--- title: "Reloop vs Postmark (2026): Pricing, Features and Which to Choose" description: "Reloop vs Postmark compared honestly: pricing at 10k to 100k emails a month, deliverability and message streams, developer experience, inbound mailboxes, campaigns, self-hosting and how to switch." canonical: "https://reloop.sh/blog/reloop-vs-postmark" last-updated: "2026-10-25" --- # Reloop vs Postmark (2026): Pricing, Features and Which to Choose > For the site documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). Docs index: [llms-docs.txt](/llms-docs.txt). Marketing corpus: [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt). Docs corpus: [llms-full-docs.txt](/llms-full-docs.txt). Product skill: [skill.md](/skill.md). Prefer markdown URLs (append `.md`) when available. > Reloop vs Postmark compared honestly: pricing at 10k to 100k emails a month, deliverability and message streams, developer experience, inbound mailboxes, campaigns, self-hosting and how to switch. Source: https://reloop.sh/blog/reloop-vs-postmark Published: 2026-10-25 **Postmark is the deliverability specialist. Reloop is the full platform at a fraction of the price.** Postmark has spent over a decade doing one thing well: getting password resets and receipts into the inbox fast. **Reloop sends the same transactional mail for $10 at 50k emails a month, adds inbound mailboxes, campaigns and automations, and is open source, so you can run it yourself.** We build Reloop, so weigh this accordingly. Every Postmark price below is from [postmarkapp.com/pricing](https://postmarkapp.com/pricing), and where Postmark is the better pick, we say so. --- ## The 30-second comparison | | **Reloop** | **Postmark** | |---|---|---| | Free tier | 3,000 / mo, 100 / day | 100 / mo, never expires | | Entry paid plan | **$10 for 50,000** | $15 for 10,000 (Basic) | | Overage per 1,000 | **$0.50** | $1.80 (Basic), $1.30 (Pro) | | Dedicated IP | Included on Growth ($20) | $50 / mo per IP, from 300k / mo | | Traffic separation | Separate domains and subdomains | Message streams | | Inbound email | Mailboxes with threads, API, MCP, IMAP | Webhook (Pro and up) | | Agent inbox | Yes | No | | Campaigns and automations | Yes | Broadcast streams | | Open source | Yes (Apache 2.0) | No | | Self-host | Yes | No | | SMTP relay | Yes | Yes | Reloop's prices are on [reloop.sh/pricing](/pricing). Both change; check before you commit. --- ## Pricing at real volumes The free tiers aren't close. Postmark's developer plan gives you 100 emails a month, enough to test an integration. Reloop's gives you 3,000, enough to run a small app in production. Paid plans diverge quickly too. Postmark's Basic plan is $15 for 10,000 emails, and every extra 1,000 costs $1.80. Reloop's Pro plan is $10 for 50,000. | Monthly volume | Reloop | Postmark Basic (list price + overage) | |---|---|---| | 3,000 | $0 | $15 | | 10,000 | $10 | $15 | | 50,000 | **$10** | $15 + $72 overage = $87 | | 100,000 | **$20** | $15 + $162 overage = $177 | Postmark's Pro and Platform plans lower overage to $1.30 and $1.20 per 1,000, and Postmark prices higher volumes in tiers, so use [their calculator](https://postmarkapp.com/pricing) for an exact figure at your volume. Even on the cheaper tiers, the gap per extra 1,000 emails is more than 2× ($0.50 vs $1.20 or more). Dedicated IPs follow the same pattern. Postmark offers them at $50 a month per IP for senders above 300,000 emails a month. Reloop includes one on the $20 Growth plan. And if you self-host Reloop, there's no per-email fee at all. You pay for the server. See [self-hosted email infrastructure](/blog/self-hosted-email-infrastructure) for what that really involves. Price the volume you expect in a year, not today's. Moving providers later means re-verifying DNS and rebuilding reputation, so pick the one that still makes sense at 10× your current volume. --- ## Deliverability and message streams This is Postmark's home ground, and it deserves the credit. Postmark has been **transactional-first for over a decade**. It's known for fast, reliable delivery of the emails people are actively waiting for. Its main tool for protecting that is **message streams**: transactional and broadcast mail go through separate streams, so a newsletter with a high complaint rate can't drag down your password resets. Basic includes up to 15 streams. Postmark also has a clear bounce taxonomy and good activity logs. Reloop protects reputation in a different way: - **Own MTA.** Reloop runs its own mail transfer agent (KumoMTA), with per-domain throttling and automatic pauses when bounce or complaint rates spike. Read [how bounce processing works](/blog/email-bounce-processing-automation). - **Separation by domain.** Send transactional mail from `mail.acme.com` and campaigns from `news.acme.com`. Each subdomain builds its own reputation, which gives you the same isolation as separate streams. - **One suppression list** across transactional, campaigns and automations, so a hard bounce in one is respected everywhere. - **Dedicated IP on Growth** at $20 a month. - **Free tools** for [domain reputation](/tools/domain-reputation-checker), [blocklists](/tools/blocklist-checker) and [authentication](/tools/auth-checker) you can run before you send. Inbox placement still comes down mostly to your own setup: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, list hygiene and sending patterns. Get those right with our [authentication guide](/blog/spf-dkim-dmarc-setup-guide) and both providers will reach the inbox. Postmark's advantage is a longer track record. Reloop's is that you get dedicated infrastructure at a price small teams can afford. --- ## Developer experience Both APIs are straightforward. Postmark's uses PascalCase fields; Reloop's uses the common lowercase shape. **Postmark** ```typescript const client = new postmark.ServerClient(process.env.POSTMARK_SERVER_TOKEN!); await client.sendEmail({ From: "hello@acme.com", To: "user@example.com", Subject: "Welcome", HtmlBody: "

Thanks for signing up.

", }); ``` **Reloop** ```typescript const reloop = new Reloop({ apiKey: process.env.RELOOP_API_KEY! }); const { response, emailError } = await reloop.mail.send({ from: "Acme ", to: "user@example.com", subject: "Welcome", html: "

Thanks for signing up.

", }); ``` The differences worth knowing: | | Reloop | Postmark | |---|---|---| | Auth | API key (`x-api-key`) | Server token per server | | Field style | `from`, `html`, `reply_to` | `From`, `HtmlBody`, `ReplyTo` | | Errors | Returned as values with `message`, `why` and `fix` | Thrown, with an error code and message | | Stored templates | Yes, `{{{variables}}}` | Yes, Mustachio syntax | | React Email | Pass a component or rendered HTML | Pass rendered HTML | | Official SDKs | Node, Python, Go, PHP, Ruby, Rust, Java, .NET, Elixir | Most major languages | Reloop's errors explain themselves. When a send fails, you get **why** and **how to fix it**: ```json { "message": "Domain not found", "why": "The domain mail.acme.com was not found or is not authorized for your organization", "fix": "Ensure the domain is registered and verified in your dashboard" } ``` Postmark's docs are mature and its support team is widely praised. If you value a human answering quickly when something goes wrong, that counts. --- ## Receiving email and agent inboxes **Postmark** can parse inbound email and post each message to your webhook as JSON. Inbound processing needs the Pro plan or above. Storage, threading and replies are up to you. **Reloop** receives mail into **mailboxes** on every plan. Messages are stored, threaded, spam-scored with Rspamd, and readable over the API, the [MCP server](/docs/integrations/ai-tools/mcp-server) or IMAP. You can reply in-thread with one call, and there's an `email.received` webhook if you want push notifications too. That matters if you're building: - **AI agents that handle email.** Give an agent its own address, let it read the thread and reply. See [build an AI agent that reads and replies to email](/blog/build-ai-agent-sends-emails). - **Support or shared inboxes** where humans and agents work the same threads. - **Reply handling** for transactional mail ("reply to this email to comment"). | | Reloop | Postmark | |---|---|---| | Receive on your domain | Yes, every plan | Yes, Pro and up | | Stored mailboxes with threads | Yes | No | | Reply in thread via API | Yes | Build it yourself | | Inbound spam scoring | Yes (Rspamd) | Spam score in the payload | | MCP access for agents | Yes | No | | IMAP access | Yes | No | --- ## Marketing, contacts and automations Postmark is deliberately focused. It supports broadcast messages through a separate broadcast stream, but it isn't a marketing platform: there's no contact database with segments, and no automation builder. Reloop includes contacts with custom properties, groups, subscription channels, broadcast campaigns with scheduling, and **event-triggered automations**: delays, conditions and email steps that run when your app tracks an event like `user.signed_up`. If you'd otherwise pair Postmark with a separate marketing tool, Reloop replaces both with one API key and one suppression list. See [welcome sequences that convert](/blog/welcome-email-sequences-that-convert) for a worked example. Neither offers A/B testing on campaigns today. --- ## Self-hosting and lock-in Postmark is hosted-only. Your templates, logs and suppression lists live in Postmark's database. Reloop is Apache 2.0. You can: 1. Start on Reloop Cloud. 2. Move to your own server later with the [one-command installer](/self-host) or [Coolify](/blog/reloop-coolify-setup). 3. Keep the same API. Point the SDK's `baseUrl` at your instance and nothing else in your code changes. That's useful for data residency (EU-only, on-prem), for security reviews that need to read the code handling your users' mail, and as insurance against price changes or account suspensions. Self-hosting isn't free in effort. You own IP reputation, warm-up and uptime. Most teams should start hosted and treat self-hosting as an option, not a requirement. --- ## Where Postmark is the better choice Being honest about it: - **A late password reset costs you real money**, and you want the provider with the longest transactional-only track record, whatever it costs. - **You send a small, steady volume** (around 10,000 a month) where $15 vs $10 doesn't matter, and you value Postmark's support. - **Your team is already on Postmark** and happy. Migrating to save a few dollars a month isn't worth the DNS work. ## Where Reloop is the better choice - **You send more than 10,000 emails a month** and cost matters. At 50k, Reloop is $10; Postmark Basic with overage is $87. - **You want a usable free tier**: 3,000 a month instead of 100. - **You need inbound mail as real inboxes**, especially for AI agents, without upgrading to a higher plan. - **You want transactional mail, campaigns and automations** in one product with one suppression list. - **You want a dedicated IP** without sending 300,000 emails a month. - **You need open source or self-hosting** for compliance, residency or peace of mind. --- ## Switching from Postmark to Reloop Most of the work is DNS and field names. 1. **Add your domain in Reloop** and publish the DKIM record (`reloop._domainkey`). Merge `include:reloop.sh` into your existing SPF record. Don't add a second SPF record. 2. **Map streams to domains.** Send what was your transactional stream from one subdomain (`mail.acme.com`) and your broadcast stream from another (`news.acme.com`). 3. **Swap the client.** Replace `client.sendEmail` with `reloop.mail.send` and rename fields: `From` → `from`, `To` → `to`, `Subject` → `subject`, `HtmlBody` → `html`, `TextBody` → `text`, `ReplyTo` → `reply_to`. 4. **Move templates.** Change placeholders to triple braces: `{{{first_name}}}`. 5. **Import suppressions.** Export hard bounces and spam complaints from Postmark and add them to Reloop so you don't re-send to bad addresses. 6. **Point webhooks** at a new handler. Reloop events are named `email.delivered`, `email.bounced`, `email.complained` and so on, and are signed with HMAC-SHA256 in the `Reloop-Signature` header. 7. **Ramp traffic** from 10% to 100% over a week or two, watching bounce and complaint rates, then remove Postmark's DNS records. Our [SendGrid migration guide](/blog/migrating-from-sendgrid) covers these steps in more detail, including a traffic-split flag and a suppression import script that work just as well when coming from Postmark. --- ## FAQ Yes, at almost every volume. Reloop is $10 for 50,000 emails and $20 for 100,000. Postmark Basic is $15 for 10,000, then $1.80 per extra 1,000. Reloop's overage is $0.50 per 1,000. Reloop separates traffic by sending domain. Use one subdomain for transactional mail and another for campaigns, and each builds its own reputation. Suppressions are shared, so a bounce in one is respected in the other. Yes. Inbound mailboxes work on every plan, including free. On Postmark, inbound processing needs the Pro plan or above. No. Postmark is a hosted service only. Reloop can run on your own server under the Apache 2.0 license. Postmark has the longer track record for transactional mail. For most senders, though, your SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup, list quality and sending patterns matter far more than the provider. Fix those first with our [authentication guide](/blog/spf-dkim-dmarc-setup-guide).