Mailgun alternative
Mailgun costs $49 a month for 2,500 verifications, metered as monthly validation allowance, overage from $1.20 per 100. SimpleVerifier is $29.99 a month with no cap on verifications, the email finder or enrichment. Both run real SMTP mailbox checks. Keep Mailgun if you send through Mailgun and want validation, inbox placement and reputation tooling on the same account as your sending.
Prices read from mailgun.com · last checked 2026-10-12
| Mailgun | SimpleVerifier | |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest route | $49/mo | $29.99/mo |
| Per year | $588 | $359.88 |
| Verification limit | Monthly validation allowance, overage from $1.20 per 100 | Unlimited |
| Real SMTP mailbox check | ||
| Re-verifying a list costs again | cached 14 days | |
| Email finder included | Varies by plan | Yes, unlimited |
What it actually costs, by list size
One pass over a list, on Mailgun’s cheapest available route versus one month of SimpleVerifier. Where Mailgun sells both a subscription and pay-as-you-go, the cheaper of the two is used.
| List size | Mailgun | SimpleVerifier | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $49.00One month of the 2,500/mo plan | $29.99 | SimpleVerifier |
| 10,000 | Not publishedPlan for this size not priced on their page | $29.99 | Unknown |
| 50,000 | Not publishedPlan for this size not priced on their page | $29.99 | Unknown |
| 100,000 | Not publishedPlan for this size not priced on their page | $29.99 | Unknown |
One pass only. Every figure in the Mailgun column recurs each time you re-verify; the SimpleVerifier column does not, because confirmed results are cached for 14 days and volume does not change the price. Adjust for your own pattern in the cost calculator.
Where Mailgun’s pricing bites
Mailgun charges $49 a month for 2,500 verifications, and past the allowance, validations are billed as overage from $1.20 per 100 on the Pilot plan, so a big list clean is mostly overage. That is not a criticism of the product — it is how per-address pricing works, and it is fine when your volume is small and steady. It stops being fine the month you acquire a list, inherit a CRM export, or want to re-check something you verified in the spring.
The reason we can price flat is narrow and worth stating plainly: a mailbox check is a DNS lookup plus a short SMTP conversation, and it costs us nothing per address. Metering it would be a pricing choice, not a cost recovery. The one feature with a genuine per-record cost — lead sourcing — does carry a published fair-use limit of 10,000 a month.
Who should stay with Mailgun
Keep Mailgun if you send through Mailgun and want validation, inbox placement and reputation tooling on the same account as your sending. A dedicated verifier replaces one part of that, not the whole thing, and switching to shave a few dollars a month while losing a workflow you depend on is a bad trade.
Test both before you decide
Do not take either vendor’s word on accuracy. Invent an address at a real domain and verify it on both. A tool doing real mailbox checks returns invalid; one checking only syntax and MX returns valid. Run the same test on any tool you are considering, ours included.
Common questions
- How much does Mailgun cost?
- Mailgun costs $49 a month for 2,500 verifications, metered as: monthly validation allowance, overage from $1.20 per 100. Prices read from mailgun.com on 2026-10-12.
- Is there a cheaper alternative to Mailgun?
- SimpleVerifier is $29.99 a month with no limit on verifications, against $49 a month for 2,500 verifications for Mailgun. Which is actually cheaper depends on your volume and how often you re-verify — past the allowance, validations are billed as overage from $1.20 per 100 on the Pilot plan, so a big list clean is mostly overage. Keep Mailgun if you send through Mailgun and want validation, inbox placement and reputation tooling on the same account as your sending.
- Should I switch from Mailgun?
- Keep Mailgun if you send through Mailgun and want validation, inbox placement and reputation tooling on the same account as your sending. Switch if your verification volume is spiky or large and you would rather pay one flat price than manage an allowance.
- Does SimpleVerifier do real SMTP mailbox checks like Mailgun?
- Yes. Every address gets a syntax check, an MX lookup and an SMTP conversation with the recipient's mail server to confirm the specific mailbox. Anything the probe cannot confirm is returned as risky rather than valid, and 8,740 disposable domains are blocked outright.
Try it against your own list
$29.99 a month, unlimited verifications and API access, cancel anytime.