Mailgun

Transactional Email APImailgun.com

Company typePrivate
Founded2010
HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
Headcount101–250
GTM typeB2B
OfferingSoftware

Mailgun firmographics

Firmographics

Name: Mailgun
Legal name: Mailgun
Website: https://mailgun.com
Company type: Private
Founded year: 2010
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 101–250 employees
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

Mailgun industry classification

Industry

Product category: Transactional Email API
NAICS: Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)
SIC: Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
akta.pro primary industry: Email Marketing Services (Campaigns, Deliverability, Lifecycle) (BPAFAKAB)
akta.pro secondary industry: Email Marketing Services (Campaign Strategy, Design, Deliverability) (MPAAAIAA)

Keywords

Transactional email API
SMTP relay service
Email validation
Email deliverability
Developer email platform

Where Mailgun is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: San Francisco
HQ country: United States
HQ region: North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

Mailgun business model

Business model

GTM type: B2B
Offering type: Software
Cost components: Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

Transactional Email Sending (SaaS Subscription + Overage): Mailgun generates revenue primarily through tiered SaaS subscription plans with included email volumes plus overage charges for additional emails. Plans range from free tier (100 emails/day) to enterprise custom pricing. Overage rates decrease at higher tiers ($1.80/1,000 for Basic, $1.30/1,000 for Foundation, $1.10/1,000 for Scale). This is the core revenue stream representing the majority of company revenue.
Email Validation Services: Separate or add-on pricing for email validation and verification services, ranging from $1.20/100 validations on Basic to $0.80/100 on Scale tier. Provides revenue from list cleaning and real-time address verification.
Mailgun Optimize (Deliverability Add-on Suite): Separate deliverability services including inbox placement testing, reputation monitoring, blocklist monitoring, and dedicated TAM consulting. Customers who validate email addresses with Mailgun reported 21% lower bounce rates and 65% higher open rates.
Enterprise Services: Custom enterprise solutions including dedicated infrastructure, Rapid Fire Burst Sending SLA, custom features, and managed deliverability services. Pricing is quote-based and tailored to customer needs.
Mailgun Inspect (Email QA): Email quality assurance platform for preview testing, code analysis, and accessibility compliance, offered as a separate product or add-on for larger senders.

Pricing tiers

Model	Billing	Price
Freemium	Monthly	Free tier - 100 emails/day for testing
Subscription	Monthly	Basic - 10,000 emails/month starting at $15/mo
Subscription	Monthly	Foundation - 50,000 emails/month at $35/mo
Subscription	Monthly	Scale - 100,000 emails/month at $90/mo
Subscription	Multi-year contract	Enterprise - Custom pricing

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels8 records

Mailgun product offering

Product offering

Core offering

Mailgun provides a cloud-based transactional email delivery platform that combines a RESTful Email API and SMTP relay service for sending, receiving, and tracking emails at scale. The platform is sold as a modular suite including Mailgun Send (core API/SMTP), Mailgun Optimize (deliverability suite), Mailgun Validate (real-time email verification), and Mailgun Inspect (email QA and accessibility testing). It targets developers and enterprises requiring high-volume, reliable email infrastructure with compliance certifications including HIPAA, SOC, GDPR, and ISO 27001.

Product overview

Mailgun is an all-in-one intelligent email delivery platform organized as a modular product suite. The core offering is Mailgun Send, providing RESTful email API and SMTP relay for transactional and marketing email delivery at scale. This integrates with optional add-on modules: Mailgun Optimize (deliverability tools including inbox placement testing, reputation monitoring, and dedicated Technical Account Manager support), Mailgun Validate (real-time and bulk email verification to reduce bounces), and Mailgun Inspect (email QA with preview testing and accessibility compliance). The platform also includes webhook-based event tracking, analytics, and Send Time Optimization capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

Mailgun Send: Email API and SMTP service for sending, receiving, and tracking emails
Mailgun Optimize
Mailgun Validate
Mailgun Inspect
Sinch Email

Products and services

Mailgun Send Core email delivery platform providing RESTful Email API and SMTP relay services for sending, receiving, and tracking transactional and marketing emails at scale with high deliverability, batch sending up to 1,000 personalized emails per API call, webhook event tracking, and Send Time Optimization.
Mailgun Optimize Deliverability add-on suite that combines applications and expert services to maximize inbox placement and improve sender reputation, including inbox placement testing, reputation monitoring, blocklist monitoring, spam trap monitoring, and dedicated Technical Account Manager consulting.
Mailgun Validate Email validation service that verifies email addresses in real-time via API or bulk list upload, using cached send data from Mailgun's 400B+ emails/year infrastructure to deliver fast and accurate verification, with a 200ms response SLA for 95% of single verification requests.
Mailgun Inspect Email quality assurance platform offering email previews across 100+ devices and clients (including dark mode), code analysis, email accessibility testing (ADA/EAA compliance), and broken link checking before campaigns launch.

Quantifiable outcome

98% average email delivery rate (vs 85% industry average)
+10 more outcomes

Companies that use Mailgun

Customer profile

Named customers25 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Mailgun technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API: Yes
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability4 records

Feature11 records

Mailgun partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core, minor and strategic.

SinchcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Sinch acquired Mailgun in 2021 to connect email to the broader communications ecosystem alongside SMS, Messaging, and Voice technologies. Mailgun is now part of Sinch Email division alongside Mailjet and Email on Acid. Sinch has presence in more than 60 countries and handles over 200 billion conversations annually.
RackspaceminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2012Rackspace acquired Mailgun in 2012 to provide cloud-based email services to their hosting customers. Mailgun later spun out from Rackspace in 2017.
Google Cloud PlatformcoreTechnology or IntegrationMailgun infrastructure is built on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), providing the power and scale to support billions of emails per month. This cloud infrastructure partnership enables global reach and reliability.
Customer.iostrategicTechnology or IntegrationCustomer.io uses Mailgun for transactional email infrastructure. CEO Chris Hexton noted Mailgun makes it easy to build and manage large-scale email marketing applications. Customer.io co-founder John Alison praised Mailgun support during large migration.
BlueshiftstrategicGTM or Marketing PartnerStrategic partnership with Blueshift leveraging Sinch/Mailgun integration. Expanded into other Sinch product offerings with increased shared customers. Described as one of the most important partnerships for Blueshift.
Forrester ConsultingminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerMailgun partnered with Forrester to conduct Total Economic Impact (TEI) study exploring potential improvements Mailgun could provide composite customers based on interviewed customer data.
Email on AcidcoreTechnology or IntegrationEmail on Acid is part of Sinch Email portfolio, now integrated into Mailgun Inspect product for email QA, previews across 100+ devices/clients, and accessibility testing.
MailjetcoreTechnology or IntegrationMailjet is part of Sinch Email portfolio alongside Mailgun, offering complementary email platform capabilities including Email Editor for template creation.

Scale indicators23 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Mailgun competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Direct peers

SendGrid (Twilio): SendGrid is the most direct competitor to Mailgun, offering a transactional and marketing email API plus SMTP relay at comparable scale. Both target developers and high-volume senders with similar SLAs, pricing tiers, and deliverability tooling, and Twilio's broader CPaaS positioning mirrors Sinch's ecosystem strategy.
Mailjet: Mailjet is a sister brand within Sinch's Email portfolio alongside Mailgun, offering transactional and marketing email APIs with a template editor. It targets a similar developer and marketing user base and is the closest functional peer within the same parent company.
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): Brevo is a full-stack marketing and transactional email platform competing directly with Mailgun on SMB and mid-market senders. It combines email API with marketing automation, CRM, and SMS, overlapping Mailgun on the transactional side while offering a broader adjacent product surface.
SparkPost: SparkPost provides a cloud email API and SMTP service for transactional and marketing email at hyperscale, with comparable throughput and deliverability claims. It competes with Mailgun Send and Optimize for high-volume enterprise senders and Martech platforms.
Postmark: Postmark is a developer-focused transactional email API known for fast delivery and strong inbox placement. It directly overlaps Mailgun Send on the same buyer (developers and SaaS teams) and similar use cases (password resets, notifications, confirmations), competing primarily on reliability and speed.

Emerging players

Mailtrap: Mailtrap provides email delivery, testing, and inspection infrastructure for developers, with overlap to both Mailgun Send (production sending) and Mailgun Inspect (pre-send QA). It is a smaller but rapidly growing alternative particularly strong with engineering teams.
Resend: Resend is a venture-backed developer-first transactional email API that has gained rapid traction among modern SaaS startups. It directly overlaps Mailgun Send on the developer persona, competing primarily on DX, modern defaults, and React Email-style tooling.
SocketLabs: SocketLabs offers a transactional email API, SMTP relay, and deliverability services aimed at mid-market senders. It overlaps Mailgun on core sending and Optimize-style deliverability consulting but at a smaller scale and with a primarily North American customer base.

Broad incumbents

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES): AWS SES provides transactional email sending at hyperscaler unit economics and is a frequent alternative for cost-sensitive developers. It overlaps Mailgun on core sending functionality but does not offer the same depth of deliverability consulting, Optimize suite, or domain-isolation multi-tenant tooling.

Regional players

Netcore Cloud (Pepipost / Email API): Netcore Cloud's Pepipost/Email API offers high-volume transactional email with strong presence in India and APAC. It competes with Mailgun on price-sensitive and emerging-market senders but is less established in North America and Europe.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat7 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Mailgun compliance and trust

Trust signal

Compliance6 records

Mailgun financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Mailgun leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Mailgun subsidiaries and ownership

Company hierarchy

Subsidiaries2 records

Mailgun funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors8 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Mailgun M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A1 record

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Mailgun

What does Mailgun do?

Is Mailgun a public or private company?

Mailgun is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.

When was Mailgun founded?

Mailgun was founded in 2010. It employs 101 to 250 people.

Where is Mailgun based?

Mailgun is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.

How does Mailgun make money?

Five revenue lines are on record. Transactional Email Sending (SaaS Subscription + Overage) is the primary driver. The others are email Validation Services, mailgun Optimize (Deliverability Add-on Suite), enterprise Services and mailgun Inspect (Email QA).

Who are Mailgun's main competitors?

Direct peers on record are SendGrid (Twilio), Mailjet, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), SparkPost and Postmark. Emerging players are Mailtrap, Resend and SocketLabs. Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) is listed as a broad incumbent. Netcore Cloud (Pepipost / Email API) is listed as a regional player.

Does Mailgun have an API?

Yes. Mailgun offers a public RESTful email API that enables businesses to programmatically send, receive, and track emails at scale. The API supports batch sending of up to 1,000 fully personalized emails in a single API call, email routing for parsing incoming messages in UTF-8 JSON format, webhook-based event notifications for real-time tracking (delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, complaints), and SMTP relay as an alternative to API sending. The API also includes Send Time Optimization (STO) for sending campaigns when recipients are most likely to engage. Developer documentation is at documentation.mailgun.com.

What industry is Mailgun in?

Mailgun's product category is Transactional Email API. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAFAKAB, Email Marketing Services (Campaigns, Deliverability, Lifecycle), with a secondary code of MPAAAIAA, Email Marketing Services (Campaign Strategy, Design, Deliverability). Its NAICS code is 5182 and its SIC code is 7372.