Home / Mektup vs Mailtrap
ComparisonMektup gives you a real mailbox on your own domain - the same one your AI agent reads over the API, that you can also open in Outlook. Mailtrap's Agent Inbox gives an agent a hosted, webhook-only address with nothing for a human to open.
Mailtrap started as an email testing sandbox (catch outgoing mail in staging instead of spamming real inboxes) and grew into a transactional sending API plus, more recently, an "Agent Inbox" product aimed squarely at AI agents: a hosted address at @inbound-mailtrap.io or your domain that receives mail and delivers it via API and webhook. No MX records to manage, no IMAP - which is exactly the point for a pure automation pipeline, but it also means there's still nothing for a human to just open and read.
Mektup takes the other approach: one real mailbox, IMAP/SMTP/webmail for a person, the same REST API and native MCP server for an agent. If you're building something where a human and an AI agent both need to see the same conversation - a shared support inbox, a sales lead flow your agent drafts and you approve - that's the case Mektup is built for.
| Mektup | Mailtrap | |
|---|---|---|
| Send from your domain | Yes | Yes |
| Receive email | Real mailbox (IMAP/SMTP/webmail) | API/webhook only (Agent Inbox), no IMAP |
| Check mail in Outlook / Apple Mail | Yes | No |
| Built-in webmail dashboard | Yes | No |
| Email testing/sandbox environment | Not the focus | Yes, its original product |
| Built-in website contact forms | Yes | No |
| MCP server for AI agents | Yes, native | Agent Inbox (webhook-based, not MCP) |
| Team member logins | Pro: 5 included | 1 user on Free |
| Free tier | 1 domain, 3,000 emails/mo, 3GB, no daily cap | 1 domain, 4,000 emails/mo, 150/day cap |
| Volume | Mektup | Mailtrap |
|---|---|---|
| 100 emails/mo | Free | Free |
| 450 emails in one day, bursty (typical agent usage) | Free - no daily cap, only a 3,000/mo ceiling | Requires a paid plan - free tier caps at 150/day |
| 10,000 emails/mo | $20/mo (Starter, includes a real mailbox) | $15/mo (Basic) |
| 50,000 emails/mo | $20/mo (Starter, 10 domains + a real mailbox) | $20/mo (Basic, sending + webhook inbound only) |
Mailtrap pricing per public pricing pages as of this page's last update - confirm current numbers before budgeting off this table. At 10,000/mo Mailtrap is cheaper on pure sending; at 50,000/mo the two are tied on price, with Mektup including a real mailbox and 10 domains at that tier.
Mailtrap started as - and still offers - a dedicated staging/testing sandbox for catching outgoing email in development before it hits real inboxes. Mektup doesn't build that as a separate product; a Mektup mailbox is a real inbox from the start, so most teams just send to a mailbox they control instead of a synthetic sandbox. If you specifically want a testing-only environment, that's the one gap.
from field is a bare address; set the display name once via the mailbox's identity, not per send.POST https://api.usemektup.com/v1/emails - same Bearer-token pattern, near-identical body shape.Mailtrap's Agent Inbox gives an AI agent a hosted address that receives mail and delivers it via API/webhook - no MX records, no IMAP, nothing a human opens in a mail client. It's built specifically for an agent to consume. Mektup's mailbox is the same real inbox for both: your agent reads it over the API/MCP server, and you can open the exact same mailbox in Outlook.
Yes. Mektup covers Mailtrap's transactional sending, and adds what Mailtrap's Agent Inbox doesn't have: a real mailbox on your own domain that a human can check the same way an agent does, not a separate webhook pipe for the bot.
They're essentially tied on pure sending cost - both are $20/month at that volume. The difference is what else is included: Mektup's $20/month tier also includes 10 domains and real mailboxes with IMAP/SMTP/webmail; Mailtrap's is sending plus the newer webhook-based inbound feature, not a mailbox.