Question 1

What is a Mailgun alternative?

Accepted Answer

Any other route to getting your application mail delivered. That takes in rival platforms such as Postmark, SendGrid and Amazon SES, and it also takes in managed services like this one, where somebody runs the sending for you rather than handing you an account and a link to the documentation.

Question 2

How is Cascadia different from Mailgun?

Accepted Answer

Mailgun sells you a platform and a plan tier. We sell you the work that has to happen around one. The sending domain, the authentication records, the warmup schedule, the template testing and the monthly delivery numbers are ours to get right and ours to explain when they slip. Nobody on your side logs into anything.

Question 3

How does the pricing compare?

Accepted Answer

In their favour. At 25,000 messages a month Mailgun Foundation is $35 and we are $60. Their Basic plan is $15 but only covers 10,000 emails, and the remaining 15,000 at their published overage from $1.80 per thousand carries it past $40. They are cheaper and we are not going to dress that up. What you are choosing between is a platform you operate and a service that operates one for you.

Question 4

At what volume does Mailgun become cheaper?

Accepted Answer

That turns on plan rather than volume. Our overage is a dollar per additional thousand, and Mailgun publishes theirs from $1.30 per thousand on Foundation and from $1.10 on Scale, so on marginal messages we are not the expensive option. Where Mailgun wins outright is at the bottom: a free plan at 100 a day and a $15 Basic tier, neither of which we have an answer to. Under about 10,000 messages a month Mailgun is cheaper, and we would tell you so.

Question 5

What support does Mailgun include?

Accepted Answer

That depends which plan was bought. Ticket support on Free and Basic, chat from Foundation upwards, and phone support only on Scale at $90 a month. Here there is one price and one level of support, because the support is the product rather than a tier of it.

Question 6

How far back can I look at what was sent?

Accepted Answer

On Mailgun that is a plan question. Basic retains one day of logs, Foundation retains five, and thirty days requires the Scale plan. We keep your delivery history and answer questions against it as part of the service, which reads like a detail right up until the first time somebody asks about a message from last month.

Question 7

Do I need a dedicated IP?

Accepted Answer

In our view most senders under a few hundred thousand messages a month do not, because a dedicated IP without enough volume behind it builds reputation slowly and can perform worse than a well run shared pool. Mailgun includes one on Foundation at 100k and above and on Scale, and sells additional IPs at $59 a month each. We make that call on your actual volume rather than on what is easy to add to a bill.

Question 8

Can you move me off Mailgun without downtime?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The new sending path is built and tested alongside the one you are running, and the application only switches once messages are landing. Nothing gets turned off before the replacement is demonstrably working.

Question 9

Will my emails still go out during warmup?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Warming governs how quickly volume climbs on the new domain, not whether mail goes out at all. Plan on two to three weeks to reach full volume, and expect us to tell you where you are in that ramp rather than leaving you to work it out.

Question 10

What if my domain reputation is already damaged?

Accepted Answer

That is a repair job rather than a setup job, and it runs longer. We audit what is actually published, correct the records, file delisting requests anywhere the domain has been flagged, and clear out the addresses driving the bounces. Where the damage accumulated across years, expect several weeks before the numbers settle.

Question 11

Does this replace Mailgun or sit on top of it?

Accepted Answer

It replaces the part you were operating. We own the sending path end to end, which leaves no platform account for anyone on your team to administer and no second invoice arriving to be reconciled against the first.

Question 12

Can I keep my existing templates?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Anything built in Mailgun's template builder gets rebuilt on the new path, and every template is sent and read during setup rather than assumed to render. The ones that break tend to be the oldest, the ones nobody has opened since they were written.

Question 13

What happens to my suppression list?

Accepted Answer

It moves with you. A list of addresses that have bounced or complained is worth real money in reputation terms, and starting without it means spending your first day at full volume mailing addresses you already knew were bad.

Question 14

Is this only for WordPress and WooCommerce sites?

Accepted Answer

No, though they are the common case. Anything that can send down an authenticated path can be routed, and the work on our side looks much the same whether the mail leaves a WordPress site, a custom application, or both at once.

Question 15

How quickly does setup start?

Accepted Answer

Records go up within a day or two of DNS access, and templates are usually finished inside the same week. Warming sets the real timeline, so the honest answer to when it is all done is two to three weeks.

Question 16

What if I want to leave?

Accepted Answer

Thirty days notice ends it, and everything is portable. The DNS records sat on your domain throughout because they were always yours. Templates, suppression list and sending history come back in a standard format, and we will tell you what to point the site at next so the mail does not simply stop.

A Mailgun Alternative For Teams Who Would Rather Not Run One

The dashboard is green, so nobody looks

Your support tier was a pricing decision

The log window is shorter than the question

Cascadia

Without Cascadia

Deliverability is our job, not yours

SPF, DKIM and DMARC published and kept aligned

Sending subdomain warmed before live traffic depends on it

Application mail routed and every template tested

Bounce and complaint rates watched on your behalf

A straight answer about one recipient, on request

Delivery history kept and searchable without building it

Existing reputation damage audited and repaired

Support included at the entry price

One monthly price covering the platform and the work

Where Mailgun fits

Where Cascadia goes further

Where Mailgun is strong

Where our service is stronger

Moving your sending off Mailgun in four steps

We read what is published today

We publish records and stand up the subdomain

We route the mail and read every template

Volume climbs while we watch it

Don't Take Our Word For It

A receipt that stopped arriving three weeks ago

A domain that went live without a warmup

Delivered rate we hold to

Thousand delivered emails inside the monthly price

Weeks the warmup usually runs

Mailgun alternative and managed transactional email FAQs

Ask Us Anything