA.
It is the most transparent price in the category and the least feature-rich: an API and SMTP relay, with no campaign tools. It suits you if the rest of your infrastructure is already in a European cloud.
What Scaleway Transactional Email does better than SendGrid
- French company under French law, outside US jurisdiction
- Per-thousand pricing with no subscription on Essential
- A 99.9% SLA and dedicated IP on Scale
- Sits beside your other Scaleway services in one account
Where Scaleway Transactional Email is a step down from SendGrid
- Only 300 free emails per organisation
- The SLA and dedicated IP are only on the EUR 80 plan
- No marketing or list-management tooling
- You need a Scaleway cloud account to use it
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here billed purely per thousand emails, with no subscription on the entry plan.
Sweego
French email and SMS API with its log retention and prices published
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. France — the site names OVH in Roubaix as its host and Sweego states its data centres are in France.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
- Independently checked. None published; the vendor claims GDPR compliance and that data is outside the reach of the CLOUD Act.
Best for: Small and mid-size senders who want published tiers, inbound routing and a French contract
Sweego is operated by MINDBAZ SAS, registered in Lille under RCS 893 278 382, and its homepage states it is GDPR-compliant and based in France, data centres included. Its legal notice names OVH in Roubaix as the host of the website.
The free plan sends 100 emails a day over API and SMTP with seven days of logs.
Individual is EUR 8 a month on annual billing (EUR 10 monthly) for 20,000 to 50,000 emails, with 30 days of logs and inbound email routing. Startup is EUR 63 (EUR 79) for 100,000 to 200,000 with 60 days of logs and dedicated IP available, and Scaleup is EUR 216 (EUR 270) for 500,000 to 1 million with 90 days and a dedicated IP included.
It also sells transactional SMS, which is the Twilio side of the market. It publishes no certification that we found.
What Sweego does better than SendGrid
- French company under French law
- Published tiers, with log retention stated per plan
- Inbound email routing from the Individual plan
- Dedicated IP included on Scaleup
Where Sweego is a step down from SendGrid
- Free plan limited to 100 emails a day and seven days of logs
- No certification published that we could find
- Hosting for the sending platform is stated only generally
- Smaller than SendGrid, with fewer integrations
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only provider here that publishes log retention for each plan, from 7 to 90 days.
Lettermint
a Dutch developer service with a public subprocessor list and ISO 27001
Best for: Developers who want a modern transactional API with the data path written out
Lettermint is run by Lettermint B.V., a Dutch private limited company registered with the Chamber of Commerce under number 99337711, at Willemsvaart 16 B in Zwolle. Its subprocessor page names UpCloud in the Netherlands for email data, Postmastery in the Netherlands for deliverability monitoring and OVH in Germany for backups.
It sells transactional email over API and SMTP relay, plus Broadcast for campaigns and Inbound for receiving mail. The free plan is 300 emails a month for one domain and one user. Starter is EUR 10 a month for 10,000 emails, with extras at EUR 1.50 per 1,000 and five domains with unlimited users.
It says it is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified. We found no founding date on the pages we read, and it is not as established as the older names here.
What Lettermint does better than SendGrid
- Dutch company with the data path written out in a subprocessor list
- ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification stated on its homepage
- Transactional, broadcast and inbound in one product
- EUR 10 a month entry price with unlimited users
Where Lettermint is a step down from SendGrid
- Only 300 free emails a month, one domain, one user
- Extras are priced at EUR 1.50 per 1,000, above Scaleway
- A younger company with a shorter track record
- Stripe and Slack appear in its subprocessor list, though without email data
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only provider here whose subprocessor page says which of them touch email data and where.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Italy). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
Best for: Small senders and agencies who want a relay with simple plans or prepaid credits
turboSMTP is run by Edisplay Srl, with offices in Milan and Fonni and VAT number IT01172340919. It describes itself as an independent SMTP provider, founded in 2009.
The free plan allows 200 emails a day for the first six months, and its homepage advertises 6,000 emails a month. Basic is EUR 14.95 a month for 15,000, and Pro is EUR 79.95 a month, adding a dedicated IP, custom routing, a 365-day analytics database and up to 100 subaccounts. Enterprise is custom, and pay-as-you-go credits stay valid for up to a year.
It is a relay and web API with webhooks, not a marketing suite, and its hosting location is not stated on the pages we read.
What turboSMTP does better than SendGrid
- Italian company, independent since 2009, outside US jurisdiction
- Prepaid pay-as-you-go credits valid for up to a year
- Dedicated IP and 100 subaccounts on Pro
- Support by ticket, chat and phone, according to its homepage
Where turboSMTP is a step down from SendGrid
- The free plan lasts only the first six months
- Pro's dedicated IP costs EUR 79.95 a month
- No hosting location stated
- No campaign tools
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here that sells prepaid credits that stay valid for a year.
MailPace
transactional only, from the UK, with its subprocessors on the page
- Which law reaches it. UK. SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU and UK — servers at Freethought (UK) and Clever Cloud (EU), backups kept seven days at Hetzner in two German locations, monitoring by AppSignal in Amsterdam.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
- Independently checked. None stated; the full subprocessor list is published, and none of them are American.
Best for: Developers and small teams who only send application email and want one flat price
MailPace is run by OhMySMTP Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under number 13200428; its terms were updated in January 2026 to add the company name. Because the UK is outside the EU, this entry relies on the UK adequacy decision, and it is listed on that basis.
It is transactional only: its terms forbid sending marketing email. Plans scale from USD 10 a month for 10,000 emails, with a free plan of 100 emails a month available on request, 30 days of retention, inbound email and webhooks.
It lists Freethought, a UK host, and Hetzner, for backups kept up to seven days in Germany. Its footer says it is hosted in the European Union, which sits oddly with a UK host, so ask for clarity.
What MailPace does better than SendGrid
- Simple pricing, with every feature on every plan
- Subprocessors listed in public
- Company registered in England and Wales, outside US jurisdiction
- Inbound email and webhooks included
Where MailPace is a step down from SendGrid
- UK, not EU, so it relies on the UK adequacy decision
- Price shown in USD by default
- Free plan is only on request, and only 100 emails a month
- Marketing email is banned, so no campaigns
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here whose terms forbid marketing email.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. EU.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
- Independently checked. GDPR.
Best for: Teams who want campaigns and an email API, and will verify the contracting entity first
Mailjet is a French email service now part of Sinch Email, the Swedish group's email division, which also runs Mailgun. The two share one Terms of Service, where the contracting entity is the one on your Service Order: Mailjet SAS or Mailjet GmbH under French law, Mailjet SaaS Ltd under English law, Mailjet Emailing SL under Spanish law, or Mailgun Technologies, Inc. under Texas law.
That is the reason to check your order form. If it names a Mailjet entity, the contract is European. The free plan sends up to 6,000 emails a month, with a cap of 200 a day and no credit card, and includes the API and SMTP relay.
It is an email platform with a campaign editor and collaboration tools. It sits low in this list because of the shared terms and because we could not read its paid prices.
What Mailjet does better than SendGrid
- Mailjet SAS or GmbH contracts under French law, where SendGrid's parent is American
- Free plan of 6,000 emails a month, no credit card
- API, SMTP relay and campaign editor in one account
- Parent group is Swedish
Where Mailjet is a step down from SendGrid
- Terms shared with Mailgun, so the entity depends on the order
- The free plan caps sending at 200 emails a day
- Paid prices could not be verified for this page
- Not independent: it belongs to a larger group
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here whose contract is shared with an American sibling, so the order form matters.
SMTPeter
a Dutch relay on its own servers, priced for larger volumes
- Which law reaches it. EU (Netherlands). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Netherlands — Copernica states it runs its own servers in the Netherlands with its own technology.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
Best for: Mid-size senders who want a Dutch host and a dedicated IP from day one
SMTPeter is made by Copernica BV, at De Ruijterkade 112 in Amsterdam, a marketing software company. Its site says the infrastructure is hosted in the Netherlands.
A licence is EUR 55 a month for up to 25,000 messages from one IP address and one sender domain. Beyond that, the price per 1,000 falls from EUR 0.23 to EUR 0.05 as volume rises, and extra IPs or domains are charged. There is no free plan.
It is a relay with REST API and templates, aimed at senders who need a dedicated IP. For small volumes the flat licence makes it expensive next to the others here.
What SMTPeter does better than SendGrid
- Dutch company, with infrastructure stated as hosted in the Netherlands
- A dedicated IP address included in the licence
- Per-thousand prices that fall to EUR 0.05 at volume
- Run by Copernica, a marketing software company in Amsterdam
Where SMTPeter is a step down from SendGrid
- No free plan
- EUR 55 a month minimum for 25,000 messages
- Extra IPs and domains are charged
- Smaller feature set than Brevo or Mailjet
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here with a dedicated IP in the base licence, and the one with the highest minimum price.
Mailrelay
a Spanish email marketing platform with a large free plan and transactional as an add-on
- Which law reaches it. EU (Spain). SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
Best for: Spanish-speaking businesses that send newsletters first and transactional mail second
Mailrelay is run by CPC Servicios Informaticos SL in Torrelodones, Madrid, registered with the Commercial Registry of Madrid, with NIF ESB83964601. It is built around email marketing rather than application email.
Its free plan covers 80,000 emails a month to 20,000 stored contacts. Transactional email via SMTP and API is an extra: a 30-day trial, then EUR 14.95 a month on the free plan, and included on the paid plans we saw.
We could not find a hosting location on its pages. It ranks lower here because transactional sending is an add-on to a marketing product, not its core.
What Mailrelay does better than SendGrid
- Spanish company, inside the EU
- A free plan of 80,000 emails a month
- SMTP and API for transactional mail on paid plans
- Support in Spanish
Where Mailrelay is a step down from SendGrid
- Transactional email is a EUR 14.95 add-on on the free plan
- Marketing-first, so the transactional side is less documented
- Hosting location not stated
- Fewer developer integrations than SendGrid
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here with a free plan of tens of thousands of emails a month, to which transactional sending is an add-on.
Bird
Dutch contract for most customers, but a US entity for email in the United States
- Which law reaches it. EU (Netherlands) for customers outside the United States. SendGrid is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Not stated — Bird publishes an EU regional endpoint (eu1.platform.bird.com) alongside a US one, but its privacy policy says data may be transferred outside the EEA and does not name the hosting provider for email.
- Source code. Closed source, as SendGrid is.
- Independently checked. Bird states that all its hosting providers meet ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II.
Best for: Teams who want email, SMS and WhatsApp from one Dutch vendor and will check the data path
Bird, formerly MessageBird, contracts through Bird B.V. in Amsterdam for customers anywhere except the United States. Its terms say US customers who buy email services contract with Bird.com Inc., a Delaware company, instead. SparkPost, the American email service, now redirects to Bird's email product.
It sells an email API, inbound email, deliverability and analytics tools alongside SMS and WhatsApp. The free plan sends 1,000 emails a month, and paid plans include a monthly allowance with extra sends billed separately.
Its privacy policy lists AWS as a processor for some data and allows transfers outside the EEA with safeguards, and we found no hosting location for email. It is the broadest platform here and the one with the loosest data story.
What Bird does better than SendGrid
- Dutch company for non-US customers
- Email, SMS and WhatsApp in one platform
- Free plan of 1,000 emails a month
- Inbound email, deliverability and analytics tools
Where Bird is a step down from SendGrid
- US customers are contracted through Bird.com Inc. in Delaware for email
- Privacy policy allows transfers outside the EEA and names AWS
- No hosting location for email data
- Paid prices could not be verified for this page
Standout against SendGrid. It is the only option here with an American contracting entity for part of its customers.
What actually breaks when you switch
The hard part of leaving SendGrid is not the code, it is the sender reputation. A new provider means new IP addresses, and mailbox providers judge them by what they see. Expect a gradual ramp and watch bounces and spam complaints for the first weeks.
Check what lives in SendGrid besides sending: dynamic templates, suppression lists, event webhooks and sub-user setups. Export the suppression lists first, because sending to an address that has unsubscribed or bounced is the quickest way to hurt a new sender.
If your SendGrid account is also your marketing tool, split the job. A transactional-only service such as MailPace is simple and cheap, but it will not send a newsletter, so you may need Brevo, Mailjet or Mailrelay as well.
Is there a European service that works like SendGrid?
Several do, and the closest depends on what you use. For an SMTP relay and API that delivers application email, MailPace, Lettermint, Scaleway, EmailLabs, Sweego, SMTPeter and turboSMTP all do the core job. For transactional plus campaigns in one account, as SendGrid also offers, Brevo and Mailjet are the nearest, and Mailrelay if you start from email marketing.
None of them is a copy, and none brings Twilio's other products with it. Each entry says what it does and what it leaves out.
Does a European provider guarantee that my mail stays in Europe?
Only if it says so, and few do in detail. SMTPeter says its infrastructure is hosted in the Netherlands. Lettermint publishes a subprocessor list that puts email data at UpCloud and Postmastery in the Netherlands, with backups at OVH in Germany. MailPace lists Freethought in the UK for hosting and Hetzner in Germany for backups. EmailLabs says its Cloudflare WAF keeps data within the EEA. Sweego says it is based in France, data centres included.
Brevo, Mailjet, Mailrelay and Bird do not state a hosting location on the pages we read, so ask before relying on it. A European company is a statement about who signs the contract, not where each server sits.
Why is Mailgun not on the list when it belongs to a Swedish group?
Because the contract is with Mailgun Technologies, Inc. Its terms are governed by Texas law with the courts of San Antonio, even though the parent company, Sinch, is Swedish. Mailjet is in the same Sinch Email group and is listed, because its terms name Mailjet SAS and Mailjet GmbH as the contracting entities under French law. Check your own order form, because the terms say the entity depends on the Service Order.
Can I send marketing email from these services too?
Not all of them. MailPace forbids marketing email in its terms and is transactional only. Lettermint, Brevo, Mailjet, Mailrelay and Bird have campaign products as well. Sweego, Scaleway, EmailLabs, SMTPeter and turboSMTP describe themselves around transactional sending, so check each for list management before you try to use it as a newsletter tool.
Which one to pick
If you send application email and campaigns and want one European contract, Brevo is the nearest to SendGrid, with Mailjet as an alternative once you have checked the contracting entity. For a service that only delivers application email, EmailLabs, Scaleway and Lettermint are the best documented, with ISO 27001 at the first and last and published per-thousand pricing at Scaleway.
If you want the cheapest start, Scaleway charges per email with no subscription, and Lettermint, Sweego and MailPace begin at EUR 8 to 10 a month. If you need a dedicated IP from the start, SMTPeter includes one, and EmailLabs PRO, Scaleway Scale, Sweego Scaleup and turboSMTP Pro offer one.
Mailrelay suits you if newsletters are the main job, and Bird if you also want SMS and WhatsApp and will check the US-entity and hosting questions. MailPace is the simplest transactional-only choice, but it is a UK company.
Be realistic about the gap. SendGrid is large and well integrated, and none of these eleven matches its reach. Switch if the American parent or the contracting question matters to you, and test with a share of real traffic first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Brevo is the closest in scope, because it sends transactional email by SMTP and API as well as campaigns, SMS and WhatsApp, and has a free plan of 300 emails a day. EmailLabs, Scaleway, Sweego and Lettermint suit teams that want a focused sending service with published prices and, in EmailLabs and Lettermint's case, ISO 27001. No single one is best for everyone, and none carries SendGrid's scale.
Yes. SendGrid is part of Twilio, and Twilio Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco. For customers in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Twilio's terms name Twilio Ireland Limited in Dublin as the contracting entity, governed by the law of England and Wales.
Several have free plans. EmailLabs allows up to 9,000 emails a month and 300 a day, Mailrelay 80,000 emails a month with transactional email as a paid add-on after a 30-day trial, Brevo 300 emails a day, Mailjet 6,000 a month with a 200 a day cap, Sweego 100 a day, Bird 1,000 a month and Lettermint 300 a month. turboSMTP offers 200 a day for the first six months.
MailPace has a free plan of 100 emails a month, but only on request.
It depends on volume. Scaleway charges EUR 0.25 per 1,000 emails after 300 free, with no subscription. Lettermint starts at EUR 10 a month for 10,000 emails, and MailPace lists scaling plans from USD 10 a month for 10,000. Sweego starts at EUR 8 a month on annual billing for 20,000 to 50,000. SMTPeter's licence is EUR 55 a month for 25,000, so it suits larger senders. Prices change, so check the provider's page.
For many senders, yes. Brevo is run by Sendinblue SAS, registered in Paris, and offers SMTP relay and API, inbound parsing, SMS, WhatsApp and campaigns. Its free plan sends up to 300 emails a day, and paid plans start from 5,000 emails a month. Its paid prices are shown in the browser and are not quoted here.
Mailjet is a French brand, with Mailjet SAS in the contracting list of its terms, and the company belongs to Sinch, a Swedish group, together with Mailgun. Because those terms are shared with Mailgun, check that your order names Mailjet SAS or Mailjet GmbH, not Mailgun Technologies, Inc.
MailPace is run by OhMySMTP Ltd in England and Wales. The UK is outside the EU, so transfers rely on the UK adequacy decision. It lists Freethought in the UK for hosting and Hetzner in Germany for backups, and its footer says it is hosted in the European Union.
Lettermint says on its homepage that it is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified, and EmailLabs shows ISO 27001 on its homepage. The other providers here did not publish a certificate on the pages we read, which does not mean they have none. Ask for it if your procurement requires it.
Mostly. All eleven provide an SMTP relay or an API, so an application that sends through SMTP only needs a new host, username and password and a verified sending domain. An application using SendGrid's Web API needs its client library swapped for the new provider's, and any template or event webhook set up in SendGrid has to be rebuilt.
Usually yes. A new provider brings new IP addresses on shared pools, and a dedicated IP, which EmailLabs Pro, Scaleway Scale, Sweego Startup and above, turboSMTP Pro and SMTPeter offer, starts with no sending history. Move traffic over in stages, as the replace section above describes.
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