Resend is a developer-focused email API for transactional and marketing email. See 2026 pricing, features, pros and cons, and FAQs in this in-depth review.
Resend is an email API and SMTP platform built specifically for developers, founded in 2022 and headquartered in San Francisco. It combines a RESTful API, SMTP relay, official SDKs, and the React Email component library into a single toolkit for sending both transactional and marketing email from modern application stacks.
Backed by notable angel investors from Figma, Vercel, and Supabase, and later an Andreessen Horowitz-led Series A, Resend has grown into a widely used alternative to legacy email service providers, particularly among teams already working in JavaScript and TypeScript.
Resend's core feature set covers the full transactional email lifecycle: a RESTful API and SMTP relay for sending, inbound email parsing for receiving, batch sending for volume, and webhooks and open/click tracking for monitoring delivery and engagement.
Deliverability is handled through built-in DKIM, SPF, and DMARC authentication, multi-region sending infrastructure, and optional dedicated IPs on higher tiers, while security and compliance are covered by SOC 2 Type II certification, GDPR compliance, multi-factor authentication, and granular API key permissions.
Resend uses a freemium, usage-based pricing model split across four tiers. The Free plan covers 3,000 emails per month (100/day, 1 domain). Pro costs $20/month for 50,000 emails or $35/month for 100,000 emails. Scale ranges from $90 to $1,150/month for 100,000 to 2.5 million emails, adding dedicated IPs, 1,000 domains, and Slack support. Enterprise is custom-priced for 3M+ emails per month.
A separate marketing email track bills by number of contacts rather than emails sent, running from roughly $40/month up to $650/month depending on list size for teams sending newsletters and broadcasts through the same account.
Yes, Resend offers a free tier covering 3,000 emails per month, capped at 100 emails per day on one domain.
Resend is used to send transactional email (receipts, password resets, OTPs) and marketing broadcasts from applications via API or SMTP.
Yes, Resend created and maintains React Email and offers native integration for building emails as React components.
Paid plans start at $20/month for Pro (50,000 emails), scaling up to $1,150/month for Scale (2.5 million emails), with custom Enterprise pricing above that.
Yes, alongside its REST API, Resend offers a standard SMTP relay for sending email.
Resend was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Yes, dedicated IPs are available as a $30/month add-on for Scale plan customers sending more than 3,000 emails per day.
Yes, Resend holds SOC 2 Type II certification and is GDPR compliant.