Mailjet
Email delivery for teams - European alternative based in France
Quick Overview
| Company | Mailjet |
|---|---|
| Category | Email Marketing |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| EU/European | Yes - France |
| Open Source | No |
| GDPR Compliant | Yes |
| Main Features | Email API, Collaboration, Templates, A/B testing, Real-time analytics |
| Pricing | Free tier / From €15/month |
| Best For | Teams needing collaborative email marketing |
| Replaces | SendGrid, Mailchimp |
Detailed Review
Mailjet is an email service provider founded in 2010 in Paris, France, designed to handle both transactional and marketing email at scale. The platform has grown to serve over 100,000 customers across 150 countries, establishing itself as one of Europe's most trusted email delivery solutions. Mailjet is now part of Sinch, a Swedish communications platform company, but maintains its Paris headquarters and European infrastructure. The platform is particularly well-regarded for its developer-friendly API, real-time collaboration tools, and its ability to bridge the gap between marketing teams and developers.
What sets Mailjet apart from many email marketing competitors is its dual focus on both transactional and marketing email. While many platforms specialize in one or the other, Mailjet provides a unified solution where businesses can manage order confirmations, password resets, and shipping notifications alongside newsletters, promotional campaigns, and automated marketing sequences. This consolidated approach simplifies email operations and gives businesses a single dashboard for all their email communication needs.
Email API and Transactional Email
Mailjet's email API is one of its strongest features and a primary reason developers choose the platform. The RESTful API supports multiple programming languages and provides three methods for sending email: the REST API for programmatic sending, SMTP relay for easy integration with existing applications, and webhooks for real-time event tracking. The v3 API supports bulk sends of up to 100 messages per call, while the v3.1 API is optimized for transactional emails with detailed per-message feedback.
For transactional email, Mailjet leverages infrastructure from Mailgun, its sister company within the Sinch family. This gives Mailjet access to robust email delivery infrastructure that handles high volumes with excellent reliability. Transactional emails, such as order confirmations, password resets, and account notifications, are delivered with low latency and high inbox placement rates, which are critical for maintaining customer trust and satisfaction.
Real-Time Collaboration
One of Mailjet's most distinctive features is its real-time collaboration capability for email design. Multiple team members can work on the same email template simultaneously, add comments, suggest changes, and approve the final version before sending. This collaborative workflow is reminiscent of Google Docs but applied to email creation, and it is a feature not commonly found in other email service providers.
The collaboration tools are particularly valuable for larger teams where marketing, design, and content professionals all contribute to email campaigns. Rather than passing email drafts back and forth via separate channels, team members can work together in real time, reducing the time from concept to send and minimizing the risk of miscommunication or version conflicts.
Email Builder and Templates
Mailjet provides an intuitive drag-and-drop email builder called Passport that allows users to create responsive emails without coding knowledge. The builder includes a library of over 70 pre-designed templates covering various use cases from newsletters and product announcements to event invitations and seasonal campaigns. All templates are mobile-responsive, ensuring emails look professional across devices and email clients.
For users who prefer more control, Mailjet also supports custom HTML templates and provides a template language called MJML (Mailjet Markup Language). MJML is an open-source framework developed by Mailjet that simplifies the creation of responsive email HTML, abstracting away the complexities of email client compatibility. This is a significant contribution to the email development community and demonstrates Mailjet's commitment to developer experience.
Marketing Campaigns and Segmentation
On the marketing side, Mailjet offers tools for creating and managing email campaigns, including audience segmentation, personalization, and scheduling. Users can segment their contact lists based on demographic data, engagement history, and custom properties, enabling targeted campaigns that deliver relevant content to specific audience groups. Dynamic content blocks allow different sections of an email to display different content based on recipient attributes.
A/B testing is available for optimizing campaign performance, allowing users to test different subject lines, sender names, and email content against a portion of their audience before sending the winning version to the remainder. The platform also provides campaign comparison tools that make it easy to benchmark performance across multiple campaigns over time.
Analytics and Deliverability
Mailjet offers comprehensive real-time analytics that track email performance metrics including delivery rates, open rates, click rates, bounce rates, and unsubscribe rates. The analytics dashboard updates in real time, giving users immediate visibility into how their campaigns are performing. Heat maps show click distribution within emails, helping users understand which content elements drive the most engagement.
Deliverability is a core strength of Mailjet, supported by email validation tools, visual email preview and testing, and domain authentication setup for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. The platform provides guidance on sender reputation management and offers a dedicated IP option for high-volume senders who want full control over their sending reputation. Mailjet's European infrastructure ensures email data is processed and stored within the EU.
Contact Management
A notable advantage of Mailjet's pricing model is that all plans include unlimited contacts. Unlike many competitors that charge based on the number of subscribers, Mailjet prices based on email volume, meaning businesses can grow their contact lists without worrying about escalating subscription costs. Contact management tools include list organization, custom properties, subscription management, and GDPR-compliant consent tracking.
The platform supports contact importing via CSV files, API calls, or integrations with third-party tools. Mailjet also provides widget-based subscription forms that can be embedded on websites to capture new subscribers, with automatic double opt-in support for GDPR compliance.
Automation Workflows
Mailjet includes an automation builder for creating triggered email sequences. Users can set up workflows for common scenarios such as welcome series, birthday emails, and re-engagement campaigns. The automation builder supports conditional logic, allowing workflows to branch based on recipient behavior or attributes. While the automation capabilities are solid for standard use cases, they are more basic compared to dedicated marketing automation platforms.
For businesses that need advanced automation, Mailjet's API provides the flexibility to build custom triggered sequences programmatically. This hybrid approach, combining a visual automation builder with a powerful API, gives businesses the option to handle simple automations through the interface and complex logic through code.
Pricing and Plans
Mailjet offers a free plan that allows users to send up to 6,000 emails per month with a daily cap of 200 emails, including access to the email builder, analytics, and basic features. Paid plans start at approximately 15 euros per month for the Essential tier, which increases the sending limit and removes the daily cap. The Premium plan, priced around 27 euros per month, unlocks advanced features including A/B testing, segmentation, marketing automation, and real-time collaboration.
All plans include unlimited contacts, which is a significant cost advantage for businesses with large contact databases. The pricing scales based on monthly email volume rather than subscriber count, making Mailjet particularly cost-effective for businesses that send fewer emails to a large audience. Custom enterprise plans are available for high-volume senders requiring dedicated infrastructure and personalized support.
GDPR Compliance and Data Protection
As a Paris-based company with European infrastructure, Mailjet is well-positioned for GDPR compliance. The platform provides tools for managing subscriber consent, processing data subject access requests, and maintaining records of processing activities. Data is stored within the European Union, and Mailjet offers a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) to all customers, documenting the data protection obligations of both parties.
Mailjet's compliance infrastructure is particularly important for European businesses that need to demonstrate accountability under GDPR. The platform supports double opt-in, provides unsubscribe management, and maintains comprehensive audit logs. For businesses in regulated industries or those handling sensitive customer data, Mailjet's European hosting and compliance framework provide the legal certainty needed to operate confidently.
Who Should Use Mailjet
Mailjet is an excellent choice for businesses and development teams that need a unified platform for both transactional and marketing email. Its strong API, real-time collaboration features, and unlimited contacts pricing model make it particularly well-suited for growing companies, SaaS businesses, e-commerce platforms, and agencies managing email for multiple clients. The platform's European heritage and GDPR compliance make it a natural fit for organizations that prioritize data sovereignty and regulatory compliance.
Teams that value collaborative workflows will appreciate Mailjet's unique real-time editing capabilities, while developers will find the API documentation, MJML framework, and integration options to be among the best in the industry. While businesses requiring deep marketing automation might need to supplement Mailjet with additional tools, the platform delivers exceptional value for its core strengths of reliable email delivery, team collaboration, and developer-friendly infrastructure.
Alternatives to Mailjet
Looking for other European Email Marketing solutions? Here are some alternatives worth considering:
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, Mailjet is fully GDPR compliant. Founded in Paris, France, the company stores and processes email data within the European Union. Mailjet provides tools for managing subscriber consent, processing data subject access requests, maintaining records of processing activities, and offers a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) to all customers. Double opt-in and unsubscribe management are built into the platform.
Mailjet was founded in Paris, France in 2010 and maintains its headquarters there. The company is now part of Sinch, a Swedish communications platform company, but retains its European infrastructure and operations. With over 100,000 customers across 150 countries, Mailjet processes email data within EU jurisdiction, providing strong legal protections under European privacy laws.
Mailjet offers a free plan with up to 6,000 emails per month (200 per day). The Essential plan starts at around 15 euros per month with higher sending limits. The Premium plan at approximately 27 euros per month adds A/B testing, segmentation, automation, and real-time collaboration. All plans include unlimited contacts, which is a significant cost advantage over competitors that charge per subscriber.
Mailjet is a European alternative to SendGrid, Mailchimp, and Amazon SES. For transactional email, it competes directly with SendGrid and Amazon SES by offering a robust API and reliable delivery infrastructure. For marketing email, it provides campaign tools comparable to Mailchimp, with the added advantage of real-time team collaboration and European data hosting.
Yes, this is one of Mailjet's core strengths. The platform provides a unified solution for both transactional emails (order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications) and marketing emails (newsletters, promotional campaigns, automated sequences). This eliminates the need for separate services and gives businesses a single dashboard for all email communication.
Mailjet's real-time collaboration allows multiple team members to work on the same email template simultaneously, similar to Google Docs. Team members can edit content, add comments, suggest changes, and approve the final version before sending. This feature streamlines the review process for teams where marketing, design, and content professionals all contribute to email campaigns.
Mailjet provides a RESTful API that supports multiple programming languages. There are three methods for sending: the REST API for programmatic sending (up to 100 messages per call on v3), SMTP relay for integration with existing applications, and webhooks for real-time event tracking. The v3.1 API is optimized for transactional email with detailed per-message delivery feedback. Comprehensive documentation and client libraries make integration straightforward.
MJML (Mailjet Markup Language) is an open-source framework developed by Mailjet that simplifies the creation of responsive email HTML. It abstracts away the complexities of email client compatibility, allowing developers to write clean, semantic markup that compiles into responsive email code. MJML is free to use and is a significant contribution to the email development community.
Yes, all Mailjet plans include unlimited contacts. Unlike competitors that charge based on the number of subscribers, Mailjet prices based on monthly email volume. This means businesses can grow their contact lists without worrying about escalating subscription costs, making Mailjet particularly cost-effective for businesses with large audiences that send at moderate frequency.
Mailjet maintains strong email deliverability through email validation tools, domain authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and sender reputation management guidance. The platform uses infrastructure from Mailgun for reliable delivery at scale. High-volume senders can opt for a dedicated IP address for full control over their sending reputation. Real-time analytics provide immediate visibility into delivery performance.