Transactional and marketing.
My default
One tool in this layer.
My email service. Transactional and marketing on one platform, built for developers and agents.
Pricing: Transactional: $20 a month for 10k emails, $35 for 100k, $650 for 1M. Marketing: $40 a month for 5k contacts, $180 for 25k, $450 for 100k.
Use when it fits
One tool in this layer.
The cheapest email at volume, and the only one that keeps data in Sydney. The sandbox is a pain.
Pricing: New accounts default to the Essentials plan at $0.16 per 1,000 emails (since 21 July 2026); the à la carte rate of $0.10 per 1,000 can still be selected. Same rates in Sydney. Attachments add $0.12/GB, a dedicated IP $24.95 a month.
Skip
One tool in this layer.
The best deliverability reputation, but no marketing platform, no idempotency and unsigned webhooks. I picked Resend.
Pricing: $15 a month for 10k emails, $115 for 100k, $775 for 1M. Those are Basic tiers (the $775 tier covers up to 1.5M); Pro, with inbound processing and longer retention, costs about 10% more. Dedicated IPs from $50 a month, only above 300k emails a month.
Instead: Resend: transactional and marketing on one platform, with idempotency keys and signed webhooks.
Never
One tool in this layer.
Reaches end of support on 30 October 2026. Don't start anything on it.
Pricing: Not open to new customers since 20 May 2025.
Instead: Resend, for transactional and marketing email on one platform.
Where they're used
The jobs that pick or avoid a tool from this layer.
Want this stack in your AWS account?
Cloudless Labs is a Sydney consultancy. We migrate on-premises systems to AWS, build serverless apps on this stack, and coach teams to ship with Claude Code and Codex.