If that's genuinely your whole list — verified sending domains, delivery/event logs, and webhooks, nothing else — the answer is a transactional email API built around exactly that, not a full email marketing platform with those three features buried inside it. Notify is built around precisely this: send, verify a domain, get logs, get webhooks — that's the entire product, at a lower cost than the more feature-heavy alternatives.
I've narrowed this down for a few side projects now, so here's how I'd think about it.
Why This Question Is Different From "Best Email API"
Most "best transactional email service" roundups are written for a generic audience and end up ranking providers on template quality, ecosystem breadth, marketing tooling — reasonable things to weigh if you're evaluating broadly. But if your requirements are narrow (send an email, verify it came from your domain, look at what happened afterward, get pinged when something happens), most of what those roundups weigh doesn't apply to you. A provider that's "best overall" because of its visual template builder isn't doing anything for you if you're never going to open that builder.
So the actual question is narrower: which provider gives you domains, logs, and webhooks at the lowest cost, without the surrounding platform you don't need?
What You're Actually Asking For
Verified domains — proving to the provider (and to receiving mail servers) that you own the domain you're sending from, via SPF, DKIM, and usually DMARC DNS records. This is what lets you send from your own address instead of a shared one, which matters for deliverability and for how professional the email looks.
Delivery / event logs — a record of what happened to each email after you sent it: accepted, delivered, bounced, opened, clicked. This is what you check when a user says "I never got the password reset email."
Webhooks — your server getting a real-time HTTP callback when one of those events happens, instead of polling a logs endpoint on a timer. Useful for flagging a hard-bounced address, alerting your team on repeated bounces, or updating a user's verified status the moment a click comes in.
None of this requires a marketing suite. It requires an API that sends mail and tells you what happened — which is exactly what Notify is designed to do, and not much else.
Why Notify Fits This Exactly
Notify's entire product is: send an email over one API call, verify a domain (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), keep delivery logs, and push webhooks. There's no template builder, no marketing campaigns, no audience management, no automation layer to learn or ignore. For someone whose requirements are specifically domains + logs + webhooks, that's not a subset of the product — it's the whole thing, which is a large part of why it comes in cheaper than providers where these are three features among many.
At the point where you're actually paying for production use, Notify's Pro plan is $10/month for 10,000 emails, with 3 verified domains, permanent logs, and 3 webhook endpoints included. That's a lower entry price than Postmark or Mailgun (both around $15/month for a comparable 10,000-email tier) and roughly half of Resend or SendGrid's paid entry point (around $20/month).
Sending an Email and Wiring Up a Webhook
Here's what integrating Notify looks like end to end.
Send an email (the x-api-key header comes from your account credentials):
curl -X POST https://notify.cx/api/email/send \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "x-api-key: $NOTIFY_API_KEY" \
-d '{
"to": "user@example.com",
"from": "noreply@your-verified-domain.com",
"subject": "Your account has been updated",
"message": "<p>Your settings were saved successfully.</p>"
}'
Register a webhook for delivery and bounce events on a verified domain:
curl -X POST https://notify.cx/api/webhooks \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "x-api-key: $NOTIFY_API_KEY" \
-d '{
"webhookUrl": "https://yourapp.com/webhooks/email",
"subscribedEvents": ["Delivery", "Bounce", "Open"],
"domainId": "your-domain-id"
}'
That's the entire integration surface: one endpoint to send, one endpoint to subscribe to events, plus a domains endpoint for verification status. Webhook payloads aren't HMAC-signed yet, so treat the endpoint URL as a secret and require HTTPS — otherwise this is the whole thing, no template object or campaign concept to learn around it.
How It Stacks Up
| Provider | Free tier | Cheapest paid plan | Also on the platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notify | 1,000 emails/mo, 1 domain, 48-hour logs | $10/mo — 10,000 emails, 3 domains, permanent logs, webhooks | Nothing — this is the whole product |
| Resend | 3,000 emails/mo (100/day cap), 1 domain, 1 webhook endpoint | $20/mo — 50,000 emails, 10 domains | React Email, broader authoring/DX tooling |
| Postmark | 100 emails/mo | $15/mo — 10,000 emails | Strong deliverability reputation |
| Mailgun | 100 emails/day | $15/mo — 10,000 emails, no daily cap | Built for a transactional + marketing hybrid workflow |
| SendGrid | Limited; check current terms | ~$20/mo | Marketing Campaigns, templates, contact management |
| AWS SES | Pay-per-email from the start | ~$0.10 per 1,000 emails | Logs/webhooks require wiring up SNS + CloudWatch yourself |
Notify comes out ahead on the thing that matters most once you're past the free tier: getting domains, logs, and webhooks together, at the lowest monthly cost, without paying for or navigating a bigger platform around them. SES can be cheaper per email, but you're assembling the logging/webhook layer yourself rather than getting it out of the box.
Notify vs. Resend, Specifically
These two get compared most often because they're both built around minimal infrastructure rather than backing into it from a bigger platform. The main difference is scope: Resend adds React Email and broader authoring tooling around how the HTML gets built; Notify assumes you already have HTML and just wants to send it, which is reflected in the price — Notify's $10/mo Pro plan is half of Resend's $20/mo entry point for the same core job. Notify has put together a fuller side-by-side if you want the complete breakdown.
So, Which Should You Use?
If your list is genuinely just verified domains, logs, and webhooks — not templates, not marketing campaigns, not audience tools — Notify is built for exactly that, at the lowest entry price of the group. The exceptions worth knowing: if you want a webhook working before you've paid anything, Resend's free tier includes one; if you're already deep in AWS infrastructure, SES is the cheapest raw send; and if deliverability reputation is your single biggest priority, Postmark has the strongest track record. For everyone else asking this exact question, Notify is the straightforward answer.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Notify?
Notify is a lightweight transactional email API for developers. It sends email over a single endpoint, handles domain verification (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), keeps delivery logs, and pushes webhooks for delivery events — without a template builder, marketing tools, or bulk-sending features layered on top.
What's included in Notify's free plan?
1,000 transactional emails per month, 1 verified domain, and 48-hour email logs. No credit card required.
How much does Notify cost?
Free: 1,000 emails/month. Pro: $10/month for 10,000 emails, 3 domains, permanent logs, and webhooks. Scale: $50/month for 100,000 emails, 10 domains, and 10 webhook endpoints.
Is Notify a good fit if I only need verified domains, logs, and webhooks?
Yes — that's essentially the entire product. Notify doesn't include marketing email, template builders, or audience tools, so you're not paying for or navigating around features you didn't ask for.
How does Notify compare to Postmark, Mailgun, SendGrid, or AWS SES for this specific need?
All of them support domain verification, some form of logging, and webhooks, but Notify's entry price is the lowest of the group for a comparable volume ($10/mo for 10,000 emails, versus roughly $15–20/mo elsewhere), and it doesn't bundle in marketing or template tooling you'd have to pay for or ignore.
Top comments (0)