Best for
Best for SaaS teams that want product, lifecycle and transactional email in one place, driven by events from their own app.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
Email Marketing Comparison
Loops 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 | Loops | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free tier; paid plans from $49 / month Paid pricing is based on subscribed contacts rather than sends and is set with a slider; the vendor's published entry tier is $49 a month for up to 5,000 contacts. Team seats cost nothing extra and transactional sending is included. | lower value 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 with up to 1,000 subscribed contacts and 4,000 marketing and transactional sends in any rolling 30 days | Free tier: 100 emails per day |
| API | Yes, a REST API with SDKs for JavaScript and TypeScript, Nuxt, Go, PHP and Ruby, plus webhooks, a CLI and an MCP server | Yes, RESTful email API and SMTP relay, with official SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, Node.js and Go |
| Hosting | Cloud, fully managed by the vendor | Cloud (SaaS), with data centres in the US and the EU |
| Campaign types | One-off campaigns to the audience or a segment, event-triggered workflow sequences, and transactional email sent through the API or over SMTP | 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 | Workflows triggered by an event, a new contact or a property change, with branching, timers, activity filters, pausing and experiments | 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 | Filters on default and custom contact properties and on campaign and workflow activity such as sends, opens and clicks, saved as reusable segments, with personalization from contact, event and data variables | 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 | Theme-based editor where colours, typography and spacing are set once and inherited, with reusable sections and components, columns, buttons, dynamic images and links, Markdown shortcuts, translations, the LMX markup language and uploads of custom HTML | 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 | Domain authentication with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, automatic suppression after hard bounces, retries on soft bounces, complaint handling, double opt-in, an email blocklist, Guardian checks that can be run on an email before sending, and dedicated sending IPs | 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 | Billing and product data arrive through Stripe, Polar, Segment, RudderStack, Fivetran, PostHog, Supabase, Clerk and Auth0; the published integration list carries no storefront such as Shopify or WooCommerce | 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 | Yes, a REST API for contacts and properties, events, campaigns and campaign groups, audience segments, transactional email, themes, components and sending IP addresses, with SDKs for five stacks, webhooks, a CLI and an MCP server | 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. |
| MCP-ready | stated Yes | No |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Not stated | Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Stripe, Polar, Supabase, Clerk, Auth0, Better Auth, Auth.js, PostHog, Segment, RudderStack, Fivetran, Clay, Webflow, Framer, Bubble, Carrd, Novu, Zapier, Make, Integrately | 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 Loops Free tier; paid plans from $49 / month Mailgun Free tier; Basic from $15 / month
- Free trial Loops Free plan with up to 1,000 subscribed contacts and 4,000 marketing and transactional sends in any rolling 30 days Mailgun Free tier: 100 emails per day
- Company size Loops Freelancers, Small and mid-sized Mailgun Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Hosting Loops Cloud, fully managed by the vendor Mailgun Cloud (SaaS), with data centres in the US and the EU
- MCP-ready Loops Yes Mailgun No
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Loops
Strengths
- Marketing, lifecycle and transactional email in one account, with transactional sending included in the price
- Priced by subscribed contacts, with no per-seat charge and no separate charge per send on paid plans
- SDKs for five stacks, a CLI, webhooks and an MCP server for ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code and Codex
- Themes keep the design consistent across every email without rebuilding templates
Limitations
- The bill follows the size of the list, so a large dormant audience costs the same as an engaged one
- The free plan adds a Loops footer and caps sending at 4,000 in any rolling 30 days and 10 emails a second
- Built around product events, so it needs engineering involvement to pay off
- No storefront integration published for ecommerce senders
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
Loops
- Free $0 Up to 1,000 subscribed contacts and 4,000 marketing and transactional sends in any rolling 30 days, at up to 10 emails a second, with a "Powered by Loops" footer. All features included.
- Starter $49 Per month for up to 5,000 subscribed contacts, per the vendor's published figure. Unlimited sends at up to 1,000 emails a second, no Loops branding, transactional sending included.
- Above 5,000 contacts Not stated Priced on the vendor's slider by subscribed contacts, up to 1.5 million and beyond. No fixed amounts are published for these steps.
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
Loops
- 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
Loops https://loops.so · checked against the official source on 2026-09-17
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.