Mailgun Alternative: Cllavio
Mailgun is a strong email infrastructure provider. Cllavio is what you reach for when you want that power, plus a clean campaigns UI, clearer pricing, and inbox-first defaults—without turning email into its own full-time job.
Best fit for Cllavio
SaaS products, apps, and ecommerce brands that want one place for campaigns and transactional email, with simple volume-based pricing and strong deliverability guardrails.
Best fit for Mailgun
Teams treating email purely as infrastructure: custom routing, complex event streams, and bespoke setups managed by dedicated engineers.
TL;DR – When to pick Cllavio vs Mailgun
Choose Cllavio if…
- You want bulk and transactional sending plus campaigns in one product.
- You prefer simple plans tied to emails and contacts—not juggling multiple add-ons or hidden meters.
- You care more about inbox placement and usable analytics than raw event firehose volume.
- You're a lean team that wants to set things up once, then focus on building your product.
Stick with Mailgun if…
- Email is a deeply embedded infrastructure layer with complex routing and custom processing.
- You already rely heavily on Mailgun's advanced routing, logs, and region-specific setups.
- You have engineers dedicated to owning and tuning that infrastructure long-term.
Core comparison
| Area | Cllavio | Mailgun |
|---|---|---|
| Product focus | Email marketing + email API / SMTP in one place. Campaigns, broadcasts, and product emails share the same stack. | Email infrastructure and routing first; marketing and other layers built on top of that base. |
| Pricing model | Straightforward monthly plans with included emails, contacts and validations. Free to start, then predictable jumps. | Tiered pricing by email volume and features, with extras for dedicated IPs, logs, and premium tools. |
| Deliverability posture | Inbox-first defaults: DNS checks, bounce protections, warmup guidance, and auto-pauses when things look risky. | Strong infrastructure with granular control over domains, IPs, and routing policies—more responsibility on you to tune. |
| Developer experience | Simple REST Email API and SMTP relay aimed at SaaS and ecommerce. Modern JSON payloads and clear auth. | Battle-tested APIs with rich event hooks and webhooks; can be more involved to configure end-to-end. |
| Campaigns | Campaigns and lists are first-class: templates, segmentation, scheduling, and analytics built in. | Primarily infrastructure; marketing/campaign layers depend on the specific plan and tooling you layer on top. |
| Analytics & visibility | Focused analytics: deliveries, bounces, opens, clicks, plus health indicators non-email-specialists can read. | Deep logs and events for engineering-heavy teams, but more effort to turn into dashboards your marketers can use. |
| Setup & operations | Designed to get you from signup to verified domain to first send in minutes, with sensible defaults. | Flexible setup with domains, routes, and regions, but more knobs and concepts to master. |
| Support & ownership | Founder-led product with hands-on support for teams actively shipping and sending. | Larger vendor support model geared towards infrastructure and enterprise use cases. |
Why teams move from Mailgun to Cllavio
1. Campaigns and API in one place
Instead of wiring Mailgun for transactional only and another tool for campaigns, Cllavio gives you one product for both.
Less glue code, fewer vendors, and a single mental model for how your email actually behaves.
2. Simpler pricing for predictable senders
Cllavio plans are tied to clear email and contact limits. If you know roughly how much you send, you know roughly what you pay.
Great for SaaS and ecommerce where forecasts are easier than in massive email-blast infrastructure setups.
3. Opinionated deliverability guardrails
Cllavio nudges you toward good behavior: healthy lists, warmup ramps, and bounce thresholds that protect your domains.
You still control your strategy; we just make it harder to accidentally nuke your sender reputation.
4. Built for builders, not just infra teams
Cllavio is aimed at product teams, founders, and marketers who don't want to babysit an email cluster.
You get a powerful API and a clean UI, without having to become a full-time email infrastructure engineer.
When Mailgun might still be better for you
- You operate a large-scale email platform yourself and need low-level control over routing, logs, and infrastructure.
- You already have custom pipelines built tightly around Mailgun webhooks, routes, and logs.
- You're less worried about campaign UX and more about using email as a raw transport layer.
In those scenarios, Cllavio may feel too opinionated and product-focused. Mailgun remains a strong fit if you treat email as raw infrastructure and have the team to manage it.
How to move from Mailgun to Cllavio safely
- Map your use cases. Separate what you send into categories: transactional (signups, password resets, receipts), product notifications, and marketing/broadcasts.
- Connect and verify your domains in Cllavio. Add your sending domains, then apply the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records we provide in your DNS.
- Recreate key transactional templates. Implement your most important flows (auth emails, receipts, alerts) using Cllavio's templates and API.
- Route a slice of transactional traffic to Cllavio. Start with less critical notifications and verify deliverability and performance.
- Move campaigns and lists. Export your mailing lists from Mailgun-compatible systems, import via CSV into Cllavio campaigns, and send test broadcasts.
- Gradually retire Mailgun routes. Once you're confident in metrics and behavior, point the remaining routes and webhooks to Cllavio or your updated endpoints.
If you have multi-region setups, separate brands, or advanced routing, we can help you design a phased migration that keeps your critical flows safe.
Ready to try Cllavio as your Mailgun alternative?
Spin up a free Cllavio account, connect your domain, and route a portion of your Mailgun traffic to test real inbox placement and workflow—not just feature lists.