Mailgun vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Best for

Best for enterprises already running Salesforce that want marketing working from the same customer profile as sales and service.

Enterprise

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion	Mailgun	Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Starting price	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.	From $1500 / org / month Marketing Cloud Next Growth is $1,500 per organisation per month, billed annually; Advanced is $3,250. Personalization, Marketing Intelligence and Loyalty Management are separately priced add-ons.
Free trial	Free tier: 100 emails per day	Not stated
API	Yes, RESTful email API and SMTP relay, with official SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, Node.js and Go	Yes, prebuilt connectors and APIs across the Salesforce platform
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS), with data centres in the US and the EU	Cloud (SaaS)
Campaign types	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	Email, SMS and web messaging, with two-way SMS and WhatsApp conversations on the Advanced edition, plus forms and landing pages from Growth up
Automation and journeys	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.	Yes, multi-channel journeys from the Growth edition, path experimentation on Advanced, and Agentforce agents that assemble and optimise campaigns against a stated goal
Segmentation and personalisation	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.	Yes, segments generated in real time by Agentforce agents over unified profiles from Data 360
Templates and editor	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	Campaign and content creation assisted by Agentforce agents, with forms and landing pages included from the Growth edition
Deliverability and testing	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.	Deliverability is managed and tracked inside the platform, with engagement scoring, subscriber preference management and audience refinement as the levers; testing runs to A/B/n tests, and send time and frequency are optimised per subscriber
Ecommerce and CRM data	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.	Yes, Data 360 unifies customer, campaign and revenue signals into one profile, with prebuilt connectors to Salesforce CRM and outside systems
Integrations and API	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.	Yes, prebuilt connectors and APIs across the Salesforce ecosystem, including Service Cloud and Data 360
AI features	No	stated Yes
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat	Not stated
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base	Documentation and knowledge base
Company size	more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise	Enterprise
Integrations	Salesforce, HubSpot, Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, SAP S/4HANA, Zapier, Make, n8n, Pipedream, Workato, Slack, Asana, Google Analytics, Datadog, Splunk, Heroku, GitHub Actions, Replit, Lovable	Not stated

Compare more tools

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 Mailgun Free tier; Basic from $15 / month Salesforce Marketing Cloud From $1500 / org / month
Company size Mailgun Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Salesforce Marketing Cloud Enterprise
Hosting Mailgun Cloud (SaaS), with data centres in the US and the EU Salesforce Marketing Cloud Cloud (SaaS)
AI features Mailgun No Salesforce Marketing Cloud Yes
API Mailgun Yes, RESTful email API and SMTP relay, with official SDKs for Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, Node.js and Go Salesforce Marketing Cloud Yes, prebuilt connectors and APIs across the Salesforce platform

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Strengths

List prices are published, which is unusual for an enterprise marketing suite
Agentforce agents build segments, create campaigns and optimise performance inside the platform
Data 360 unifies customer, campaign and revenue data with the rest of Salesforce
Two-way SMS and WhatsApp conversations on the Advanced edition

Limitations

Licensed per organisation per month and billed annually, so the entry cost does not scale down with a small list
Personalization, Marketing Intelligence and Loyalty Management are add-ons starting at $8,000 per organisation per month
Several distinct products share the Marketing Cloud name, so the edition matters more than the brand
Deliverability tooling is not set out on the public pricing or product pages

Plans

Pricing

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.

Visit site

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Marketing Cloud Next Growth $1,500 Per organisation per month, billed annually. Agentforce campaign creation, multi-channel journeys, forms and landing pages.
Marketing Cloud Next Advanced $3,250 Per organisation per month, billed annually. Adds path experimentation and two-way conversations for SMS and WhatsApp.
Salesforce Personalization $8,000 Add-on, per organisation per month billed annually. Web, mobile app and email personalisation, Agentforce decisioning, product and content recommendations.
Marketing Intelligence $10,000 Add-on, per organisation per month billed annually. Agentforce paid media optimisation, AI campaign summaries, data enrichment and visualisations.
Loyalty Management $20,000 Add-on, per organisation per month billed annually. Agentforce loyalty promotion creation, CRM loyalty analytics and dynamic promotions management.

Visit site

What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

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. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

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. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.

Where this comes from

Mailgun https://www.mailgun.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-09

Salesforce Marketing Cloud https://www.salesforce.com/marketing/ · checked against the official source on 2026-09-07

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.