Dedicated infrastructure. No per-message math.
Mailgun charges per message across four plan tiers, gates dedicated IPs behind higher plans, and caps log retention at 1 day unless you upgrade twice. The more features you need, the more plans you have to compare.
unMTA gives you dedicated email infrastructure starting at $450/mo. Unlimited sending, dedicated IPs included, one predictable price.
How They Compare
Infrastructure
Mailgun
Multi-tenant shared infrastructure. Dedicated IPs only available on Foundation (at 100K+) or Scale plans. Even with a dedicated IP, you share underlying compute and queues with other customers.
unMTA
Single-tenant MTA instances. Your infrastructure runs in isolation with no shared queues and no noisy neighbors.
IP Addresses
Mailgun
Shared IP pool on Free and Basic plans. Dedicated IP access starts at Foundation 50K, included at 100K+. Scale includes one dedicated IP with pool support. Additional IPs cost extra.
unMTA
Dedicated IPs included on every plan. We handle warmup, authentication, and ongoing monitoring as part of the service.
Pricing Model
Mailgun
Four plan tiers (Free, Basic, Foundation, Scale) with per-message pricing at every level. Scale starts at $90/mo for 100K emails, with $1.10/1K overage. Email validations and additional IPs billed separately.
unMTA
Flat monthly rate. Unlimited sending on every plan. Your costs are predictable regardless of volume.
Deliverability Management
Mailgun
Self-service suppression management and authentication protocols. Email validation available as a paid add-on on Foundation or included (5K) on Scale. No managed deliverability support on self-serve plans.
unMTA
Dedicated IPs with professional deliverability management included on every plan. We handle IP warmup, DNS authentication, monitoring, and ongoing tuning so you can focus on sending.
Observability
Mailgun
Log retention varies by plan: 1 day on Free and Basic, 5 days on Foundation, 30 days on Scale. Message retention tops out at 7 days. No built-in long-term archival or export.
unMTA
Dashboard, webhooks, S3 log archival, and configurable retention. Your data, exported on your terms.
Underlying Technology
Mailgun
Proprietary platform founded in 2010, acquired by Rackspace, then Thoma Bravo, and now part of Sinch — a telecom conglomerate that bought Pathwire for $1.9B in 2021. Email is one product in a large portfolio.
unMTA
Powered by KumoMTA, a high-performance MTA built by engineers with decades of experience running some of the largest email platforms in the world.
What You'll Actually Pay
Mailgun charges per message. unMTA charges a flat rate. Here's what that looks like at real-world volumes.
Mailgun
Scale 1M
$700/mo
Scale plan with dedicated IP, tiered pricing
unMTA
Launch (annual)
$450/mo
Flat rate, unlimited sending
You save $250/mo with unMTA
Mailgun pricing from www.mailgun.com/pricing, March 2026. unMTA pricing includes dedicated IPs and unlimited sending with no add-ons or overages.
Dedicated to You, Controlled by You
Hardware Isolation
Mailgun
Shared infrastructure across all self-serve plans. Dedicated IPs available on higher tiers, but you still share underlying compute and queue infrastructure with other customers.
unMTA
Dedicated instances with no shared resources. Your MTA doesn’t share memory, disk, or network with anyone else’s workload.
Data Retention
Mailgun
Log retention ranges from 1 day (Free/Basic) to 30 days (Scale). Message retention caps at 7 days. No built-in export to your own storage.
unMTA
Configurable retention with full export via webhooks and S3. Keep your data as long as you need it.
Cost Predictability
Mailgun
Four plan tiers with overage charges at every level. Email validations, additional dedicated IPs, and optimization add-ons all billed separately.
unMTA
Flat-rate plans. Whether it’s a slow month or your biggest product launch, the bill is the same.
When Mailgun Is the Better Fit
Established platform
Mailgun has been around since 2010 and serves over 150,000 customers. It’s a mature, battle-tested platform with a strong developer community and comprehensive SDKs.
Inbound email routing
Mailgun’s inbound routing and parsing capabilities are a genuine strength. If you need to receive and process incoming email programmatically, it’s a well-built feature.
Email validation
Mailgun offers a built-in email validation API backed by a database of over 450 billion emails. It’s useful for list hygiene and is included on Scale or available as a Foundation add-on.
Mailgun works well when you need a flexible email API with validation and inbound routing built in. But once your volume grows and you need dedicated infrastructure, predictable costs, and hands-on deliverability support, that’s what we built unMTA for.
Predictable costs. Dedicated infrastructure. Full control.
Every unMTA plan includes dedicated IPs, unlimited sending, and hands-on deliverability management. Starting at $450/mo.