SendGrid — now Twilio SendGrid, and increasingly hosted on twilio.com — prices its Email API by monthly send volume across three published tiers plus a custom enterprise plan. The headline numbers are straightforward. The part worth understanding is what happens when you go over.
The plans
- Free Trial — $0 for 60 days, 100 emails a day, 100 contacts. This is a trial, not a permanent free tier. It expires.
- Essentials — from $19.95/month. Two tiers: 50K and 100K emails.
- Pro — from $89.95/month. Tiers at 100K, 300K, 700K, 1.5M and 2.5M. Includes a dedicated IP, with the option to buy more.
- Premier — custom pricing, also with dedicated IPs.
A separate free Marketing Campaigns plan exists — 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month — but that is the marketing product, not the Email API. Do not confuse the two when comparing.
The overage rates, and why they matter more than the plan price
SendGrid publishes its overage rates, which is more transparent than several competitors. Here they are:
| Plan | Included volume | Overage per email | Per 1,000 over |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials 50K | 50,000 | $0.0013 | $1.30 |
| Essentials 100K | 100,000 | $0.0009 | $0.90 |
| Pro 100K | 100,000 | $0.0011 | $1.10 |
| Pro 300K | 300,000 | $0.0009 | $0.90 |
| Pro 700K | 700,000 | $0.0008 | $0.80 |
| Pro 1.5M | 1,500,000 | $0.0006 | $0.60 |
| Pro 2.5M | 2,500,000 | $0.0005 | $0.50 |
Now the part that is easy to miss. On Essentials 50K, going over costs roughly three times the in-plan rate.
The arithmetic: $19.95 for 50,000 emails is about $0.0004 per email inside your plan. Overage is charged at $0.0013 — more than three times as much.
So a month where you send 70,000 instead of 50,000 does not cost 40% more. It costs $19.95 plus 20,000 × $0.0013 = $45.95, which is 130% more. Two such months and the next tier up would have been cheaper.
The gap narrows as you scale — at Pro 2.5M the $0.0005 overage is much closer to the in-plan rate — but at entry tiers, plan sizing matters more than plan price.
What else costs extra
- Email Testing credits are a paid add-on: 30 for $18/month, 60 for $30, 100 for $40, 500 for $200, 2,000 for $800. Inbox rendering testing is not included in any plan.
- Additional dedicated IPs beyond the one included on Pro are bought separately.
- Marketing Campaigns is a separate product with separate pricing. An Email API plan does not include campaign sending.
How it compares to Bluey Email
Both price on monthly send volume and both use an Essentials/Pro split, so the comparison is unusually direct. At the published entry point of each tier:
- Essentials, 50,000 emails — Bluey Email $9.95, SendGrid $19.95. Bluey is 50% cheaper.
- Pro, 100,000 emails — Bluey Email $49.95, SendGrid $89.95. Bluey is 44% cheaper.
That is the arithmetic behind the “40–50% cheaper than SendGrid” line on our own pricing page, shown so you can check it rather than take it on trust. Both figures come from each vendor’s published entry-tier pricing in September 2026.
Two honest caveats. SendGrid quotes “starting at” prices, so the comparison holds at the entry tier of each plan and may narrow at higher volumes where no full public ladder is published. And SendGrid Pro includes a dedicated IP, which is an add-on on Bluey — if you need one, factor that in.
Full ladder for both in email API pricing compared.
Where SendGrid is genuinely the right answer
- Scale and track record. It delivers more than 200 billion emails a month. Where email delivery is existential, that operational history is worth paying for.
- Dedicated IP included on Pro, with automated warm-up — genuinely useful at volume and something most competitors charge extra for.
- The Twilio platform. If you already use Twilio for SMS, voice or verification, one vendor across channels is a legitimate reason to stay.
- Deliverability tooling and support depth at Pro and Premier, including dedicated guidance.
- Documentation and ecosystem. More integrations, libraries and community answers exist for SendGrid than for any alternative.
Where it is worth looking elsewhere
- You send moderate volume and hate surprise bills. The 3× overage rate at Essentials 50K punishes an unpredictable month.
- You want a permanent free tier. The API free option is a 60-day trial, not a standing plan.
- You are cost-sensitive at entry volumes, where the gap against alternatives is widest.
- You want marketing and transactional on one bill — on SendGrid these are separate products.
Frequently asked questions
Does SendGrid have a free plan?
Not for the Email API — there is a 60-day free trial at 100 emails a day. A separate free Marketing Campaigns plan offers 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month, but that is the marketing product.
How much does SendGrid cost?
Essentials starts at $19.95/month and Pro at $89.95/month, both priced by monthly send volume. Premier is custom.
What happens if I exceed my SendGrid plan?
You are billed per email at the published overage rate, from $0.0013 on Essentials 50K down to $0.0005 on Pro 2.5M. At the lower tiers that is roughly three times the effective in-plan rate.
Does SendGrid include a dedicated IP?
Pro and Premier include one, with automated warm-up. Additional IPs are purchased separately. Essentials does not include one.
Is SendGrid good for marketing email too?
It sells Marketing Campaigns as a separate product with its own pricing. An Email API plan does not include campaign sending.
If overage exposure is the concern
Bluey Email prices the same way — monthly send volume, Essentials and Pro tiers — at $9.95 for 50,000 and $49.95 for 100,000 on Pro, with transactional included on every marketing plan as well as sold standalone.
See Bluey Email API pricing, or read Bluey Email vs SendGrid and the full list of SendGrid alternatives.
All SendGrid figures verified from Twilio’s published Email API pricing page, September 2026. Prices and overage rates change — check the vendor page before deciding.
Ready to switch? how to migrate from SendGrid — step by step, without wrecking your deliverability.