Resend pricing, explained (and what the same email costs at cost)
Resend pricing comes in two separate bills. Transactional email is priced by volume: free for 3,000 a month, Pro from $20 for 50,000, Scale from $90 for 100,000, with overage from $0.90 down to $0.46 per 1,000. Marketing email (broadcasts) is priced by contacts: free up to 1,000, then $40 a month for 5,000 contacts up to $650 for 150,000.
We build SendForAI, a Resend-style API for transactional and broadcast email that passes Amazon SES through at cost. That makes us biased, so every Resend number below links to Resend's own pricing page, and there's a section on where Resend is the better choice.
Resend transactional pricing
Transactional email is one message to one person, triggered by your app: sign-in links, receipts, password resets. Resend sells it by monthly volume. Each tier includes a block of emails, and anything past it is billed in buckets of 1,000 at the tier's overage rate.
| Plan | Price / month | Emails included | Overage per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3,000 | None |
| Pro | $20 | 50,000 | $0.90 |
| Pro | $35 | 100,000 | $0.90 |
| Scale | $90 | 100,000 | $0.90 |
| Scale | $160 | 200,000 | $0.80 |
| Scale | $350 | 500,000 | $0.70 |
| Scale | $650 | 1,000,000 | $0.65 |
| Scale | $825 | 1,500,000 | $0.52 |
| Scale | $1,150 | 2,500,000 | $0.46 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Source: resend.com/pricing, read November 5, 2026.
The other limits that matter when choosing a tier:
- Daily cap: the free plan is limited to 100 emails a day. Paid plans have no daily limit.
- Domains: 3 on Free, 10 on Pro, 1,000 on Scale. Paid plans can add 100 more for $20 a month.
- Logs: 30 days of retention on Free, Pro and Scale.
- Dedicated IP: $30 a month as an add-on on Scale, for senders above 3,000 emails a day.
- Billing: monthly only. Resend has no annual plans and no annual discount.
One quirk worth knowing: overage can be cheaper than moving up a tier. At 200,000 emails a month, Pro at $35 plus 100,000 overage emails at $0.90 per 1,000 comes to $125, while the 200,000 email Scale tier is $160. You give up Scale's extra domains and the dedicated IP option to save that $35.
Resend marketing (broadcast) pricing
Broadcasts, Resend's newsletters and announcements, are billed on a separate marketing plan priced by how many contacts you store, not how many emails you send. Sends to those contacts are unlimited, and Resend confirms broadcasts don't count against your transactional allowance.
| Plan | Price / month | Contacts |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1,000 |
| Pro marketing | $40 | 5,000 |
| Pro marketing | $80 | 10,000 |
| Pro marketing | $120 | 15,000 |
| Pro marketing | $180 | 25,000 |
| Pro marketing | $250 | 50,000 |
| Pro marketing | $450 | 100,000 |
| Pro marketing | $650 | 150,000 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom |
Source: resend.com/pricing, read November 5, 2026. All paid plans also include 10,000 automation runs a month.
Contact pricing is the part that grows on its own. A list doesn't shrink when you send less, so the marketing bill tracks the size of your audience whether you email it weekly or twice a year.
What real workloads cost on Resend
Most teams send both kinds of email, so the honest number is the two bills added together. Below, each workload uses the cheapest Resend combination of plan and overage, with broadcasts sent weekly (4 a month). The SendForAI column is the same email on one bill: $20 a month includes 200,000 emails of either kind, then Amazon SES at $0.10 per 1,000.
| Workload | Transactional / mo | Contacts | Resend | SendForAI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Side project | 3,000 | None | $0 | $0 |
| Early SaaS | 10,000 | 1,000 | $20 | $20 |
| Growing SaaS | 50,000 | 10,000 | $100 | $20 |
| Newsletter-heavy | 100,000 | 25,000 | $215 | $20 |
| Scale-up | 500,000 | 50,000 | $600 | $70 |
| High volume | 1,000,000 | 100,000 | $1,100 | $172.95 |
| Transactional only, big | 2,500,000 | None | $1,150 | $304.95 |
Monthly USD, before tax. Above 1,000,000 emails a month SendForAI adds a dedicated IP ($24.95, AWS's price) and $0.02 per 1,000 on the emails over a million, both passed through at cost; those are included in the last two rows.
Run your own numbers
Resend: Pro $20 for transactional ($20), Pro marketing $80 for marketing ($80). SendForAI: 90,000 emails in total on one bill, member. Monthly prices in USD, before tax.
Why the gap is so large
Per-email pricing is where most email APIs make their margin. Amazon SES, the sending infrastructure SendForAI uses, charges $0.10 per 1,000 emails on its à la carte pricing. Resend's lowest overage rate is $0.46 per 1,000, and its Pro overage is $0.90, nine times the SES rate.
SendForAI's model is a flat membership instead of a per-email margin: $20 a month covers the product and 200,000 emails, and every email after that is billed at exactly what SES charges. Contacts are free and unlimited, so a large list costs nothing until you actually email it.
A change in SES pricing you should know about
If you plan to use SES directly, check which plan your account is on. AWS now sells SES as three plans (Essentials, Pro and Enterprise) alongside the original à la carte prices. According to the SES pricing page, new accounts with no SES activity since June 1, 2025 start on Essentials from July 21, 2026, which costs $0.16 per 1,000 for the first 10 million emails. You can switch to à la carte at $0.10 per 1,000 at any time. On either plan, attachments add $0.12 per GB.
Where Resend is the better choice
Price isn't everything, and Resend is ahead in real ways:
- A mature, finished product. Resend has React Email, a visual broadcast editor, automations, inbound email and inboxes, and years of production use. SendForAI is in early access: the API, SDK and MCP server exist, but it is a much smaller product with no template editor.
- A more generous free plan for teams. Resend's free plan includes 3 domains and 30 days of logs. SendForAI's free plan has 1 domain and 1 day of logs, and no bulk contact import.
- Dashboard-first workflows. If a person, not code or an agent, sends your newsletters, Resend's dashboard is built for that. SendForAI is API-first by design and parks every broadcast for a human to approve with one click.
Pick Resend if
- you want React Email templates and a visual editor today,
- your list is small and your volume fits the free or $20 Pro plan, or
- you need inbound email or shared inboxes.
Pick SendForAI if
- you send both transactional and broadcast email and don't want two bills,
- your contact list is growing faster than your send volume, or
- an AI agent does the sending and needs to set up, spend and ask for approval through an API.
Resend pricing FAQ
Is Resend free?
Yes, for small senders. Resend's free plan includes 3,000 transactional emails a month, capped at 100 a day, plus marketing email to up to 1,000 contacts. It includes 3 domains and 30 days of logs.
How much does Resend cost for 100,000 emails a month?
$35 a month on the Pro plan, which includes 100,000 transactional emails. The Scale plan at the same volume costs $90 and adds more domains, webhooks and the dedicated IP add-on. If those emails are newsletters to a list instead, Resend prices them by contacts on a separate marketing plan.
Does Resend charge per contact?
For marketing email, yes. Resend's marketing plans are priced by how many contacts you store: $40 a month for 5,000 contacts, rising to $650 for 150,000. Sends to those contacts are unlimited. Transactional email is priced by volume, not contacts.
What are Resend's overage rates?
Overage is billed in buckets of 1,000 emails at your plan's rate: $0.90 per 1,000 on Pro and the smallest Scale tier, falling to $0.46 per 1,000 on the 2.5 million email Scale tier. Pay-as-you-go has to be switched on in team settings.
Do Resend broadcasts count against transactional limits?
No. Resend says emails sent through the Broadcasts API or dashboard do not count toward transactional limits; only emails sent through the /emails API do. Broadcasts are covered by the marketing plan instead.
Does Resend offer annual pricing?
No. Resend's self-serve plans are billed monthly only, with no annual discount. Registered nonprofits can apply for 50% off paid plans.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Resend?
Amazon SES on its own is the cheapest option at $0.10 per 1,000 emails, but you build everything else yourself. SendForAI runs on SES and passes it through at that price: $20 a month includes 200,000 transactional and broadcast emails with unlimited contacts. Resend still wins on maturity and tooling, covered above.
Sources and method
Resend prices: resend.com/pricing, read November 5, 2026. Amazon SES prices: aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing, read November 5, 2026. SendForAI prices: /v1/pricing. Workload costs use the cheapest Resend plan for each volume, including overage where that is cheaper than the next tier, and assume broadcasts go to the whole list 4 times a month. Prices change; we re-check this page against both sources when we update it. Spot an error? hello@sendforai.com.