Pricing guide · prices checked 7 Oct 2026
Resend Pricing Guide 2026
For developers and teams whose software sends email, such as receipts, login codes, alerts and the messages an AI agent triggers, Resend is the best pick in this guide. You call it from code, the free plan covers 3,000 emails a month, and Pro costs $20 a month for 50,000 emails. Inbox apps for reading and replying to your own mail are a different category, and this guide explains where they fit.
Two kinds of AI email tools
The phrase "AI email tool" covers two very different products, and buyers often compare them by mistake. AI-native email clients such as Superhuman, Shortwave, Spark and HEY are apps for a person's own mailbox. They help you triage, summarise, search and draft replies to mail that arrives in your inbox. AI-first sending tools are the opposite: they send mail on behalf of software. Resend belongs in the second group. It is an API that your application, a background job or an AI agent calls when a message needs to leave your system.
The distinction matters for price as well as features. A mailbox client is usually bought per seat for a person. A sending platform is bought for volume, and its cost grows with the number of messages or contacts your product handles. The table below sets the two groups side by side so you can see which problem you are solving before you look at numbers.
| Tool | Best for | Entry price | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resend | Developers and teams sending transactional and marketing email from code or AI agents | Free: 3,000 emails/month. Pro: $20/month for 50,000 emails (monthly) | Not a mailbox client; marketing contacts are billed on their own meter |
| Superhuman | Individuals and teams who want an AI-assisted, keyboard-driven client for their own inbox | Pricing on request | Works on your mailbox; it does not send mail for your application |
| Shortwave | People who want AI triage and drafting inside an existing Gmail account | Pricing on request | Tied to the mailbox you connect; not a sending service |
| Spark | Small teams that share mail threads and want AI-assisted writing | Pricing on request | Collaboration is built around personal and team inboxes, not bulk or product email |
| HEY | People who want their own email service with a screener that controls which senders reach them | Pricing on request | A personal mail service, not infrastructure for sending from software |
Resend prices are taken from its pricing page as checked on 7 October 2026. For the four inbox clients no price is listed here, so use each vendor's pricing page for current terms.
How Resend bills
Resend uses two separate meters. Transactional sending is metered by the email. The free plan includes 3,000 emails a month, with a cap of 100 emails a day and up to 3 domains. Pro is $20 a month and includes 50,000 emails. The pricing page's Pro slider reads $35 at 100,000 emails and lists $0.90 per 1,000 extra emails at that volume, so check the slider for the exact volume you expect before you commit. Scale is priced by volume: $90 a month for 100,000 emails, $160 for 200,000 and $350 for 500,000.
Marketing email is metered by contact. The free marketing tier covers 1,000 contacts with unlimited broadcast sending, 10,000 automation runs and 3 segments. Paid marketing brackets run from $40 a month at 5,000 contacts, through $80 at 10,000, $180 at 25,000, $250 at 50,000 and $450 at 100,000. Pro marketing removes the segment limit and keeps broadcast sending unlimited.
The two meters exist for good reasons. Receipts, codes and alerts scale with events, so a per-send meter tracks what your product actually does. Newsletters scale with the size of the audience, so a per-contact meter tracks that. Most budgeting mistakes come from applying one meter to the other kind of traffic.
Cost at realistic volumes
The table uses published plan prices, billed monthly, and shows the arithmetic where two meters apply. Each row names the plan so you can check it against the pricing page.
| Scenario | Volume | Plan | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side project | 2,000 transactional emails | Free | $0, provided no day passes 100 emails |
| Small SaaS, transactional only | 45,000 transactional emails | Pro (50,000 included) | $20 |
| Small SaaS with newsletter | 45,000 transactional emails and 5,000 marketing contacts | Pro plus Marketing Pro at 5,000 contacts | $60 ($20 + $40) |
| Growing app, transactional only | 100,000 emails | Scale at 100,000 emails | $90 |
| Growing app with newsletter | 100,000 emails and 10,000 marketing contacts | Scale plus Marketing Pro at 10,000 contacts | $170 ($90 + $80) |
| Larger app, transactional only | 200,000 emails | Scale at 200,000 emails | $160 |
| Larger app with large list | 200,000 emails and 50,000 marketing contacts | Scale at 200,000 plus Marketing Pro at 50,000 contacts | $410 ($160 + $250) |
| High-volume sender | 500,000 emails | Scale at 500,000 emails | $350 |
| Marketing only, mid-size list | 25,000 contacts | Marketing Pro at 25,000 contacts | $180 |
| Marketing only, large list | 100,000 contacts | Marketing Pro at 100,000 contacts | $450 |
Check the current slider and bracket on resend.com/pricing before you buy, since brackets can change.
Resend in detail: what it does well for this audience
Resend suits teams that treat email as part of the product. Transactional mail is sent through an HTTP API with SDKs, so the same code path that creates an invoice can send the receipt, and an agent workflow can send a status update without a human opening a mail client. Templates can be written as components, which keeps layout and copy under version control next to the code that fills them in.
Where it falls short: Resend is not a mailbox. If the goal is to read, sort and reply to a stream of personal or team mail, an inbox client is the right tool and Resend is the wrong one. The marketing side is also a separate meter. A team that mails a large list every week will see the contact count drive its bill, not the send count, so the list needs regular cleaning. The free plan's daily cap of 100 emails suits steady traffic; a launch-day burst will hit it, and the fix is either spreading the send across days or moving to Pro.
Price: Free at 3,000 emails a month, Pro at $20 for 50,000, Scale from $90 for 100,000. Marketing brackets start free at 1,000 contacts and run to $450 at 100,000. Full terms are on resend.com/pricing.
The inbox clients in this category
These four apps are often compared with Resend because all of them use AI on email. They solve a different problem, so the notes below describe each one for its own audience. No price is given for them here; use each vendor's pricing page for current terms.
Superhuman
Superhuman is a paid email client built around fast, keyboard-driven triage, with AI features for drafting, summarising and finding threads. It suits professionals who spend much of the day in one personal or team inbox and want less time per message. Its limitation is the same as every client in this group: it works on mail you receive and reply to, not on mail your software sends to customers. Entry price: pricing on request.
Shortwave
Shortwave connects to an existing Gmail account and adds AI-assisted triage, search and drafting on top. It is a good fit for people who want to keep their current mailbox and add AI help without moving addresses. Because it depends on the mailbox you connect, it does not give an application a way to send email at scale. Entry price: pricing on request.
Spark
Spark combines a client with shared threads and AI-assisted writing, which makes it useful for small teams that pass conversations between colleagues. It is designed around people reading and answering mail together. It is not built for sending transactional or lifecycle email from an application. Entry price: pricing on request.
HEY
HEY is an email service with its own addresses and a screener that decides which senders can reach you. It appeals to people who want a personal mail service with a strong opinion about unwanted mail. It does not serve as a sending platform for an app. Entry price: pricing on request.
Which tool fits which job
Start from the job, not the brand. The table maps common needs to the tool that fits them and gives the reason.
| If you need | Pick | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Receipts, login codes and alerts sent from your application | Resend, transactional plan | Sends through an API, metered per email, with a free tier for early testing |
| AI agents triggering messages to customers | Resend, with approval steps in your own code | The agent calls the API; guardrails belong in your workflow, not in the sending tool |
| A newsletter to a list you own | Resend marketing brackets, or compare first | Priced by contact count, with unlimited broadcast sending on the paid marketing tiers |
| Triage and drafting for your own Gmail inbox | Shortwave | Adds AI to an existing Gmail account without changing addresses |
| Fast keyboard-driven handling of one busy inbox | Superhuman | Built around speed and triage for a single heavy mailbox |
| Shared threads for a small team with AI writing | Spark | Designed for passing conversations between colleagues |
| A personal email service with strict sender control | HEY | Its screener decides which senders reach you |
Two questions settle most choices. First: does the mail come from a person reading a mailbox, or from code sending to a list or a customer? If it is the first, choose a client. If it is the second, choose a sending platform. Second: which meter will grow fastest? A product with heavy event traffic should look at the per-email plans; a publisher with a large but quiet audience should look at contact brackets. Many teams use both, which is why Resend's two meters can sit side by side without double counting.
Setup and migration checklist
Moving sends to Resend is mostly a code change, and the order of steps determines whether it is safe. Migrate transactional mail first, because it is low-volume and high-signal: a bounce or a missing receipt shows up quickly, which makes problems easy to spot. Keep the previous provider configured as a fallback for at least one billing cycle, so a DNS or key error can be reversed in minutes. Import marketing audiences separately and only after cleaning them, since every contact counts toward a bracket whether or not it is ever mailed.
| Step | What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Add and verify the sending domain | SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are in place and the domain has passed verification before the first live send | A domain that has not passed verification hurts placement from the first message |
| 2. Keep the old provider as fallback | Credentials and templates still work for at least one billing cycle | A misconfigured key at 2am needs a fast revert path |
| 3. Port transactional templates | Each template renders with real data, including plain-text versions | Layout breaks are the most common migration defect |
| 4. Move transactional streams first | Receipts, codes and alerts run on Resend while the old provider stays on standby | Low volume gives quick feedback on reputation and delivery |
| 5. Test webhook parity | Delivered, bounced and complained events reach your system with the same fields | Downstream attribution depends on event fidelity, not only on successful sends |
| 6. Clean the marketing list | Remove dormant and invalid addresses before import | Each contact counts toward the bracket |
| 7. Account for the daily cap | On the free plan, check that no single day passes 100 emails | Launch-day bursts will be rejected or delayed on that plan |
Guardrails for AI-triggered email
When an agent decides that an email should go out, the sending platform should not be the only safeguard. Put a staging step in your own code: the agent writes a message, a rule-based check confirms the merge fields, footer and unsubscribe link are present, and a human or a stricter script approves anything that goes to a large segment. Log the prompt, the template version and the recipient list for every send, so a complaint can be traced back to the decision that produced it. Respect suppression lists before every send, not only at import, and cap how many messages one agent run may trigger in a day. These controls cost little to build and matter more than any pricing difference between plans.
Keep the free tier for development and staging traffic. Once real customers receive mail, watch the send count against the 3,000 monthly allowance and the 100 daily cap, and move to Pro before a launch rather than during one.
Worked example: a 45,000-email SaaS with a newsletter
A product sends about 45,000 transactional emails a month and has a 5,000-contact newsletter. Pro covers the transactional volume with 5,000 emails to spare at $20 a month. The newsletter sits on the Marketing Pro bracket for 5,000 contacts at $40 a month. The combined cost is $60 a month, or $720 a year at the same volume. If the newsletter grows to 10,000 contacts, the marketing bracket moves to $80 and the total to $100 a month, while the transactional tier stays at Pro until volume passes 50,000 emails.
Model growth in bands. Sending volume and contact count rarely rise together at the same pace, so the bill should be projected for each meter separately before you choose a tier.
Related pages
- The AI-native email tools guide, covering clients and sending platforms.
- Pricing overview, with the other vendors on this site.
Frequently asked questions
Is Resend free?
Resend has a free plan that includes 3,000 emails a month, with a cap of 100 emails a day and up to 3 domains. It is suitable for development, staging and low-volume production. Check the pricing page for current limits before you rely on it for launch traffic.
What does Pro cost?
Pro is $20 a month and includes 50,000 emails. The pricing slider also shows a Pro reading of $35 at 100,000 emails, with $0.90 per 1,000 extra emails at that volume, so compare it with the Scale tier for your volume.
How is marketing email billed?
Marketing email is billed by contact count rather than by send. The free marketing tier covers 1,000 contacts. Paid brackets include $40 a month at 5,000 contacts, $80 at 10,000, $180 at 25,000, $250 at 50,000 and $450 at 100,000.
Can I use Resend as a personal inbox?
No. Resend is a sending platform for software and teams, not a mail client for reading and replying to your own inbox. For personal triage with AI, look at Superhuman, Shortwave, Spark or HEY, and check each vendor's pricing page for current terms.
Which plan suits AI agents that send email?
Start with the free plan while you build and test the agent's workflow. Move to Pro once real customers receive messages and volume approaches 50,000 a month. Keep approval and suppression checks in your own code, because the sending platform does not decide what an agent should send.
What happens if I pass the free daily cap?
The free plan caps sends at 100 emails a day. A burst above that limit can be rejected or delayed, so spread large sends across days or upgrade to Pro before a launch. Check the current behaviour on the pricing page.
Do I need to move everything at once?
No. Move transactional streams first, keep the previous provider as a fallback for at least one billing cycle, and import marketing audiences only after cleaning the list. Migrating in stages makes problems easier to isolate.
Where can I confirm current prices?
The official source is resend.com/pricing. Prices on this page were checked on 7 October 2026 and may change, so confirm the plan and bracket before you buy.