coss.com vs SendGrid
SendGrid is a mature email API with a separate marketing suite. coss.com puts sending, marketing, receiving and sub-accounts in one API.
SendGrid, part of Twilio, sells its Email API and Marketing Campaigns as separate plans, with subusers and dedicated IPs on its higher tiers. coss.com prices everything per recipient, keeps a free plan that doesn't expire, and gives platforms sub-accounts with their own reputation.
At a glance
SendGrid's side was checked on against its own pages. Prices are list prices.
| Feature | coss.com | SendGrid |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per recipient, with no volume tiers to pick: $0.40 per 1,000 recipients for the first 1,000,000; $0.30 per 1,000 recipients from 1,000,001 to 10,000,000; $0.22 per 1,000 recipients beyond 10,000,000. Paid plans start at $25/month, all of it spendable on usage | Email API plans by volume (Essentials from $19.95/month, Pro from $89.95/month, Premier custom); Marketing Campaigns priced separately (Basic from $15/month, Advanced from $60/month) |
| Free tier | Free plan: 3,000 email recipients a month, 3,000 received emails a month and 3 inboxes; 1 sending domain | A 60-day free trial, 100 emails a day, no credit card |
| Marketing email | Contacts with custom properties, audiences, segments, topics with a hosted preference center and double opt-in, broadcasts on a separate marketing stream | Marketing Campaigns, a separate plan: contacts, segmentation, A/B testing, signup forms, and automation on Advanced |
| Receiving email | Every environment has its own address under coss.com's inbound domain, or receive at your own domain with one MX record; an email.received webhook, content and attachments through the API | Inbound Parse Webhook: an MX record to mx.sendgrid.net, each message posted to your URL as form data (or raw MIME), up to 30 MB |
| Multi-tenant sending | Sub-accounts on Scale and Enterprise: each with its own domains, SES tenant, reputation, quotas and suppression list (transactional email) | Subusers on Pro, Premier and Advanced Marketing Campaigns: up to 15 (more through support), separate stats, linkable to dedicated IPs |
| Dedicated IPs | An add-on on Scale and Enterprise: Amazon SES managed dedicated IPs, warmed up automatically | 1 included on Pro and Premier, more as an add-on |
| Other channels | SMS, Verify (one-time codes), Hooks (webhooks as a service) and Risk on the same API key and SDK | SendGrid is Twilio's email product; Twilio sells SMS, WhatsApp, Voice and Verify as separate products |
| SDKs | TypeScript, plus generated SDKs for Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java and .NET; Laravel, Rails and Django mail drivers; a CLI and an MCP server | C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python and Ruby |
| Event webhooks | Standard Webhooks signatures, automatic retries, test events and `coss listen` to forward events to localhost | 1 event webhook on the trial, 2 on Essentials, 5 on Pro and Premier |
| Activity history | Every API request, email event and webhook attempt of an environment, searchable and exportable; log drains on Scale and Enterprise | Searchable for 3 days on the trial and Essentials, 7 days on Pro and Premier; more for purchase |
| Single sign-on | SAML and OIDC on Scale and Enterprise | Included on Pro and Premier |
Which to choose
Both are good at what they do. Here is where each one fits better.
Choose SendGrid when
You run campaigns with a marketing suite
Marketing Campaigns has A/B testing, signup forms and automation. coss.com's marketing email is broadcasts to audiences and segments, without automation workflows.
You validate addresses in bulk
SendGrid's Pro and Premier plans include email validations (2,500 and 5,000).
You're already on Twilio
If your SMS, voice or WhatsApp already runs on Twilio, SendGrid keeps your email with the same vendor and account manager.
Choose coss.com when
One plan for everything
Transactional and marketing email, receiving and inboxes are metered on one bill, with a free plan that doesn't expire.
You send for your own customers
Sub-accounts on Scale and Enterprise each get their own domains, SES tenant, reputation, quotas and suppression list, and pause on their own bounces and complaints, not yours.
Received email you can read later
coss.com keeps each received email, so a webhook outage loses nothing: headers, bodies, attachments and the raw message stay readable through the API and the dashboard.
Logs that cover webhooks too
Each environment's log holds every API request, email event and webhook attempt, searchable and exportable as CSV or NDJSON.
Moving from SendGrid
- 1
Import your SendGrid account
The dashboard's Import page reads your account with a SendGrid API key and brings over domains, templates, contacts and lists, custom fields, suppressions and webhook endpoints. Nothing changes at SendGrid.
Read the guide - 2
Verify your domains
Add coss.com's DNS records next to SendGrid's, so you can keep sending through SendGrid until you switch.
Read the guide - 3
Switch your code and webhooks
Send with coss.email.send() or point SMTP at smtp.coss.com with an API key as the password. Update your event handler to coss.com's events and Standard Webhooks signatures, then enable the imported endpoints.
Read the guide
Questions
- Can I import my SendGrid contacts and templates into coss.com?
- Yes. The dashboard's Import page copies domains, templates, contacts and lists, suppressions and webhook endpoints from SendGrid. Templates that use something coss.com templates don't have are left as drafts with the parts to fix marked.
- Does coss.com have something like SendGrid subusers?
- Yes, sub-accounts. Each has its own domains, SES tenant, reputation, quotas and suppression list, and is addressed by its id or by your own uid for that customer.
- Does coss.com have a free plan, or only a trial?
- A free plan that doesn't expire. It includes a monthly allowance of sent and received email and a few inboxes; usage stops at the allowance until you choose a paid plan. See coss.com/pricing.
- Can I keep using SMTP when I leave SendGrid?
- Yes. Point your app at smtp.coss.com with the username coss and an API key as the password. Each message goes through the same checks, suppressions, webhooks and logs as an API send.
Sources
SendGrid's facts were checked on ; their pages are the final word on their prices and features.
The coss.com side
- Emailcoss.com Email is a transactional email API. Send single, batch and scheduled email from your domains, with templates, tracking and per-recipient webhooks.
- Marketing emailcoss.com Marketing email sends newsletters and announcements to your contacts as broadcasts, with audiences, segments, topics and a hosted preference center.
- Inbound emailcoss.com Inbound email receives mail at your domain or at an address coss.com gives each environment, and calls your webhook with every message, parsed.
- Email for platformscoss.com Email for platforms gives each of your users a sub-account with its own domains, sending reputation, quotas and suppression list, all on your API key.
Try coss.com next to SendGrid.
A development key costs nothing and delivers nothing, so you can compare with real code.
Add coss.com to this project: read https://coss.com/llms.txt, get a development key with `npx coss-cli init --agents`, and build and test with it.