The best ongoing free SMTP allowances in July 2026 are Brevo's 300 emails per day and Mailgun's 100 messages per day. Personal Gmail allows up to 500 daily messages or recipients, but it is a mailbox service rather than a bulk-delivery platform. SendGrid currently promotes a free trial without a stable public daily allowance, while Amazon SES ended its separate SES free tier for new customers on July 21, 2026.
Free plans change frequently. The figures below were checked on official vendor pages on July 22, 2026.
Free SMTP services compared
| Service | Free allowance | SMTP | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | 300 sends/day, ongoing | Yes | Unused daily sends do not roll over |
| Mailgun | 100 messages/day, ongoing | Yes | One custom domain and one-day log retention |
| Personal Gmail | 500 messages or recipients/day | Yes | Normal mailbox use; not designed for bulk campaigns |
| SendGrid | Free trial; verify the current console offer | Yes | Public trial terms can vary |
| Amazon SES | No SES-specific free tier for new users | Yes | New AWS accounts may apply general AWS credits |
| Bulko | 500 one-time email credits on signup | Managed SMTP pool | Not an ongoing free tier; paid packs start at $5 |
What “free SMTP” can mean
Providers use the word free for different offers: a permanent daily allowance, a time-limited trial, general cloud credits, or one-time test credits. Compare the duration as well as the message count. Also check whether a plan permits your traffic type, supports a custom domain, retains logs, handles bounces, and requires a card.
1. Brevo: 300 emails per day
Brevo's Free plan includes 300 sends each day and storage for up to 100,000 contacts. The allowance resets daily and unused volume does not roll over. It supports campaigns and transactional email, making it the clearest ongoing free option in this comparison.
Best for prototypes, small subscribed newsletters, and low-volume transactional notifications. A campaign larger than 300 recipients must be split across days or moved to a paid plan.
2. Mailgun: 100 messages per day
Mailgun's Free plan provides 100 messages per day, one verified custom domain, email analytics, one day of log retention, and API or SMTP sending. Mailgun states that the plan does not require a credit card.
It is useful for development, staging, and a small production workload. The low daily ceiling and short log retention become constraints when an application grows.
Official Mailgun Email API page
3. Gmail SMTP: free mailbox submission
A personal Gmail account can send up to 500 messages or recipients per day through Google's services. That quota is intended for ordinary mailbox activity. Google can restrict abusive sending, and reaching 500 does not mean that 500 campaign emails are safe.
Use Gmail SMTP for personal applications, tests, and low-volume human correspondence. For the full distinction between personal and Workspace accounts, see the Gmail sending limits guide.
4. SendGrid: confirm the current trial
Twilio SendGrid currently advertises a free trial and SMTP/API access, but its public pages do not present a stable universal daily allowance that should be quoted as a permanent free plan. Check the offer shown during signup rather than relying on older articles that promise 100 emails per day indefinitely.
SendGrid remains relevant for developers who want API, SMTP, event webhooks, templates, and a migration path to paid transactional sending.
Official SendGrid product page
5. Amazon SES: no separate free tier for new users
On July 21, 2026, AWS ended the SES-specific allowance of 3,000 monthly message charges for new customers. New AWS customers can receive up to $200 in general AWS Free Tier credits for six months and apply eligible credits to SES. Existing users already inside the previous 12-month SES free period keep that benefit until their period ends.
SES is therefore a low-cost pay-as-you-go service, not an ongoing free SMTP server for new accounts. It also requires domain verification and starts new accounts in a restricted sandbox until production access is approved.
How to choose a free SMTP service
- Traffic type: transactional, subscribed marketing, or one-to-one business email;
- Duration: permanent allowance, trial period, or one-time credits;
- Authentication: custom-domain SPF, DKIM, and DMARC support;
- Operations: bounce handling, suppressions, webhooks, and log retention;
- Scale: paid price and migration work after the free allowance;
- Policy: whether the provider permits the intended content and recipients.
Free SMTP does not guarantee deliverability
The port, price, and account quota do not determine inbox placement by themselves. Authenticate the domain, validate addresses, send expected content, process bounces and opt-outs, and monitor complaints. Never use a free tier to evade a provider block or spread one campaign across accounts deceptively.
When pay-as-you-go is a better fit
A daily free tier works for a steady small workload. It is awkward for a campaign that needs 5,000 messages this week and none next month. Bulko supplies a managed pre-warmed SMTP pool with one-time packs: 5,000 emails cost $5, and credits do not expire.
