An EU-hosted SendGrid alternative

Why teams look for a SendGrid alternative

SendGrid (a Twilio product) is a capable, mature platform, but three things send teams looking for something else. The first is EU data residency: with SendGrid, keeping recipient email data in the EU is an opt-in option limited to higher-tier plans, and the default endpoint routes data outside the EU. For teams with EU customers, that turns a hard compliance requirement into a paid upgrade. The second is pricing simplicity — a single, predictable plan instead of tiered add-ons. The third is wanting an SMTP drop-in they can point an existing app at without rewriting their mail layer.

What an EU-hosted alternative gives you

zSender is a transactional email API and SMTP relay hosted in Germany on Hetzner. Your recipients' email data is processed in the EU by default — not as an add-on tier — so EU data residency is the standard path, not the exception. You get the same building blocks you rely on from SendGrid: a REST API, SMTP relay, webhooks for delivery events, domain verification with SPF and DKIM, and open/click tracking. The free tier is a permanent 1,000 emails/month, and the single paid plan is $29/month for 50,000 emails. (We scope the EU claim to the email data path; billing and analytics use US SaaS sub-processors, documented in our privacy policy.)

Migrating from SendGrid

If you send over SMTP today, migrating is effectively a config change. zSender's SMTP relay is a drop-in replacement: point your client at smtp.zsender.io on port 587 or 2525 (STARTTLS), set the username to apikey, and use one of your zSender API keys as the password. Send from a domain you've verified in the dashboard and your existing message-composition code stays the same. If you use the HTTP API instead, swap the endpoint and key — the request shape is a standard REST send. Either way you can keep your current templates and sending logic.