List of 6 Free Transactional Email Services for Your Applications

Email is an essential communication channel for businesses today. While there are many types of emails that companies send and receive, transactional emails hold high importance.

As the name suggests, transactional emails notify users about significant events related to their account. Some common examples include:

• Account creation confirmation
• Password reset
• Purchase receipt
• Shipping confirmation
• Invoice
• Appointment reminder

In short, transactional emails keep your users in the loop about activities happening in your product or service. Without them, you risk losing user trust and engagement.

However, setting up a robust system to send high volumes of transactional emails can get expensive. This is where free services come into the picture.

In this guide, we will explore some of the best free transactional email services to help bootstrapped startups and small businesses.

What to Look for in a Transactional Email Service

Before jumping into the recommendations, let‘s first understand what makes for an ideal transactional email service.

1. High Deliverability

Email deliverability refers to how consistently your emails reach the subscriber‘s inbox. High deliverability ensures your important transactional emails are not missed by users.

Factors that impact deliverability include sender reputation, spam filtering, invalid addresses, etc. Choose a service with tools to monitor and improve deliverability.

2. Scalability

Your transactional email needs will fluctuate based on user activities. For instance, account signups may spike during holiday offers.

Look for a service that can smoothly scale up or down to match your sending requirements.

3. Reliability

Nothing is more annoying than missing out on an important purchase confirmation or shipping update email.

Select a provider with a high delivery guarantee (99%+) to ensure reliable transactional email delivery.

4. Security

Transactional emails often include sensitive information like order details, shipping address, etc.

Opt for a service that offers encryption and follows security best practices to protect user data.

5. Analytics

In-depth analytics help you track the performance of your transactional email campaigns.

See if the service provides opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes reporting to optimize your emails.

6. Easy Integration

Transactional emails need to be triggered from your app based on user actions.

Look for a service that offers seamless integration with your web framework and APIs to set up event-based emails.

7. Compliance

Stay compliant with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and CAN-SPAM Act when sending transactional emails.

Choose a provider that looks after compliance to avoid legal penalties.

With these criteria in mind, let‘s look at some dependable free transactional email services.

1. Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a popular email marketing platform that also offers a capable transactional email service.

Its free plan allows sending 300 emails per day. While you can remove the daily limit with a paid plan, the free tier works great for getting started.

It comes with user-friendly email templates that you can customize to match your brand style. Sendinblue also provides SMS functionality in addition to emails.

When it comes to deliverability, Sendinblue closely monitors your sender score and helps you maintain a healthy reputation.

You get access to detailed analytics on opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam reports, etc. to optimize your transactional campaigns.

Integration is straightforward with Sendinblue‘s email API, SMTP relay, SMS API, and webhook support. This allows embedding emails within your product workflows.

Sendinblue is GDPR compliant and provides granular data logs as per your retention policies.

Finally, it offers plugins to connect your Shopify, Prestashop, or WordPress store for seamless order confirmations and shipping notifications.

Key Features

• 300 emails per day free
• Custom responsive templates
• SMS messaging
• Deliverability tools
• Real-time analytics
• Easy integration (API, SMTP, webhooks)
• GDPR compliance
• eCommerce plugins

Overall, Sendinblue checks all the boxes as a reliable transactional email service for lean startups. Sign up to experience its capabilities risk-free.

2. SMTP.com

SMTP.com is a popular email delivery platform used by leading SaaS companies. It offers a full-featured free trial that allows sending 50,000 emails in 30 days.

The service stands out for its exceptional email deliverability. SMTP.com meticulously verifies the quality of your lists and prevents sending to invalid addresses.

This protects your sender reputation and improves inbox placement for long-term deliverability.

In terms of reliability, SMTP.com guarantees 99% uptime on email delivery with its highly optimized infrastructure.

You get instant access to a SMTP relay to start sending transactional emails from your app. Integration is straightforward with SMTP.com‘s email APIs and webhooks.

For analytics, it provides opens, clicks, bounces, spam reports, unsubscribes data to optimize your emails.

SMTP.com also ensures compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and CASL regulations when handling subscriber data.

With its generous 50,000 free emails, SMTP.com makes it easy to test drive a premium transactional email service free of cost.

Key Features

• 50,000 emails free trial
• Advanced deliverability tools
• 99% email delivery uptime
• Fast SMTP relay
• Email tracking and analytics
• Regulatory compliance (GDPR, CASL, CCPA)

Give SMTP.com a spin to see first-hand why top companies rely on it to power their transactional email programs.

3. SendGrid

SendGrid needs no introduction. It is the world‘s most trusted transactional email service used by Airbnb, Spotify, Uber and 100,000+ other leading companies.

The free plan allows 100 emails per day. While the volume is lower compared to other free services, you get access to an enterprise-grade delivery infrastructure.

SendGrid operates its own in-house mail transfer agent (MTA) with 99.999% uptime for phenomenal reliability.

It comes with a real-time email activity dashboard to monitor deliverability, spam reports, bounces, etc.

You also get granular analytics on opens, clicks, unsubscribes segmented by device, location, browser, etc.

Integration works seamlessly with SendGrid‘s APIs, SMTP relay, and webhooks. All popular programming languages are supported including Node, Python, PHP, Java, C#, etc.

Another neat feature of the free plan is the ability to add one additional user for collaboration.

Overall, while the email limit is lean, SendGrid‘s free tier offers a taste of the best email delivery platform used by leading brands today.

Key Features

• 100 emails per day free
• Own MTA with 99.999% uptime
• Real-time email dashboard
• Detailed analytics and segmentation
• API and SMTP integration
• Team collaboration

Give the SendGrid free plan a spin to experience an enterprise-grade transactional email service.

4. Mailjet

Mailjet is used by major companies like Microsoft, American Express, Booking.com, etc. for their transactional email needs.

It offers a generous free tier allowing 200 emails per day. You also get access to key analytics like opens, clicks, bounces, etc.

Deliverability is excellent with tools to monitor inbox placement, spam testing, link validation, and more.

For integration, Mailjet provides APIs, SMTP relay, and webhooks to trigger emails from your application.

It also takes care of compliance with support for GDPR, CCPA, and CASL regulations.

While the free plan limits certain features, it provides ample room to evaluate Mailjet‘s delivery quality and reliability.

Key Features

• 200 emails per day free
• Opens, clicks, and bounce monitoring
• Strong deliverability controls
• API, SMTP, webhooks integration
• Regulatory compliance
• Unlimited contacts

Give the Mailjet free tier a spin if you want to test out an enterprise-grade service used by leading brands.

5. MailerSend

MailerSend is a relatively new player that offers one of the most generous free tiers.

You get 12,000 emails per month, which can take care of transactional needs for early-stage startups.

Despite being free, it comes with a 99.5% SLA uptime guarantee for reliable delivery. You also get responsive email templates and WYSIWYG editor.

For analytics, MailerSend provides opens, clicks, bounces, spam complaints, unsubscribes, and delivery data.

It takes care of compliance and applies automatic data masking for GDPR.

Integration is easy with SMTP relay and JSON APIs. Developers can also leverage MailerSend‘s webhooks and AI tools.

While paid plans unlock more advanced features, the free tier provides ample transactional email capabilities.

Key Features

• 12,000 emails per month free
• 99.5% delivery SLA
• Opens, clicks analytics
• GDPR compliant
• SMTP, APIs integration
• Webhooks

With its generous free tier, MailerSend is perfect for lean startups looking to provide transactional email capabilities.

6. Amazon SES

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) offers one of the most cost-effective solutions for transactional email.

It comes with a perpetual free tier allowing 62,000 outbound emails per month. You only pay for what you use beyond that.

Amazon SES is trusted by leading brands like Netflix, Reddit, Lyft, and Amazon itself to deliver important transactional and marketing emails.

It achieve high inbox placement across major ISPs thanks to Amazon‘s sender reputation. Bounce and complaint rates are also lower compared to other providers.

You get access to open and click analytics for free. Further analytics require upgrading to a paid plan.

Integration options include SES SMTP interface, REST API, and the AWS SDK.

The only downside is the initial setup process which involves steps like domain verification, requesting production access, etc.

However, once configured, Amazon SES provides a scalable and cost-efficient transactional email service for high-volume sends.

Key Features

• 62,000 emails per month free
• Excellent deliverability
• Used by leading brands
• Cost-effective pricing
• SMTP, API integration

For startups sending high volumes of transactional emails, Amazon SES is an affordable and dependable option.

Comparison of Free Transactional Email Services

Here is a quick comparison of the key aspects of the top free transactional email providers:

Features	Sendinblue	SMTP.com	SendGrid	Mailjet	MailerSend	Amazon SES
Free Tier Limit	300/day	50,000 trial	100/day	200/day	12,000/month	62,000/month
Deliverability Tools	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Reliability SLA	None	99%	99.95%	99.9%	99.5%	99.5%
Analytics	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	Limited
Compliance	GDPR	GDPR, CASL, CCPA	GDPR	GDPR, CCPA, CASL	GDPR	✅
Integration	API, SMTP, Webhooks	API, SMTP	API, SMTP	API, SMTP, Webhooks	SMTP, API, Webhooks	SMTP, API
Scalable Pricing	Monthly plans	Pay-as-you-go	Monthly plans	Pay-as-you-go	Pay-as-you-go	Pay-as-you-go

Which Free Transactional Email Service Should You Use?

The best free transactional email service for your needs depends on your business stage and email volumes.

For early-stage startups, MailerSend and Sendinblue are great choices to get started. Both provide free tiers more than enough for lean businesses.

For growth-stage companies sending higher volumes, Amazon SES and SMTP.com offer more scalable solutions.

SendGrid and Mailjet also offer reliable delivery infrastructure that powers Fortune 500 companies. Their free tiers allow you to test the waters.

Evaluate your current and projected transactional email needs. Then select a service that aligns with your goals and budget.

Most providers offer free trials or free tiers to experience their platform at no risk. Take advantage of these offers.

Just remember to not skimp on deliverability, reliability, compliance, and security as your business scales.

Now you have a handy guide to picking the right free transactional email service for your startup or small business.

Implementing trigger-based emails helps improve user onboarding, engagement, satisfaction, and retention.

Leverage the capabilities of these free services to provide better customer experiences through timely and relevant transactional emails.