Evergreen concept
GuideTransactional vs Marketing Email Pricing
Why Tools.Town’s email cost calculators model API sends and plan floors — not Mailchimp or Klaviyo contact pricing — and when each model applies.
Two different products share the word “email.” They do not share a bill.
Transactional / API sending
Password resets, receipts, “your order shipped,” SaaS dunning. You pay for messages or recipients — either:
- Per thousand (Amazon SES a-la-carte, Cloudflare overage), or
- A monthly SKU that includes a quota (Resend Pro, SendGrid Essentials, Postmark, Mailgun).
That is what the Email Cost Calculator models.
Marketing / audience ESPs
Newsletters, flows, segments. You typically pay for contacts in the account (and sometimes email/SMS extras), not a clean “10k sends = $X.” Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Brevo marketing, and Resend Marketing belong here. Tools.Town does not pretend a contact plan is a send plan.
How to choose the model
| Job | Model | Tools.Town |
|---|---|---|
| App sends mail when users do things | Transactional | This cluster |
| You blast or automate a list | Marketing / contacts | Out of v1 — do not use these calculators |
| Both | Two line items | Quote API + ESP separately |
If you only needed to clean the list before a campaign, that is still List Ops: Dedupe an email list before a campaign.
Related
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this site calculate Mailchimp cost?
Not in this cluster. Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and similar products price contacts (and features), not a simple send count. A sibling cluster may cover that later.
Is Resend Marketing in the Email Cost Calculator?
No. The Resend row is transactional API SKUs (Free cap / Pro floors).
Can one vendor do both?
Yes — SendGrid and others sell Marketing Campaigns beside Email API. Quote the SKU that matches the job. Mixing them in one “per 1k” number is how estimates lie.