Two transactional email providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
Updated October 2026
THE VERDICT
MailerSend wins on price and developer experience. Mandrill wins on compliance and analytics.
MailerSend starts at $7 versus Mandrill's $20. Mandrill rates higher with developers (4.2 vs 4.1 on G2). Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Winner cells are tinted, green where MailerSend leads, violet where Mandrill does.
FAQ
MailerSend starts at $7 versus Mandrill's $20. Because pricing models differ by tier, the cheaper option depends on your monthly volume, so compare the pricing rows in the scorecard above.
MailerSend's paid Hobby plan starts at 7 USD per month (6.30 USD per month billed annually) for 5,000 emails, with overage billed at 1.50 USD per additional 1,000 emails. The Starter plan is 35 USD per month for 50,000 emails, and Professional is 110 USD per month, covering the same base volume but adding unlimited seats and domains, longer log retention, a dedicated account manager, and deliverability consultation. Enterprise pricing is custom.
Mailchimp publishes official Transactional API client libraries for Node.js, PHP, Ruby, and Python. The API is also accessible over plain HTTP/REST and via SMTP relay, so it can be used from any language even without an official SDK.
Yes. Many teams route different message types through different providers or fail over between them. Courier lets you send through both behind a single API and switch providers without changing your code.
Why not both?
Use both behind one API.
Route MailerSend, Mandrill, or both, and switch providers without changing your code. Courier sits in front of every channel.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of October 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms. Mandrill is Mailchimp Transactional.