The self-hosted alternative to Resend
Resend is a beautifully designed transactional email API: but every email you send passes through their infrastructure and hits a per-message meter. CeyMail is the same modern developer experience, running on your own VPS with no per-email pricing.
What you pay per year.
A visual of the annual math on the plans compared below. CeyMail is a flat license - Resend bills by the volume, seat or dedicated IP.
Five reasons to pick CeyMail over Resend.
Flat license, not per-email pricing
Full IMAP + mailbox hosting, not send-only
Own the message data end-to-end
REST API + Prometheus metrics included
No SDK lock-in: plain SMTP works
CeyMail vs Resend, side by side.
Resend is a great developer experience on top of shared cloud infrastructure. CeyMail is the same ergonomics: REST API, webhooks, SDKs, running on your own VPS. The difference shows up in three places: your bill does not scale with send volume, your IP reputation belongs to you alone, and no email content ever routes through a third party. For teams that have outgrown the per-email meter or need data residency, CeyMail is the switch that does not require rewriting your integration.
| Capability | CeyMail | Resend |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||
| Cost at 50k emails/mo | $49 | $85 |
| Cost at 500k emails/mo | $99 | $400+ |
| Per-email overage | None | Yes |
| Free tier | Community forever | 3k/mo, 30 days |
| Capabilities | ||
| Transactional send | ||
| Inbound / IMAP mailboxes | ||
| Webhooks + REST API | ||
| React email templates | Bring your own | |
| AI log analysis | ||
| Self-hosted | ||
| Deliverability & auth | ||
| DKIM / SPF / DMARC | Automatic | Automatic |
| MTA-STS provisioning | ||
| IP reputation monitoring | Included | |
| Dedicated IP | Your VPS IP | $30/mo add-on |
Switching takes an afternoon.
- 1
Point your app at the SMTP submission port (587) with a mailbox credential. Same port, same protocol.
- 2
Update DNS per domain. CeyMail auto-generates and verifies SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records from the dashboard.
- 3
Replace the SDK import. CeyMail uses identical method signatures to the API you are already on.
The math.
- Cost at 50k emails/mo: $85
- Cost at 500k emails/mo: $400+
- Per-email overage: Yes
- Free tier: 3k/mo, 30 days
- Transactional send
- Webhooks + REST API
- React email templates
- DKIM / SPF / DMARC: Automatic
- IP reputation monitoring: Included
- Dedicated IP: $30/mo add-on
- Cost at 50k emails/mo: $49
- Cost at 500k emails/mo: $99
- Per-email overage: None
- Free tier: Community forever
- Transactional send
- Inbound / IMAP mailboxes
- Webhooks + REST API
- React email templates: Bring your own
- AI log analysis
- Self-hosted
- DKIM / SPF / DMARC: Automatic
- MTA-STS provisioning
- IP reputation monitoring
- Dedicated IP: Your VPS IP
$190 saved per year.
Questions about moving from Resend.
Can I keep my Resend API integration?+
If your app talks plain SMTP, no change is needed: just point it at your CeyMail server on port 587. If you use the Resend SDK for React email templates, keep rendering the HTML with the SDK and hand off to SMTP for delivery.
What about deliverability out of the box?+
Resend's edge is a pre-warmed shared IP pool. CeyMail runs on your VPS IP, so warm-up matters: but you can route through Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun or any SMTP relay during warm-up and switch to direct once your reputation is established.