Resend Review 2026: Deep Dive for Solo Devs & Small Teams
Free tier limits, real costs per team size, and honest "not for" warnings. Everything you need to decide if Resend fits your stack.
Quick Summary
💰 Monthly Cost by Team Size
🚫 Not Recommended For
- Email marketing/newsletters (use ConvertKit or Mailchimp)
- Enterprise needing advanced analytics and compliance
- High-volume senders (100K+/mo — consider AWS SES)
Resend Pricing (2026)
| Plan | Price | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Forever |
| Pro | $20/mo | monthly |
| Enterprise | Custom | yearly |
Pros & Cons
✅ What We Like
- Cleanest email API on the market — 3 lines of code to send
- React Email for building beautiful email templates with React
- Free tier is generous (3K emails/month is enough for most MVPs)
- Great deliverability out of the box
- Built by the creator of next-auth — trusted in Next.js community
❌ What Could Be Better
- Free tier limited to 100 emails/day (can hit limit on launch day)
- Relatively new — smaller ecosystem than SendGrid
- No built-in email marketing features (newsletter, drip campaigns)
- Pro plan jumps to $20/mo from free
- Limited analytics compared to Mailchimp
Feature Breakdown
🏆 Our Verdict
Resend scores 4.7/5 in our evaluation. Solo Dev Score: 9/10. It's best suited for Solo devs sending transactional emails (welcome, reset, receipts), Next.js/React developers (React Email integration), Startups who want clean DX without SendGrid complexity. We recommend it as a top choice in its category.
See how it compares: SendGrid
Try Resend Free →Frequently Asked Questions
Is Resend worth the price in 2026?
Resend starts at Free / $20/mo. Based on our evaluation, it scores 4.7/5 overall. Whether it's worth it depends on your team size and feature requirements — read our detailed breakdown above.
What are the main alternatives to Resend?
Several tools compete with Resend in its category. Check our comparison section above for head-to-head matchups with the top alternatives.
Does Resend offer a free plan?
Check our pricing section above for the most up-to-date information on Resend's free tier and paid plans.
Is Resend good for small businesses?
Resend can work for small businesses depending on your budget and requirements. Review our "Best For" section to see if it matches your use case.
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