Best for
Best for individual writers and small publishers who want a plain newsletter with paid subscriptions and an API, without a marketing suite around it.
Email Marketing Comparison
Buttondown vs. Mailgun
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for engineering teams sending at high volume that need an API and SMTP relay, with the option of an EU data centre.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Buttondown | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | lower value Free up to 100 subscribers; Basic from USD 9 / month Basic covers up to 1,000 active subscribers. Annual billing costs ten times the monthly price. Automations, sponsorships and multiple newsletters need the USD 29 tier or above, teams and whitelabeling the USD 79 tier. Prices assume at most one email a day to the whole list. Registered non-profits get 50 % off. | Free tier; Basic from $15 / month Basic $15 per month for 10,000 emails, Foundation $35 for 50,000 and Scale $90 for 100,000, then Enterprise on request. Overage is $1.80 per 1,000 on Basic and Foundation and $1.10 on Scale. Foundation and Scale are free for the first month. |
| Free trial | Free plan for up to 100 subscribers | Free tier: 100 emails per day |
| API | Yes, a REST API with webhooks on every plan, including Free | Yes, RESTful email API and SMTP relay, with official SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, Node.js and Go |
| Hosting | Cloud (SaaS) | Cloud (SaaS), with data centres in the US and the EU |
| Campaign types | Newsletters and one-off emails, RSS-to-email from an existing blog, automated sequences, surveys, comments and sponsorship slots, plus hosted web archives that can be paywalled | Transactional and bulk sending over the RESTful API or the SMTP relay, batch sending of up to 1,000 personalised messages per call, scheduled messages, and inbound routing that parses received mail into UTF-8 JSON |
| Automation and journeys | Automations triggered by events such as a subscriber confirming or a tag being added, filtered by tag or by paid status, with actions to send an email, add a tag, call a webhook or cross-post to social networks, each after a set delay; available from the USD 29 tier | No journey builder. Sends are triggered by your own application, with message scheduling and Send Time Optimization placing individual messages when a recipient is most likely to engage. |
| Segmentation and personalisation | Tags, searchable subscriber metadata, free versus paid targeting and separate newsletters per audience; per-subscriber content through Django-style template variables and filters. Tagging and segmentation start on the USD 9 tier | Per-recipient personalisation through batch sending, which substitutes recipient variables for up to 1,000 addresses in a single API call; mailing lists are documented in the user manual. |
| Templates and editor | Rich text or Markdown editor with four email themes, custom HTML and CSS, reusable snippets, and drafting by email or through the Buttondown CLI | Reusable templates, documented in the user manual alongside mailing lists, batch sending and scheduling; there is no drag-and-drop campaign designer in the sending product |
| Deliverability and testing | Sending from your own domain, pre-send checks on subject length, word count and email size, double opt-in, and a dedicated IP for USD 50 / month for senders above 100,000 emails a month. Gmail does not report spam complaints back, so the docs point to Google Postmaster Tools | Authentication covers SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI, with suppression management and an email validation API. Deeper tooling sits in Mailgun Optimize, priced separately: inbox placement testing down to the tab or folder, blocklist and spam trap monitoring with Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS integration, preview rendering on 100+ devices and clients, and deliverability consulting. One dedicated IP is included from Foundation; extra IPs are $59 per month. |
| Ecommerce and CRM data | Paid subscriptions through Stripe in any currency Stripe supports, monthly or annual, with multiple tiers and pay-what-you-like pricing; automations can create and update Shopify customers, and Memberful is supported | No store or CRM data model of its own; orders and customer records stay in the system they come from. The integrations directory connects Salesforce, Salesforce Agentforce Marketing, HubSpot, SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition and WordPress, whose free Mailgun plugin also carries the mail from plugins running on it such as WooCommerce. Shopify runs through Zapier rather than a Shopify app, triggering on events such as a new order to send a message or add the customer to a Mailgun list. |
| Integrations and API | REST API with webhooks on every plan including Free, documented as an OpenAPI spec rather than official SDKs, plus a CLI, Zapier and integrations with WordPress, Ghost, Discord, Medium, LinkedIn and Bluesky | Yes, RESTful email API and SMTP relay, plus an SMTP API for finer sending control, webhooks for real-time event data and an email validation API. Official SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, Node.js and Go. |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Email helpdesk | more entries Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Not stated | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Stripe, Zapier, WordPress, Ghost, Shopify, Memberful, Discord, Mastodon, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Medium, Webflow, Squarespace, Framer, Carrd, Plausible, Fathom | more entries Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, SAP S/4HANA, Zapier, Make, n8n, Pipedream, Workato, Slack, Asana, Google Analytics, Datadog, Splunk, Heroku, GitHub Actions, Replit, Lovable |
Add a tool
Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Buttondown Free up to 100 subscribers; Basic from USD 9 / month Mailgun Free tier; Basic from $15 / month
- Free trial Buttondown Free plan for up to 100 subscribers Mailgun Free tier: 100 emails per day
- Hosting Buttondown Cloud (SaaS) Mailgun Cloud (SaaS), with data centres in the US and the EU
- Support Buttondown Email helpdesk Mailgun Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat
- API Buttondown Yes, a REST API with webhooks on every plan, including Free Mailgun Yes, RESTful email API and SMTP relay, with official SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, Node.js and Go
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Buttondown
Strengths
- Free for the first 100 subscribers
- API and webhooks on every plan, including Free
- Buttondown states it takes no cut of paid subscriptions; Stripe's card fees still apply
- Billed by active subscribers rather than all contacts on the list
Limitations
- Automations, sponsorships and multiple newsletters need the USD 29 tier or above
- Prices assume at most one email a day to the whole list; higher volume needs a custom quote
- No official SDKs; the vendor publishes an OpenAPI spec instead
- Lists above 100,000 subscribers are priced on request
Mailgun
Strengths
- RESTful API and SMTP relay as two routes into the same sending infrastructure
- Batch sending of up to 1,000 fully personalised messages in one API call
- Data centres in both the US and the EU
- Official SDKs for seven languages
- Inbound routing parses received mail into UTF-8 JSON for other systems
Limitations
- Log retention is one day on Free and Basic and five days on Foundation
- Deliverability tooling sits in Mailgun Optimize and is priced separately from sending
- No journey or campaign builder; marketing automation lives in the sibling product Mailjet
- Additional dedicated IPs cost $59 per month each
- Phone and chat support require the Scale plan
- Messages sent in test mode are still charged
Plans
Pricing
Buttondown
- Free USD 0 / month Up to 100 subscribers, with the editor, sending from a custom domain and hosted archives.
- Basic USD 9 / month Up to 1,000 subscribers. Adds tagging and segmentation, paid subscriptions, comments and surveys, analytics, RSS-to-email and attachments. USD 90 billed annually.
- Standard USD 29 / month Up to 5,000 subscribers. Adds automations, sponsorships, multiple newsletters and archives on a custom domain. USD 290 billed annually.
- Professional USD 79 / month Up to 10,000 subscribers. Adds teams and whitelabeling. USD 790 billed annually.
- Advanced USD 139 / month Up to 20,000 subscribers. Larger lists step up to USD 459 / month for 100,000 subscribers; above that, a custom quote.
Mailgun
- Free $0 100 emails per day, with one day of log and message retention and knowledge centre support only.
- Basic $15 Per month for 10,000 emails, overage $1.80 per 1,000. One day of log and message retention, ticket support.
- Foundation $35 Per month for 50,000 emails, free for the first month, overage $1.80 per 1,000. Five days of log retention and one dedicated IP included.
- Scale $90 Per month for 100,000 emails, free for the first month, overage $1.10 per 1,000. 30 days of log retention, up to seven days of message retention, phone and chat support.
- Enterprise Not stated Custom pricing on request.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Buttondown
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Mailgun
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Before sending, the author has to confirm three things: that they have used the product themselves, that they work neither for the vendor nor for a competitor, and that nobody is paying them for the review. We also ask whether the vendor invited them to write it. That answer is required, either answer is accepted, and it stays with the review.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. An email address is required and is confirmed: we send a link to it, and a review does not reach us until the author opens that link, so a review has a sender who was reachable at least once rather than being anonymous. Where what somebody writes needs backing, we ask them for evidence that they used the product, and a review that does not get it is not published. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on their own declaration, on whatever we ask them for, and on the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot buy a review, and cannot have one removed or changed because they dislike it. We remove or edit a review only if it breaks our rules or the law, for example a false statement of fact. Paid placement has no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Buttondown https://buttondown.com · checked against the official source on 2026-10-28
Mailgun https://www.mailgun.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-09
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.