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Pharos vs SendGrid
SendGrid covers more ground: Inbound Parse, official SDKs in seven languages, Marketing Campaigns, EU data residency from its Pro plan up, and SMS and voice from the same company, Twilio. Pharos sends transactional email only, keeps 120 days of event history where SendGrid’s activity feed searches back 3 or 7 days, puts every feature on every plan, and costs less at 10,000 and 500,000 emails a month but more at 50,000.
Prices and features checked 17 September 2026.
The short answer.
Pick SendGrid if you need inbound email, an official SDK, marketing campaigns, EU data residency, SOC 2 Type II, or SMS and voice from the same vendor.
Pick Pharos if you send only transactional email and want 120 days of searchable events and no feature held back for a higher plan, the free one included.
What decides most cases is which SendGrid plan you would actually need. At 50,000 emails SendGrid Essentials costs less than Pharos, $19.95 against $29, but it sends from a shared IP pool and its activity feed goes back 3 days. Dedicated IPs, subusers, single sign-on and EU data residency start at Pro.
Side by side.
Transactional sending only. Where a row says "not offered", that is the plain answer, not a gap in the research.
| SendGrid | Pharos | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Monthly plans by volume: Essentials at 50,000 or 100,000, Pro from 100,000 to 2,500,000, Premier by quote. Going over is charged per email on the next invoice, up to ten times the plan’s allowance. | Monthly plans by volume up to 500,000, and a conversation above that. On a paid plan, going over moves you to the next plan for that month, with an email telling you. |
| Free tier | A 60-day trial for new accounts: 100 emails a day, no card. API and SMTP sending stops when it ends unless you choose a paid plan. | 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day, every feature, no card, no expiry |
| Feature gating | Reverse DNS, subusers, single sign-on, EU data residency and bounce classifications start at Pro. Teammates: 1 on Essentials, 1,000 on Pro. | None. Every feature is on every plan, including free. |
| REST API | Yes. Up to 1,000 personalizations in one request, and sends scheduled up to 72 hours ahead. | Yes, with idempotency keys |
| SMTP relay | Yes, on ports 25, 587 and 2525 with TLS, or 465 with SSL | Yes, on port 587 with STARTTLS. Same events and log as the API. |
| SDKs | Official for C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python and Ruby | None. Plain HTTP and SMTP, nothing to install. |
| Templates | Dynamic Templates with Handlebars and versions, on every plan. Inbox rendering tests from Pro. | Versioned, with variables and conditionals, on every plan |
| Webhooks | Events posted in batches about every 30 seconds, signed or OAuth-verified, retried for up to 24 hours. 1 endpoint on the trial, 2 on Essentials, 5 on Pro. | Signed. One event per request, retried with backoff until your endpoint returns 2xx. Separate per domain. |
| Inbound email | Inbound Parse on every plan. Point an MX record at SendGrid and each message is posted to your URL with its attachments. | Not offered |
| Event history | Activity feed searchable for 3 days on the trial and Essentials, 7 on Pro. Up to 30 days as a paid add-on, which the Email Activity API also needs. | 120 days on every plan, queryable with GET /v1/events |
| Sending IPs | Shared pools on the trial and Essentials. One dedicated IP included from Pro, more at a monthly charge. | Shared between Pharos customers, all sending transactional mail only under the acceptable use policy. Never a public pool. An isolated IP on request. |
| Data regions | EU data residency on Pro and Premier, through an EU subuser, an EU dedicated IP and the EU API endpoint. Activity feed data is otherwise stored in the US. | No region choice and no guaranteed data residency |
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type II on every plan. Twilio also lists ISO/IEC 27001, PCI DSS and HIPAA-eligible services, which it says do not all apply to every product. | None held |
| AI agent integration | Twilio’s, in public beta. It searches Twilio and SendGrid documentation and does not call the API. | Not offered. An agent can call the REST API directly. |
| Marketing email | Marketing Campaigns, bought as a separate plan and usable from the same account | Not offered. Transactional email only. |
What it costs.
The cheapest published way to send each monthly volume, billed monthly, in US dollars. SendGrid charges $0.90–$1.30 per 1,000 extra emails on Essentials. Its free plan is a 60-day trial at 100 emails a day. Pharos: on the Starter, Growth and Scale plans, going past the allowance moves you to the next plan for that month, with an email telling you. The free plan stops at 3,000. For more than 500,000 emails a month, talk to us.
| Emails a month | SendGrid | Pharos |
|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $19.95 Essentials, 50,000 included | $9 Starter, 10,000 included |
| 50,000 | $19.95 Essentials, 50,000 included | $29 Growth, 50,000 included |
| 150,000 | $79.95 Essentials 100,000 ($34.95) + 50,000 × $0.90 per 1,000 | $79 Scale, 150,000 included |
| 500,000 | $394.95 Essentials 100,000 ($34.95) + 400,000 × $0.90 per 1,000 | $199 Volume, 500,000 included |
The 150,000 and 500,000 figures are Essentials 100,000 plus overage, which SendGrid allows up to ten times a plan’s allowance. Essentials sends from a shared IP pool. A dedicated IP starts at Pro.
Source: SendGrid pricing, read on 17 September 2026. Pharos's full ladder is on the pricing page.
Where SendGrid is better.
Inbound Parse, on every plan
SendGrid receives mail for a hostname you point at mx.sendgrid.net, parses the message and its attachments, and posts the result to a URL you choose, which is how an application handles replies and two-way conversations. The trial includes it. Pharos does not receive mail, so an application that reads replies needs a second provider for that part.
Official libraries in seven languages
SendGrid maintains libraries for C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python and Ruby, and its docs carry a send quickstart for each. Pharos publishes no library: you build the JSON request or fill in SMTP settings in whatever mailer you already use.
EU data residency
On Pro and Premier, a subuser pinned to the EU sends from an EU dedicated IP through api.eu.sendgrid.com, and recipient data, content and events are stored in Frankfurt, Dublin and Amsterdam. SendGrid’s docs list where data can still leave the EU, such as support requests. Pharos has no region option, so a hard EU requirement rules it out.
Marketing Campaigns next to the API
SendGrid sells Marketing Campaigns as its own plan, with contacts, segments, a design editor and automation, and one account can send through both. Marketing sends are counted apart from Email API sends. Pharos sends transactional email only and has nothing in its place.
SOC 2 Type II and Twilio’s audit programme
SendGrid lists SOC 2 Type II on every plan, the trial included. Twilio’s security page adds ISO/IEC 27001, 27017 and 27018, PCI DSS and HIPAA-eligible services across Twilio, Segment and SendGrid, with the caveat that not every credential covers every product. Pharos holds no certification, as its security page states.
SMS, WhatsApp and voice from the same vendor
Twilio sells messaging, voice and verification APIs alongside SendGrid, and a SendGrid account can be opened from the Twilio Console. A product that already texts its users through Twilio can add email without a new supplier. Pharos is email only.
Where Pharos is better.
120 days of events on every plan
Every Pharos plan keeps 120 days of events, and GET /v1/events returns them by message, event type or date. SendGrid’s activity feed searches back 3 days on Essentials and 7 on Pro, with up to 30 days sold as an add-on that its Email Activity API also depends on. A bounce from six weeks ago can still be traced on Pharos without paying for history.
No plan holds a feature back
On SendGrid, dedicated IPs, reverse DNS, subusers, single sign-on, EU data residency and bounce classifications start at Pro, and Essentials allows 2 event webhooks. Pharos puts every feature on every plan, free included: forward-confirmed reverse DNS, unlimited sender domains and separate webhooks for each domain.
Shared IPs, under a transactional-only policy
SendGrid’s support article on shared IP pools, which its trial and Essentials plans use, gives the reasons they carry risk: most of the other senders on a pool send marketing mail, which lowers IP reputation, and their traffic spikes delay delivery. Pharos IPs are shared too, between Pharos accounts, but every account may send transactional mail only, under an acceptable use policy enforced quickly because the IPs are shared. The same IPs serve every plan, the free one included.
Switching from SendGrid.
The step-by-step version, with SendGrid's DNS records, suppression export and webhook events mapped: moving from SendGrid to Pharos.
Questions.
Is Pharos cheaper than SendGrid?
It depends on volume. At 10,000 emails a month Pharos is $9 and SendGrid is $19.95. At 50,000 SendGrid’s Essentials plan is cheaper, $19.95 against $29. At 150,000 the two are $79 and $79.95, and at 500,000 Pharos is $199 against $394.95.
Does SendGrid still have a free plan?
Not an open-ended one for new accounts, as of 17 September 2026. Accounts created since 25 March 2025 start on a 60-day trial of 100 emails a day, and API and SMTP sending stops when it ends unless a paid Email API plan is chosen. Accounts that already had the old free plan keep it unless SendGrid says otherwise. The Pharos free plan is 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day, with no expiry.
Can I run Pharos and SendGrid side by side?
Yes. By default SendGrid signs with the DKIM selectors s1 and s2 on CNAMEs into sendgrid.net, so a Pharos selector does not collide, and one DMARC record covers both. Import all five SendGrid suppression lists into Pharos before its first send, then move one message type at a time. Keep SendGrid for Inbound Parse or Marketing Campaigns if you use them.
Does SendGrid or Pharos offer EU data residency?
SendGrid does, on Pro and Premier. It needs an EU subuser, a dedicated IP provisioned in the EU and the api.eu.sendgrid.com endpoint, and EU subusers cannot use Marketing Campaigns, the activity feed or email validation. Pharos has no region option and no guaranteed data residency.
Try it next to SendGrid.
3,000 emails a month free, every feature included, no card. Enough to verify a domain and send alongside whatever you run today.
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