--- title: "Reloop vs Resend (2026): Pricing, Features and Which to Choose" description: "Reloop vs Resend compared honestly: pricing at 3k to 250k emails a month, developer experience, inbound and agent inboxes, deliverability, self-hosting and lock-in, plus how to switch." canonical: "https://reloop.sh/blog/reloop-vs-resend" last-updated: "2026-10-25" --- # Reloop vs Resend (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 Resend compared honestly: pricing at 3k to 250k emails a month, developer experience, inbound and agent inboxes, deliverability, self-hosting and lock-in, plus how to switch. Source: https://reloop.sh/blog/reloop-vs-resend Published: 2026-10-25 **Reloop and Resend feel almost the same to code against.** Both give you a clean REST API, a small SDK, React Email support, webhooks and SMTP. The differences are underneath: **Reloop costs about half as much at 50k emails and under a quarter as much at 100k, receives mail into real inboxes your agents can reply from, and is open source, so you can run it yourself.** Resend is the more established hosted product with a larger ecosystem. We build Reloop, so weigh this accordingly. Every price below is from the public pricing pages, and where Resend is the better pick, we say so. --- ## The 30-second comparison | | **Reloop** | **Resend** | |---|---|---| | Free tier | 3,000 / mo, 100 / day | 3,000 / mo, 100 / day | | 50,000 emails / mo | **$10** | $20 | | 100,000 emails / mo | **$20** | $90 | | Overage per 1,000 | **$0.50** | $0.90 | | Dedicated IP | Included on Growth ($20) | Scale plan and up | | Open source | Yes (Apache 2.0) | No | | Self-host | Yes | No | | Sending path | Own MTA (KumoMTA) | Amazon SES | | Inbound email | Mailboxes with threads, API, MCP, IMAP | Webhook per message | | Agent inbox | Yes | No | | Contacts and broadcasts | Yes | Yes | | Automations | Yes | Limited | | React Email | Yes | Yes (they created it) | | SMTP relay | Yes | Yes | Resend's prices are from [resend.com/pricing](https://resend.com/pricing). Reloop's are on [reloop.sh/pricing](/pricing). Both change; check before you commit. --- ## Pricing at real volumes Both free tiers are identical: 3,000 emails a month, capped at 100 a day. The gap opens the moment you pay. | Monthly volume | Reloop | Resend | Difference per year | |---|---|---|---| | 3,000 | $0 | $0 | $0 | | 50,000 | $10 | $20 | $120 | | 100,000 | $20 | $90 | **$840** | | 150,000 | $20 + $25 overage = $45 | $90 + $45 overage = $135 | $1,080 | Two things drive the difference: - **Reloop has a $10 tier.** Resend's first paid plan is $20 for 50k. - **Reloop's 100k plan is $20, Resend's is $90.** Above that, extra mail costs $0.50 per 1,000 on Reloop vs $0.90 on Resend. 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. --- ## Developer experience This is where the two are closest. Resend set the bar for a modern email API, and Reloop's API follows the same shape on purpose. **Resend** ```typescript const resend = new Resend(process.env.RESEND_API_KEY); const { data, error } = await resend.emails.send({ from: "Acme ", to: "user@example.com", subject: "Welcome", html: "

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.

", }); ``` Both return errors as values instead of throwing. A few differences worth knowing: | | Reloop | Resend | |---|---|---| | Error format | `message`, `why` and `fix` | `name` and `message` | | Field style | `reply_to`, `scheduled_at` (snake_case) | `replyTo`, `scheduledAt` (camelCase in Node) | | Idempotent retries | `Idempotency-Key` header | `Idempotency-Key` header | | Stored templates | Yes, sent by ID with `{{{variables}}}` | Yes | | React Email | Pass a component or rendered HTML | Pass a component or rendered HTML | | Official SDKs | Node, Python, Go, PHP, Ruby, Rust, Java, .NET, Elixir | Most major languages | Reloop's error shape is our one strong opinion here. When a send fails, the error tells you **why** it failed and **how to fix it**, so you rarely need to open the docs: ```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" } ``` Resend's docs and onboarding are excellent, and its ecosystem of examples and integrations is larger. That's a real advantage if your team leans heavily on copy-paste examples. --- ## Receiving email and agent inboxes This is the biggest functional difference. **Resend** can receive email on your domain and deliver each message to your webhook. What you do with it after that (storage, threading, replies) is up to you. **Reloop** receives mail into **mailboxes**. 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 | Resend | |---|---|---| | Receive on your domain | Yes | Yes | | Stored mailboxes with threads | Yes | No | | Reply in thread via API | Yes | Build it yourself | | Inbound spam scoring | Yes (Rspamd) | Not documented | | MCP access for agents | Yes | Not for inboxes | | IMAP access | Yes | No | --- ## Marketing, contacts and automations Both products now go beyond transactional mail. - **Resend** has Audiences and Broadcasts for sending newsletters and announcements to a contact list. - **Reloop** has 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 want onboarding or dunning sequences without adding another tool, Reloop covers that. See [welcome sequences that convert](/blog/welcome-email-sequences-that-convert) for a worked example. Neither offers A/B testing on campaigns today. --- ## Deliverability Deliverability mostly comes down to your own domain setup and list hygiene. Both providers handle the fundamentals: SPF, DKIM, DMARC guidance, bounce and complaint events, open and click tracking, and suppression of bad addresses. The differences: - **Sending path.** Resend sends through Amazon SES. Reloop runs its own MTA (KumoMTA), with per-domain throttling and automatic pauses when bounce or complaint rates spike. Read [how bounce processing works](/blog/email-bounce-processing-automation). - **Dedicated IPs.** Reloop includes one on Growth ($20/mo). On Resend, dedicated IPs start on the Scale plan. - **Tools.** Reloop ships free [domain reputation](/tools/domain-reputation-checker), [blocklist](/tools/blocklist-checker) and [auth](/tools/auth-checker) checkers you can run before you send. --- ## Self-hosting and lock-in Resend is hosted-only. Your templates, logs, contacts and suppression lists live in Resend'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 Resend is the better choice Being honest about it: - **You want the most established hosted API** with the largest set of community examples, and you'll stay well under 50k emails a month where the price gap is small. - **Your team is already on Resend** and happy. Migrating for a $10/month difference isn't worth the DNS work. ## Where Reloop is the better choice - **You're past 50k emails a month** and cost matters. - **You need inbound mail as real inboxes**, especially for AI agents. - **You want transactional mail, campaigns and automations** in one product with one suppression list. - **You need open source or self-hosting** for compliance, residency or peace of mind. --- ## Switching from Resend to Reloop Because the APIs are so similar, most of the work is DNS. 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. **Swap the client.** Replace `resend.emails.send` with `reloop.mail.send`, and rename `replyTo` → `reply_to` and `scheduledAt` → `scheduled_at`. 3. **Move templates.** Change placeholders to triple braces: `{{{first_name}}}`. 4. **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. 5. **Ramp traffic** from 10% to 100% over a week or two, then remove Resend's DNS records. Our [SendGrid migration guide](/blog/migrating-from-sendgrid) covers the same steps in more detail, including a traffic-split flag and a suppression import script that work just as well when coming from Resend. --- ## FAQ Close. The send payload has the same fields, with snake_case names (`reply_to`, `scheduled_at`). Most migrations are a client swap, a few field renames, and new DNS records. Yes. Pass the rendered HTML as `html`, or pass the component to the SDK's `react` field. Your existing React Email components don't need to change. Yes: 3,000 emails a month with a 100-a-day cap on both. The difference starts with paid plans: $10 vs $20 for 50k, and $20 vs $90 for 100k. No. Resend is a hosted service only. Reloop can run on your own server under the Apache 2.0 license. For most senders, neither will be the deciding factor. Your SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup, list quality and sending patterns matter far more. Fix those first with our [authentication guide](/blog/spf-dkim-dmarc-setup-guide).