The SendGrid alternative
you actually own.
SendGrid meters every email and keeps your sending on its platform. Vectis Mail is a self-hosted email platform with the same REST API, inbound webhooks and analytics — running on your infrastructure, for a flat $0–39/month no matter how much you send. Mailbox hosting included; no separate IMAP server to run.
The cost-vs-control trade
SendGrid prices per email. Vectis Mail prices per tenant. The math diverges fast.
| Monthly volume | Vectis Mail (Pro + ~$20/mo VPS) | SendGrid (Email API) |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 emails | $39/mo flat | $19.95 (Essentials) |
| 100,000 emails | $39/mo flat | $19.95–$89.95 |
| 500,000 emails | $39/mo flat | ~$89.95 + dedicated IP ($30) = $120/mo |
| 1,000,000 emails | $39/mo flat | $89.95+ base, often $150–$250 with IP + overage |
| 5,000,000+ emails | $39/mo (may need a larger VPS at this scale) | Premier — custom, typically $2,000–$10,000+/mo |
SendGrid pricing per Twilio's published Email API pricing, retrieved 2026-05-12. Vectis Mail assumes a ~$20/mo VPS + Pro tier; Starter tier ($0) works for installs with up to 3 domains and 25 mailboxes per domain.
Why teams move to Vectis Mail
Where per-email billing and send-only hosting start to hurt.
- Your SendGrid bill is climbing past $200/month and per-email pricing feels misaligned with your costs.
- Data sovereignty or residency matters — healthcare, government, financial services, EU public sector. Self-hosting often makes internal audits easier: nothing leaves your network boundary.
- You also need to host mailboxes (e.g.
support@yourdomain) and want one product for inbound + outbound. - You want full control over the underlying mail stack: Postfix tuning, custom Rspamd rules, custom headers.
- You're building a SaaS and want predictable flat cost instead of usage-based bills that scale with your cost-of-revenue.
- You want your historical email data in your own Postgres, with no vendor lock-in.
One honest scope note: Vectis Mail is built for transactional and inbound email — not marketing-campaign broadcasting with list management, A/B testing and broadcast analytics. If you run large marketing sends, pair Vectis Mail with a dedicated campaign tool for that lane.
The two fears that usually aren't blockers
"I need warm IPs from day one." You never switch cold. With the dual-send playbook you keep your current provider delivering production mail while your own IP warms over 2–4 weeks, then shift traffic once it's proven. There's no day-one reputation gap — just an overlap window you control.
"I need compliance reports." If you need data residency, GDPR, or internal-audit evidence, self-hosting is usually the stronger answer — the data never leaves your boundary, so the question becomes "where did you deploy the server," not "trust the vendor's attestation." The genuine gap is a vendor-side SOC 2 / HIPAA BAA as a hard procurement gate; audit-evidence packs for that are on the Enterprise roadmap — talk to us if that's your timeline.
How they differ
Pricing model
SendGrid prices per email volume: tiers from Essentials ($19.95/month at 50K emails) through Pro ($89.95/month at 100K–2.5M emails) to Premier (custom, 5M+). Overage costs run $0.0005–$0.0013 per email. Additional dedicated IPs are $30/month each. The bill grows linearly with sending volume even though the underlying infrastructure cost doesn't.
Vectis Mail prices per tenant. Starter is free forever; Pro is $39 USD per tenant per month for unlimited domains, unlimited mailboxes, unlimited email volume. Add a ~$20/month VPS to host it and your fully-loaded cost is $59/month whether you send 10,000 or 10 million emails. One Pro subscription covers unlimited Vectis Mail installs, useful for SaaS resellers and agencies running mail for client domains.
API surface
Conceptually similar. Both offer a REST API with single + batch sending, template rendering, event webhooks (delivered, open, click, bounce), and inbound parsing.
SendGrid and Vectis Mail both use an API; see the API Referencefor the full surface. Migration from SendGrid is mostly mechanical: replace the sg.send() call with an HTTP POST, map webhook event field names (the shape is similar but not identical), re-create templates.
Mailbox hosting + inbound
SendGrid is send-only. To host a mailbox like support@yourdomainthat receives replies, you need a separate mail server or another service. SendGrid's Inbound Parse Webhook covers receiving for processing-only use cases but isn't a full IMAP/POP3 mailbox.
Vectis Mail handles both. The same instance hosts user mailboxes (IMAP/POP3 with the full Roundcube webmail) and runs inbound webhooks for programmatic processing. One product, one set of DNS records, one cost line.
Data sovereignty
SendGrid stores email content + metadata on US-primary infrastructure (EU residency available on certain plans). For organisations in regulated industries (healthcare, government, financial services, EU public sector) that's often a non-starter.
With Vectis Mail, the data is wherever you host the server. Your Postgres database holds the audit trail, attachments, message metadata. Your own filesystem holds the IMAP storage. GDPR / data-residency / sovereignty conversations become "where did you deploy the server" instead of "trust the vendor's compliance statement."
Deliverability
One trade-off: SendGrid maintains warm IP pools, has ISP relations staff, and runs blocklist removal at scale. Self-hosting on a fresh VPS IP means your IP has no reputation on day one: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo will throttle or spam-fold most mail until you've established a pattern over 2–4 weeks.
The good news: once warm, a self-hosted IP with properly configured DKIM, SPF, DMARC, MTA-STS, and PTR records can reach the same inboxes — at that point deliverability comes down to your IP reputation and DNS hygiene, not the platform you send from. Vectis Mail ships with all of these configured correctly by default. For the full honest answer — what we do, what stays in your hands, and the dual-send migration playbook — see Will my mail land?; the IP warmup guide anddeliverability guide walk through the calendar.
Compliance documentation
SendGrid hands you SOC 2 Type II reports, ISO 27001 certificates, and a HIPAA-eligible BAA on Premier. Self-hosting Vectis Mail means you are the data custodian; the compliance surface shifts to whoever runs the infrastructure. For some procurement processes that's harder; for others (especially internal audits in regulated industries) it's actually easier because nothing leaves your network boundary.
Migrating from SendGrid to Vectis Mail
The biggest cost isn't the engineering; it's the IP warmup calendar. Plan for 5 weeks end-to-end.
- Stand up Vectis Mail on a fresh VPS following the installation guide. Configure your sending domain and set up DKIM/SPF/DMARC DNS records (Vectis Mail generates the values to publish).
- Update client code: swap the SendGrid SDK call for an HTTP POST to Vectis Mail's send endpoint. Field names differ slightly but the shape is similar. See sending API docs.
- Map webhook event fields: SendGrid uses field names like
email,event,timestamp; Vectis Mail uses its own shape (documented in webhook docs). One small adapter handles both during transition. - Re-create templates: download HTML templates from SendGrid, store as local files or in Vectis Mail's template store, render server-side.
- Dual-send during warmup: keep SendGrid handling production volume; route a small percentage (start ~1%) through Vectis Mail. Follow the IP warmup schedule, doubling daily volume each day for 2 weeks.
- Shift production traffic once the new IP is warm. Most teams flip a percentage flag in their code week 3.
- Decommission SendGrid once you've watched a full week of clean deliverability on the new IP.
Historical analytics in SendGrid can't be exported in bulk; most teams accept losing pre-migration history. Going forward, your data lives in your Postgres.
Frequently asked questions
Does SendGrid have a free tier?
Not anymore. SendGrid discontinued its permanent free plan in 2025and replaced it with a 60-day free trial capped at 100 emails/day (~3,000/month). When the trial ends you have to move to a paid plan — Essentials starts at $19.95/month — or lose sending access, so there is no longer an ongoing free tier on SendGrid. Vectis Mail's Starter tier is genuinely $0: self-hosted, with no per-email charge and no expiry, covering up to 3 domains and 25 mailboxes per domain. You pay only for the VPS it runs on, plus optionally $39/month for the Pro tier's API and analytics.
What does SendGrid cost vs self-hosting Vectis Mail?
SendGrid's cheapest paid tier is $19.95/month for 50,000 emails (Essentials). Pro starts at $89.95/month for 100,000+ emails. At 1 million emails per month, expect $89.95+ in base fees plus dedicated IP charges ($30/month per IP). Vectis Mail self-hosted on a ~$20/month VPS handles the same volume for the cost of the VPS plus optionally $39 USD/tenant/month for the Pro tier: about $59/month total at any sending volume.
Is Vectis Mail's API compatible with SendGrid's?
Not 1:1. Vectis Mail has its own JSON API with the same conceptual shape (to/from/subject/body/attachments). Migration typically takes a few hours: replace the SendGrid client call with an HTTP POST to Vectis Mail's send endpoint, update webhook field-mapping for events, and re-create templates. The conceptual surface (events, webhooks, batch sending, domain authentication) is the same.
What about deliverability on a self-hosted server?
Deliverability on Vectis Mail is as good as the IP reputation you build. Day one on a fresh VPS IP, you'll need 2–4 weeks of IP warmup before sending bulk volume to Google/Microsoft inboxes; SendGrid hides this by pooling pre-warmed IPs. After warmup, self-hosted deliverability with DKIM/SPF/DMARC/MTA-STS properly configured typically matches managed providers. You don't take a day-one hit when migrating: thedual-send playbook keeps your current provider delivering while the new IP warms, so there's no reputation gap. The IP warmup guide walks through the calendar schedule.
How long does it take to migrate from SendGrid to Vectis Mail?
Plan for about 5 weeks end-to-end: 1 week to wire up Vectis Mail and update client code, 3 weeks of dual-send (both providers in parallel while the new IP warms), 1 week to decommission SendGrid. The infrastructure work itself is small; the IP warmup calendar is the actual constraint.
Does Vectis Mail handle inbound email like SendGrid's Inbound Parse?
Yes. Inbound webhooks are built-in. Configure an MX record at your domain, point inbound rules at a webhook URL, and Vectis Mail POSTs the full parsed message (body, HTML, attachments, SMTP envelope) to your application with HMAC-SHA256 signing and exponential-backoff retry. The same product handles inbound and outbound, with no separate billing or integration.
Try Vectis Mail
Same API, your infrastructure, flat price.
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