Sending transactional emails is a crucial part of running any online business today. From order confirmations to shipping notifications and password reset emails, transactional messages keep your customers informed about important activities and events.
However, delivering these critical emails can be challenging. Most website hosting providers enforce strict sending limits, and getting blocked by spam filters is all too common. This results in lost emails and frustrated customers.
Specialized transactional email services are the solution. By letting you send high volumes of email via optimized servers, these services massively boost deliverability rates. Read on as we explore the best transactional email providers available today.
Before discussing the top services, let’s clarify what transactional emails are. Transactional emails typically fall into the following categories:
Additionally, while not their primary function, the best transactional email services can send regular newsletter campaigns as well. You would just design the newsletters on your own and use a trusted transactional email provider to deliver them efficiently.
When comparing the best transactional email software providers, the two vital things to evaluate are deliverability rates and pricing:
With these factors in mind, let’s look at five top-rated transactional email services to consider.
UniOne is an email delivery platform built specifically to power flawless transactional email performance. It guarantees an exceptional 99.88% inbox placement rate, with most messages hitting inboxes within seconds.
Rather than just offering SMTP, UniOne provides a full API-first architecture. This facilitates seamless integration into any application stack. The service also has an expanding library of pre-built connectors for easy setup. In addition, UniOne includes a wide range of transactional email templates to simplify deployment.
Key advantages of UniOne include:
The only downsides are fewer native app integrations compared to some rivals, and no built-in automations or A/B testing. But for a reliable transactional email service that delivers every message lightning fast, UniOne is hard to beat.
Postmark is now part of ActiveCampaign, a leading email marketing platform. It’s no surprise, then, that Postmark achieves an incredible deliverability rate of over 99% – one of the highest scores we’ve seen.
So if your top priority is getting every single transactional email into subscribers’ inboxes, Postmark is easily your best bet. It’s free for under 100 emails per month, too.
Beyond the amazing deliverability, Postmark also brings some great ActiveCampaign integrations. The only real downsides are its relatively high pricing and US-only data hosting. But for deliverability, it can’t be beaten.
MailerSend comes from MailerLite, another very popular email marketing service. It builds on MailerLite’s user-friendly design and fast email builder to offer an excellent transactional email option.
Some stand-out aspects of MailerSend include:
The only weak spot is that integration between MailerSend and MailerLite is not as tight as expected. But otherwise, the free allowance, affordable pricing, and reliable performance make it a great choice.
While better known for email marketing, Mailjet actually started out in transactional email delivery, so it brings extensive experience to the table.
In tests, Mailjet achieved a very respectable deliverability. Pricing is also quite affordable at just $15 monthly for 15,000 emails.
And here’s where Mailjet differs from the rest: that single low-cost plan gets you access to a full-featured drag & drop email builder, automation tools, SMS capabilities, landing pages, and more. So you can handle messaging marketing, too.
The catch is that the setup process is more complex than competitors’. But if you want an all-in-one solution for both transactional and marketing emails, Mailjet supplies incredible value.
SendGrid has been delivering bulk emails for nearly two decades. While not quite as generous on the free tier, SendGrid offers paid plans starting at a very reasonable $19.95 monthly for 50,000 emails.
The pricing gets even more attractive as volumes increase, making it one of the most affordable options for high-volume transactional email. And deliverability rates are decent, too.
SendGrid is light on advanced features, mainly providing core email delivery features like delivery optimization and analytics. But if you just need a simple, scalable solution at a very low cost per email, it’s tough to beat.
Your transactional email needs likely fall somewhere along the spectrum of wanting reliability, generous free tiers, affordable volume pricing, or easy integration with marketing tools.
The five services we covered represent the top of the market across all those areas. By identifying the features that matter most to your business, you’re sure to find the best transactional emails provider that ticks all the boxes.
The key is not having to rely on restrictive mailbox or web hosting providers. Modern transactional email services give you the delivery power and flexibility to send critical business emails at scale, ensuring every message reaches its target reliably and spam-free.
