When a customer places an order on an eCommerce website, they expect to receive an order confirmation email within seconds. Similarly, a customer recovering their lost password expects to receive a password reset email immediately after making the request.
When these vital business communications fail to hit the inbox within seconds, customers get restless and frustrated. The best-case scenario for your business is that the customers follow up with your customer support team. That’s a whole mess by itself because it overwhelms your team with support tickets they shouldn’t have to deal with.
The worst-case scenario is that these customers become frustrated with the lack of communication from your brand and take their business elsewhere.
Dedicated transactional email services are designed to prevent that mess.
Unlike standard email marketing solutions, transactional email services are custom-built to ensure that these business-critical communications reach the inbox (not spam folders) within seconds of a customer’s action.
What are transactional email services?
Transactional email services are email providers that allow businesses to send transactional emails efficiently and with a high deliverability rate. Transactional emails are emails that companies send in response to a specific user action.
For example, when a customer places an order on an eCommerce website, they typically receive an order confirmation email. At the same time, some businesses use a two-factor authentication system that sends an OTP to a customer’s email every time they want to log into their account.
The main challenge with these kinds of emails is that you need to send lots of them, sometimes within a span of hours. It’s not like your regular marketing newsletters, where you decide when and how frequently you can send them.
Consider an eCommerce business that has just seen an influx of orders during a Black Friday email campaign. Such a campaign will require the store to send thousands of order confirmation emails within a few hours.
The problem is that standard email providers throttle email delivery to stop you from sending too many emails within a short duration. This is done to prevent your IP from getting blacklisted. While this is okay for marketing emails, it becomes problematic when the systems intentionally delay password resets, order confirmations, and other transactional emails.
Transactional email services do not face that challenge. For example, the GetResponse transactional email service allows you to send up to 5 million emails in an hour without triggering any spam filters.
How do transactional email services work
Transactional email providers deliver mass emails with a high deliverability rate because they use a dedicated and optimized infrastructure, which includes their own sending servers.
For context, Outlook and Gmail have sending limits to prevent spam and ensure optimal performance of their shared public servers. Meanwhile, dedicated transactional email service providers like GetResponse and Brevo have their own delivery servers to which you can connect through an API or SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
Connecting your app to these providers allows you to send mass emails within a short duration without any deliverability issues. These providers also take additional measures to ensure inbox placement. For example, they use multiple IP addresses and domains to maintain a high sender reputation.
Transactional email services use a throughput infrastructure that can help you send even 10K emails per second while maintaining a high deliverability rate. That’s really important, especially when you have to deal with high-volume events like a new product launch or a flash sale.
Speaking of which, these services scale automatically. That means you can continue to send transactional emails even after hitting your monthly cap, which is vital considering the use cases of transactional emails.
When you experience a sudden spike in account activations or order confirmation emails to send, transactional email services will accommodate this with no problem at all. That’s unlike standard email marketing tools, which will simply cut you off once you’ve hit your sending limit.
Importance of transactional email service providers
Here are the key reasons why every business needs a transactional email service:
- Ensure timely delivery – Customers expect to receive password resets, OTPs, and order confirmation emails immediately. Remember, your customers won’t be able to access their accounts if these emails arrive hours later. You also don’t want them flooding your customer service asking about their order statuses.
The best transactional email services make sure these vital emails are delivered within seconds of a customer’s actions.
- Maintain high deliverability –Transactional email services are built to ensure high deliverability at all times.
A provider like GetResponse has maintained a deliverability rate of 99% for over two decades, for example. That means your vital transactional emails will always hit your customers’ inboxes, not the spam folder where they might go unnoticed.
- Meet security and other compliance requirements – Password, order confirmations, and shipping and delivery alerts require you to send thousands of emails. Your volume can also increase significantly during certain seasons like Black Friday, holidays, and even new product launches.
Transactional email services help you send those emails while still meeting GDPR and CAN-SPAM requirements. We’ll show you the measures each provider has put in place to ensure your transactional email campaigns stay compliant.
- Scalable solution – Transactional email service providers are built to be dynamic, so they can handle sudden traffic spikes without bringing your campaigns to a halt. So, if you have a successful Black Friday campaign, for example, these services will be able to handle the sudden traffic spike even if it exceeds your monthly email sends limit.
Of course, you’ll need to pay overage charges for the extra emails sent. Still, that’s better than locking customers out of their accounts simply because you can’t send account activation emails due to a monthly send limit.
How to choose a transactional email service
The best transactional email service providers excel at the following:
Deliverability rate
A transactional email service may send thousands of emails for you, but that won’t matter if only a fraction of them hit the recipients’ inboxes. That’s why the deliverability rate should be your top priority when picking a transactional email service software.
The best providers use various strategies to maintain high inbox placements. A dedicated IP address and enforcement of key authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are critical here.
Additionally, automated IP warmup and reputation monitoring help maintain a high deliverability rate.
At GetResponse, we have zero tolerance for spam and enforce strict delivery tracking and processing of the undeliverable email addresses. We are also members of M3AAWG, CSA, and SpamSignal. That has allowed us to maintain good relationships with mailbox providers, such as Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, by showing that we follow anti-spam rules.
We use advanced technology like SpamAssassin to detect potential spam messages before emails are sent. That helps to maintain a good sender reputation for better inbox placement.
Price
Transactional email services are usually offered as a separate add-on by most email marketing software. The price for this service is based on the number of emails you send.
Check the pricing plan to make sure the prices stay reasonable even as your business grows. You might be processing only a few hundred transactional emails at the moment. But what happens should your business grow and you need to send tens of thousands?
Also, keep in mind that the usage of transactional emails compounds over time and as your business grows. Every new customer means more order confirmations and account activation emails you need to send. Well-structured pricing plans will make sure you pay a reasonable price even as your business grows.
At the same time, don’t go for the cheapest plans at the expense of critical features like dedicated IP addresses and detailed analytics.
Finally, check for overage fees. Say you sign up for a transactional email services plan that lets you send 100k emails per month. What happens if you end up sending 130K emails in December, thanks to a well-executed Holiday campaign?
Transactional email service providers use an overcharge fee to calculate how much you will pay for the extra 30K emails you sent. Those charges must be transparent and fair.
For example, SMTP2GO charges $0.85 per 1,000 extra emails sent through its Professional plan. Meanwhile, ActiveCampaign’s Pro plan charges $1.30 per 1,000 emails. Though the two Pro plans have different offerings, the difference in fees should tell you why you must pay attention to overage charges.
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Security and compliance
Transactional emails such as order confirmation, shipping alerts, and delivery emails contain sensitive data, including a customer’s address and payment information. That data must be protected from interception, lest you end up facing lawsuits, paying fines, and losing customer trust.
Use a transactional email service provider that follows data protection laws like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. The best providers have compliance certificates like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Plus, they implement vital security protocols like end-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication (2-FA).
Integrations
Successful transactional email campaigns rely on smooth communication between your customer-facing platform and the email service provider. Say a customer buys products from a Shopify store. The Shopify store must communicate quickly with the email service provider for the order confirmation email to be deployed.
If the systems are not integrated correctly, there will be delays or the email might not be sent at all.
Confirm that the transactional email service you want to use syncs with your existing tech stack. Native plugins with key platforms like Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and HubSpot are crucial for the smooth delivery of transactional emails.
Clear API documentation is important to help you integrate the email service with your systems. Support for webhooks will also give you real-time updates that can activate other automation workflows you’ve set up. For example, a webhook confirming order delivery can trigger an automated feedback collection email.
Analytics
Does the transactional email service provider offer real-time deliverability alerts? Do they offer detailed analytics showing your overall campaign performance? Also, how long do they retain logs?
Detailed analytics show customer engagement trends. That’s crucial, particularly when you consider many brands use transactional emails to cross- and upsell products.
Transactional email services that support webhooks will also give you real-time delivery alerts. That helps you detect potential delivery issues before they affect the customer experience.
Pick a transactional email marketing tool that provides detailed analytics to help you run successful campaigns. Also, they should have a 30-day log retention policy at a minimum.
8 best transactional email services
Here is a summary table of the best transactional email services, along with their key features and pricing.
| Platform | Features | Paid plans |
| GetResponse | High deliverability with fast sending, easy CMS & ecommerce integrations, analytics with AI-powered product recommendations. | Offered as an add-on under the GetResponse Max plan. |
| Brevo | Transactional email plus SMS & WhatsApp, extended event logs, and a built-in data platform for customer insights. | From $8.08/mo. Pay-as-you-go: $32 for 5K emails. |
| SMTP2GO | Bounce and spam alerts, testing environment, SMS support, and scheduled reporting. | From $15/mo for 10K emails |
| SendGrid | Dedicated IPs with automated warmup, spam feedback loops, and email validation with testing tools. | From $19.95/mo (50K–100K emails) |
| MailChimp | High deliverability, transactional templates with an intuitive builder, and unified marketing with built-in analytics. |
Sold in blocks from $20 per 25K emails. Requires paid plan starting at $6.50/mo. |
| ActiveCampaign (Postmark APP) | Deep CRM & ecommerce integrations, data-driven personalization, and AI-assisted email design with optional dedicated IPs. | From $15/mo (10K emails, 4 users) |
| MailerLite (MailerSend) | Team collaboration with role-based access, real-time event tracking via webhooks, and secure API tokens with 2FA. | From $5.60/mo (5K emails) |
| Mailgun | Real-time email validation, inbound routing with send-time optimization, and detailed analytics with previews and testing. | From $15/mo (10K emails) |
1. GetResponse
GetResponse provides email and marketing automation services, including SMTP and API-triggered transactional emails. This service is offered as an add-on within the GetResponse Max plan.
Here’s why both small and enterprise-level businesses like Stripe and Zendesk choose GetResponse for transactional email campaigns.
High deliverability rate – Our transactional email services have an impressive 99% deliverability rate with a one-second email delivery. You can rely on this solution to ensure business-critical communications like receipts, order confirmations, and password resets reach the customers’ inboxes instantly. We’ve maintained a 99% deliverability rate for over 20 years.
Easy setup – Getting started with the GetResponse transactional email service is super easy. Our marketing platform supports a seamless integration with industry-leading eCommerce and CMS systems. You can connect GetResponse to Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, WordPress, Shoper, and PrestaShop. We also provide detailed documentation to help you with the setup process.
Actionable analytics – Transactional emails play a crucial role in maintaining customer satisfaction. A great strategy can also drive more sales through upsells and cross-sells.
GetResponse provides the insights you need to build customer relationships and drive sales through transactional campaigns. We’ll track and deliver actionable analytics on your campaign’s open, click, and bounce rates. You can also search your send history.
AI-powered product recommendations – Since transactional email services are offered as a paid add-on on GetResponse Max plans, you’ll also have access to powerful GetResponse Max features like AI-powered product recommendations. This feature tracks customer behavior on your site and recommends relevant products. Our clients use it to cross-sell the right items within their transactional and marketing emails.
Consider Med & Beauty, a Polish clothing and footwear brand, as an example. The retailer migrated to GetResponse and launched a transactional email campaign featuring new product launches and promotions.
They also activated GetResponse automations for welcome flows and abandoned cart recovery campaigns. That campaign generated $43,000 in revenue in just 5 months with an ROI of 873%. Read more about how they achieved this here.
Other features
- Dedicated IP address to maintain a stellar sender reputation
- Deliverability and email campaign consulting
- Comes with a customer experience manager
- Customizable templates for common transactional emails are included
- Multichannel marketing automation and enterprise-grade email marketing are included as part of the GetResponse Max plan
- Responsive 24/7 customer support available in seven languages
Pricing
The advantage of GetResponse’s transactional email service is that it is offered as an add-on on the GetResponse Max plan. That means you automatically get access to enterprise-level email and marketing automation features. The drawback, however, is that you’ll have to pay for the GetResponse Max plan as well as the add-on for the transactional email services.
G2 rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
One noticeable complaint from users is that GetResponse Max can be a little expensive for smaller businesses. That’s a challenge because transactional email services are only available as an add-on to the Max plans.
2. Brevo
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a popular email marketing and CRM solution offering transactional and bulk email services.
In fact, Brevo supports transactional emails, SMS, and WhatsApp messages. That makes it a decent option for any business that wants to use a single platform to handle all its transactional communications. But you’ll have to pay for transactional WhatsApp messages separately.
Brevo allows you to send transactional messages using an API or SMTP connection. Its service offers a 99% deliverability rate guarantee.
Brevo integrates with all major CMS tools, including WooCommerce and WordPress, as well as eCommerce solutions like Shopify, BigCommerce, and PrestaShop. You can connect to your other tools using webhooks, SMTP relay, or a plugin.
The platform also provides detailed guides you can use to set up your transactional email campaigns. You’ll get access to SDKs, developer guides, and API libraries. The libraries support multiple programming languages, including Python, PHP, and Node.
Brevo has a decent log retention policy. Logs help you track the performance of your transactional emails. These records make it easier for you to manage your sender reputation.
Brevo keeps your logs forever if your account has fewer than 10 million events. You’re also free to change this and specify how long they can keep your logs. If you have more than 10 million events, the ones older than 24 months will be deleted by default.
Other features
- Comes with an inbound parse that extracts details from incoming emails
- Offers an insightful analytics dashboard to help you track campaign performance
- Supports email marketing campaigns
- Provides a data platform to help you manage and use customer data more effectively
Pricing
Transactional emails are included within Brevo’s standard email marketing plans. These plans start at $8.08/mo. Pricing increases with the number of emails sent. Also, you’ll need to sign up for at least 20K emails per month to send your campaigns to an unlimited contact list. Otherwise, the lower-tiered plans limit the size of your contact list.
The cheap starter plan lets you send up to 5k emails to a contact list of 500 contacts. So, though the cheapest plan goes for $8.08/mo, chances are you’ll spend a lot more for transactional campaigns, since they tend to be high volume and compound with time.
Brevo also offers a pay-as-you-go option, which can work well when you expect a spike in traffic. Buy credits for the number of emails you expect to send, and these will remain in your account forever, with no expiration date. Pricing starts at $32 for 5K emails.
G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5
One major complaint from multiple Brevo users is that data syncing lags a lot. And despite the detailed guides, some users have also complained of the setup process being unintuitive.
3. SMTP2GO
SMTP2GO is an email delivery service that helps you send mass transactional emails. It’s also one of the more affordable transactional email service providers.
Paid plans start at just $15/mo, giving you 10K monthly emails. There’s also a free plan that lets you send 1,000 emails per month. Though not very practical, the free plan can still work for a business that is just getting started.
SMTP2GO supports transactional emails through an API connection. It lets you create SPF and DKIM records linked to your domain to ensure effective authentication that’ll keep your emails away from the spam folder.
The platform notifies you whenever there’s an issue related to your campaigns or domain. It’ll alert you about a sudden spike in bounce rates, for example.
Other features
- Provides a testing environment where you can preview your campaigns
- Also supports SMS messaging
- You can schedule reports to receive campaign performance updates
- Dedicated IP addresses are available on the Professional plan
Pricing
The free plan limits you to 1,000 emails total with a 200 emails/day cap.
Starter plan goes for $15/mo and lets you send up to 10K emails. You also get ticket, live chat, and phone support. SMS messaging is included, and extra emails are charged at $1.20 per 1,000 emails.
Professional plan costs $75/mo and supports up to 100K emails. Extra emails cost $0.85 per 1,000 emails. This plan also gets you dedicated IP addresses and email testing tools.
G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
SMTP2GO has no inbound parser, which is frustrating for most users. Also, though the starter plan is cheap, critical features like dedicated IP addresses and email testing tools are only available on the high-tier Professional plan, which starts at $75/mo. That’s unlike the Max plan from GetResponse, where the dedicated IPs and testing tools are included. You only need to purchase the transactional email service add-on.
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4. SendGrid
SendGrid is an email delivery platform that allows you to send transactional emails through SMTP relay or an API connection. It offers customizable templates and event notifications showing usage data.
The platform has put in place several measures to help businesses send mass emails without triggering spam filters. First, anyone signing up for the Pro plan or above gets a dedicated IP address. An automated IP warmup also prepares your domain for mass email campaigns.
Additionally, SendGrid connects you to an ISP feedback loop. That means you’ll receive spam reports from Gmail, Yahoo, and other major internet service providers. These reports help you identify complainers and remove them from your list to protect your domain’s reputation.
Other features
- Offers real-time email address validation to detect invalid email addresses before your campaigns are sent
- Provides an email testing sandbox to preview HTML rendering and validate links
- Offers HTML templates to get you started quickly
Pricing
SendGrid has no free plan. You only get a 60-day free trial. It also limits you to just 100 emails per day.
The Essential plan starts at $19.95/mo. You can send between 50K and 100K emails per month on this plan. But you get 0 email validation credits.
Email validation, dedicated IP addresses, SSO, and Subuser management are available on the Pro plan, which starts at $89.95/mo. That plan accommodates up to 2.5 million emails per month.
Overage charges apply when you exceed your monthly limit. The charge for the Essential plan is $0.00133/email (or $1.33 per 1K emails) and $0.0009/email (or $0.9 per 1K emails) for the Pro plan.
These overage charges are slightly higher than what you pay with a transactional email provider like SMTP2GO.
Note that EU data residency is only available on the Pro and Custom plans.
G2 rating: 4 out of 5
Several users have complained about their accounts being randomly flagged for “unusual” activities. Most of these cases have turned out to be false positives. They also complained that the support team was not very helpful in resolving those issues.
5. Mailchimp
Mailchimp supports both transactional email and SMS campaigns using one transactional API.
Mailchimp transactional email service reports a 99% deliverability rate and a 1-second time-to-inbox send time. The transactional emails are made possible via SMTP or an API connection. You’ll get access to detailed API documentation to help you with the configuration process. The platform allows you to use your preferred programming language when installing client libraries.
Mailchimp’s transactional email services make the most sense for businesses that already use the platform. That’s because the service is offered as an add-on, meaning you must have a standard Mailchimp paid subscription.
Other features
- Offers email templates and an intuitive email builder
- Supports standard email, SMS, and social media marketing, so you can handle all your marketing campaigns from one platform.
- Decent analytics to track performance
- Supports email testing
Pricing
Users buy Mailchimp’s transactional emails in blocks. Each block costs $20 and contains 25,000 emails. Remember to include charges for the standard email marketing plan, which starts at $6.50/mo, when calculating the total you’ll pay.
The price per block drops as your email volume increases.
For example, the first 500K emails will cost you $20/block. Meanwhile, you’ll pay $18/block if you buy between 500K and 1M monthly emails. Still, Mailchimp is one of the more expensive transactional email services, which is why you may want to explore other alternatives.
G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5
Pricing is one of the most recurrent complaints reported by users. Mailchimp prices scale too fast, making it very costly for most teams.
6. ActiveCampaign (Postmark App)
ActiveCampaign provides a complete suite of email marketing services, including a transactional email solution offered through the Postmark App.
The app supports over 900 integrations with different systems, including CRMs, eCommerce solutions, and content management systems. These integrations allow you to connect your entire tech stack to ensure smooth transactional email campaigns.
And since it integrates with so many tools, you can personalize these campaigns using the data you have on your customers.
The platform also lets you choose the library in your preferred language.
ActiveCampaign provides templates and an easy-to-use email builder to help you create beautiful email designs. You can also use its generative AI features to design emails.
Other features
- Great REST API documentation for fast setup
- Parses inbound emails
- Provides detailed performance insights, including open and bounce rates
- Dedicated IP addresses are available as a paid add-on
Pricing
Pricing starts at $15/mo with the Basic plan. That plan lets you send up to 10K emails and supports up to 4 users. The $16.50/mo Pro plan also starts with 10K emails, but it supports up to 6 users and includes inbound emails.
The Platform plan costs $18.00 and supports unlimited users, unlimited sending and parsing servers, and unlimited signature domains.
Overage charges are as follows:
- Basic plan – $1.80 per 1,000 emails
- Pro plan – $1.30 per 1,000 emails
- Platform plan – $1.20 per 1,000 emails
G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5
Customer support is not that great, according to several user reviews on G2.
7. MailerLite
MailerLite supports transactional emails through MailerSend. It lets you send transactional emails with a high deliverability rate via an SMTP relay and API.
MailerSend lets you invite team members to collaborate with you for your transactional email campaigns. You can assign these members specific roles that align with the access controls they need for the sending domains. The platform also provides security features like 2FA and custom API token permissions to protect your account.
MailerSend’s webhooks notify you of key email events like opens, clicks, bounces, and even spam reports. These alerts will trigger your integrations to react instantly with any automation workflows you’ve put in place.
Other features
- An email verification tool helps you maintain valid email addresses on your email list.
- The email address validation API verifies incoming email addresses to help you maintain a clean contact list.
- Supports inbound email routing
- Dynamic email templates help you personalize mass email campaigns
Pricing
Paid plans start with the Hobby package, which costs $5.60/mo for 5K emails and 100 email verification credits.
The Starter plan starts at $28.00/mo. It gets you 50K emails, 100 email verification credits, and 100 SMS/mo.
Then, you have the Professional plan that goes for $88.00/mo. It still gives you 50K monthly emails, but email verification credits are increased to 400. Plus, it supports unlimited domains, unlimited users, and 30-day log retention.
Here’s a breakdown of the overage charges:
- Hobby – $1.20 per 1,000 emails
- Starter – $0.95 per 1,000 emails
- Professional – $0.80 per 1,000 emails
G2 rating: 4.2 out of 5
Comes with a bit of a learning curve.
8. Mailgun
Mailgun is a dedicated transactional email delivery service that helps send and track transactional campaigns. It offers a testing environment where you can preview your emails before sending them and run A/B tests to optimize your transactional campaigns.
The platform also provides a real-time email validation API. This service validates email addresses to make sure you’re sending campaigns to addresses that actually exist. You can also drag and drop your contact list to remove invalid and high-risk email addresses that could hurt your domain reputation.
Other features
- Supports inbound email routing, which parses and organizes incoming emails
- Offers send time optimization tools
- Delivers insightful email analytics
- 30-day email logs retention policy
Pricing
Mailgun’s Basic plan costs $15/mo. It lets you send 10K emails per month with no daily limits. You get 1-day log retention and 5 inbound routes.
The Foundation plan costs $35/mo for 50K emails. It comes with 1,000 custom sending domains, an email template builder, 5-day log retention, and full access to inbound routing.
The Scale plan goes for $90/mo. It includes 100K emails, 5K email validations, dedicated IP tools, 30-day log retention, and send time optimization.
Mailgun’s overage charges are slightly higher than what you’d pay with most other transactional email services.
- Basic – $1.80 per 1,000 emails
- Foundation – $1.30 per 1,000 emails & $1.20 per 100 email validations
- Scale – $1.10 per 1,000 emails & $0.80 per 100 email validations
G2 rating: 4.2 out of 5
Price gets really expensive the moment you start to use advanced features like dedicated IPs and send time optimization.
How GetResponse supports transactional emails
Transactional email services strengthen customer relationships by ensuring critical communications reach your customers’ inboxes within seconds. Well-executed transactional campaigns can also add to your bottom line by generating more revenue through timely upsells and cross-sells.
That’s why it’s so critical to pick the right transactional email service that guarantees high and fast email deliverability.
At GetResponse, we provide transactional email services as an add-on to our enterprise-ready GetResponse Max plan. That means you don’t have to pay for dedicated IP addresses, deliverability consulting, and other vital features separately. They come as part of the Max plan. Plus, you’ll have a customer experience manager, email campaign consulting, and support for SSO.
Book a free demo today to see how GetResponse can support your transactional email needs.
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Discover how GetResponse Max can transform your transactional email strategy with enterprise-grade features, dedicated support, and unmatched deliverability rates.
