Resend vs Substack
Pricing
Resend: Free up to 3,000 emails/mo, then from $20/mo
Substack: Free, 10% of paid subs
Description
Resend: Modern email API that developers actually enjoy using
Substack: The OG paid newsletter platform
Pros
- 3,000 free emails/month, enough for most early-stage products
- Clean, simple API that takes minutes to integrate, not hours
- Built by the creator of React Email: the DX is noticeably better than SendGrid or SES
- Built-in audience discovery
- No upfront costs
- Simple and focused
Cons
- Younger service: smaller ecosystem and fewer battle-tested edge cases
- No visual email template builder: you design emails in code (React Email)
- Deliverability is good but has not been tested at the same scale as Postmark or SendGrid
- 10% cut is steep at scale
- Limited customization
Details
Resend is what happens when someone who hated the existing email APIs built a new one. Created by Zeno Rocha (who also built React Email), it focuses on developer experience above everything else. The API is clean, the docs are clear, and you can have transactional emails working in your app in about 15 minutes.
The free tier of 3,000 emails per month covers most solo founders for months. When you outgrow it, $20/month gets you 50,000 emails. If you value developer experience and clean code over the battle-tested reliability of Postmark or the scale of SendGrid, Resend is the pick.
Substack pioneered the paid newsletter model. Founded by Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie in 2017. Free to start, they take 10% of paid subscriptions. Over 5M paid subscriptions on the platform. Great for writers who want zero setup friction.
Verified
