Lumail vs Courier
Lumail
Courier
Multichannel notification and customer messaging platform
Lumail and Courier pricing and feature comparison
Free emails / month
Lumail
3,000
Courier
10,000
Unlimited subscribers · $0
$0
Paid entry
$20/month, 40,000 included, then $0.60/1,000
$0.005 per send
Pricing basis
Unlimited subscribers; pricing follows email volume
Per notification send across email, push, SMS, in-app, and chat; no per-seat or per-channel add-ons. Connected ESP/SMS providers bill…
Automation
Graph workflows with triggers, branches, goals, exits, and A/B paths
Visual Journeys (directed graph) with API, webhook, Segment, and audience triggers; delays, branches, batching, digests, throttles, and an…
AI and developer access
ChatGPT OAuth, MCP, skills, CLI, SDK, REST API, and visual editor
Hosted MCP at mcp.courier.com with 145 documented tools (144 default + 1 local diagnostic); CLI; agent skills; llms.txt. AI Translations…
Transactional email
Included through API, SMTP, SDK, CLI, and agent tools
Core Send API use case (password resets, receipts, alerts). You connect your own ESP or SMTP (SendGrid, SES, Postmark, Mailgun, Resend,…
Publishing surface
Capture pages and custom web domains; not a general website builder
Design Studio templates and one-off broadcasts to a list or audience. Not a hosted newsletter publication and no capture pages.
Choose Lumail if…
- You want campaigns, subscribers, capture pages, and transactional email in one org with Lumail delivering the mail
- You want graph workflows on every plan without bringing SendGrid/SES/Twilio (or similar) as a second vendor
- You want ChatGPT OAuth plus 89 org-scoped MCP tools aimed at running a newsletter, not only a notification API
Choose Courier if…
- You need SMS, push, Slack/Teams, and an embeddable in-app inbox with preference enforcement and provider failover
- You already pay an ESP and want Courier only as the orchestration/routing layer
- You need multi-tenant notification branding or an AI Agent node inside journeys (Business+)
Where Courier is strong
A real alternative, not a straw man.
Courier is a developer notification layer that routes product messages across email, SMS, push, chat, and in-app, billed per send on top of your own delivery providers. People pick Courier when they need product and engineering teams that already have (or want) their own email/SMS providers and need multichannel routing, preferences, and journeys on one API..
- One Send API plus Journeys across email, SMS, push, Slack/MS Teams, WhatsApp, and Courier Inbox, with provider failover
- Public MCP (145 tools), CLI, SDKs, and agent skills so coding agents can send, debug, and manage templates
- Usage pricing at $0.005/send with a 10,000-send Developer free tier and no per-seat or per-channel add-ons
Don't trust the table. Run one journey.
Checklists lie by flattening the work. Build one real path: a trigger, a wait, a branch, a goal, an exit. Then open one subscriber and see what actually happened. That tells you more than any feature row.
- 1. Import a small, consented sample. Not the whole list.
- 2. Recreate one campaign and the audience it actually hits.
- 3. Publish one automation with a goal you can measure.
- 4. Fire a test and read every event on one person.
- 5. Compare the weekly work, not the setup afternoon.
Try it on a real send
Keep the whole list. Pay when you send.
3,000 emails free, no card. Rebuild one campaign, one workflow, and one transactional message before you move anyone. If it feels worse than Courier, stay.
The questions people actually ask
Is Lumail cheaper than Courier?
Sometimes. Lumail is $0 for 3,000 emails, then $20 for 40,000. Courier's number only makes sense after you know what they cap: contacts, seats, a daily send limit, or a feature they hide behind a paid plan. Read the honest take above, then price a normal month and a launch month on both pages.
What is the main difference between Lumail and Courier?
Choose Courier when product notifications need one API plus SMS, push, Slack/Teams, and an in-app inbox with provider failover. Choose Lumail when you want a newsletter platform with capture pages, graph workflows, and transactional email delivered in the same org without a separate ESP bill.
Can I migrate from Courier to Lumail?
Yes. Don't move the whole list on day one. Export a small consented sample, rebuild one campaign and one automation, authenticate your domain, then watch one subscriber go through the run. If that feels right, move the rest.