Lumail vs Mailgun
Lumail
Mailgun
Transactional email API and SMTP delivery platform
Lumail and Mailgun pricing and feature comparison
Free emails / month
Lumail
3,000
Mailgun
100/day
Unlimited subscribers · $0
$0
Paid entry
$20/month, 40,000 included, then $0.60/1,000
$15/mo
Pricing basis
Unlimited subscribers; pricing follows email volume
Email volume (monthly allotment plus overage per 1,000 emails); not billed by subscriber count. Optimize and Inspect are separate products.
Automation
Graph workflows with triggers, branches, goals, exits, and A/B paths
No visual journey builder. Application-triggered sends via API or SMTP, mailing lists, scheduled delivery, inbound routes, and webhooks.…
AI and developer access
ChatGPT OAuth, MCP, skills, CLI, SDK, REST API, and visual editor
Official local MCP server documenting 50+ operations, plus Send Time Optimization on Scale. No hosted MCP or ChatGPT OAuth plugin…
Transactional email
Included through API, SMTP, SDK, CLI, and agent tools
Core product. REST API at api.mailgun.net (EU: api.eu.mailgun.net) and SMTP at smtp.mailgun.org (EU: smtp.eu.mailgun.org); ports 25, 465,…
Publishing surface
Capture pages and custom web domains; not a general website builder
Drag-and-drop template builder and Templates API from Foundation up, mailing lists, batch send up to 1,000 personalized messages per API…
Choose Lumail if…
- You want agents operating campaigns, workflows, subscribers, and transactional email through 89 organization-scoped MCP tools plus a ChatGPT OAuth plugin, CLI, and TypeScript SDK
- You need graph-based workflows and capture pages on every plan rather than application-side API workflows
- You prefer one volume-priced subscription with unlimited subscribers (Premium $20/mo for 40,000 emails, then $0.60 per 1,000) over Mailgun Send plus optional Optimize/Inspect bills
Choose Mailgun if…
- Transactional delivery from application code is the product you are buying, and you want REST plus SMTP plus inbound parsing without a newsletter UI
- You need dedicated IP pools, Rapid Fire SLAs, inbox-placement testing, or Mailgun Optimize/Inspect QA
- You already send through Mailgun's API or SMTP and want their local MCP server for send and analytics operations
Where Mailgun is strong
A real alternative, not a straw man.
Sinch Mailgun is a developer email-delivery service for sending, receiving, and tracking application email via REST API and SMTP, billed by sending volume. People pick Mailgun when they need developers sending transactional and bulk email from application code who want inbound routing, validation, dedicated IPs, and US/EU data residency..
- Mature REST API and SMTP relay with US/EU regions and official SDKs for Go, Node.js, PHP, Java, Ruby, and Python
- Inbound routing, email validation, webhooks, and dedicated IPs ($59/IP/month extra; one IP included on Scale and some higher-volume Foundation variants per the pricing FAQ)
- Official local MCP server (@mailgun/mcp-server) covering send, domains, analytics, templates, suppressions, webhooks, routes, mailing lists, IPs, and tracking
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 Mailgun, stay.
The questions people actually ask
Is Lumail cheaper than Mailgun?
Sometimes. Lumail is $0 for 3,000 emails, then $20 for 40,000. Mailgun'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 Mailgun?
Choose Mailgun when email is infrastructure you call from code and you need inbound parsing, dedicated IPs, and deliverability add-ons. Choose Lumail when newsletters, graph workflows, subscribers, and transactional email should live in one organization agents can operate.
Can I migrate from Mailgun 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.