Home / Mektup vs Resend
ComparisonResend sends transactional email and, with a webhook, can parse replies - but there's no mailbox behind it. Mektup does everything Resend's sending API does, plus a real inbox (IMAP/SMTP/webmail) on the same domain, so a person or an AI agent can send, receive, and reply through one account instead of a sending API with nothing on the other end.
Resend is a transactional-email API, built for apps to send mail programmatically - password resets, receipts, notifications. It's good at that job. Resend also added inbound handling: point a domain's MX at Resend and it will parse incoming mail and POST the parsed content to a webhook URL you provide. That's genuinely useful for building things like a support-ticket parser or an AI agent that reads replies - but it is not a mailbox. There's no webmail to log into, no IMAP/SMTP to add to Outlook or your phone, and nothing for a human to just... check.
Mektup runs real mail infrastructure (Postfix, Dovecot, rspamd) behind its API. A mailbox you create is a real inbox: IMAP and SMTP for any mail client, a webmail dashboard, team logins with scoped access - and the exact same REST API and MCP server an AI agent would use. One mailbox, both audiences, instead of a webhook pipe for the app and nothing for the human.
| Mektup | Resend | |
|---|---|---|
| Send from your domain | Yes | Yes |
| Receive email | Real mailbox (IMAP/SMTP/webmail) | Webhook-parsed only, no mailbox |
| Check mail in Outlook / Apple Mail | Yes | No |
| Built-in webmail dashboard | Yes | No |
| Contact forms → inbox | Built in | Build your own via webhook |
| REST API | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server for AI agents | Yes, native | No |
| Team member logins | Pro: 5 included | Not for mailboxes (no mailboxes exist) |
| Free tier | 1 domain, 3,000 emails/mo, 3GB, no daily cap | 1 domain, 3,000 emails/mo, 100/day cap |
| Starts at | Free | Free |
Resend's paid tier starts at $20/mo for 50,000 emails (10 domains); Mektup's Starter is also $20/mo for 50,000 emails (10 domains) - genuinely comparable on sending alone. The difference shows up in what else is included.
| Volume | Mektup | Resend |
|---|---|---|
| 100 emails/mo | Free | Free |
| 300 emails in one day, bursty (typical AI-agent usage) | Free - no daily cap, only a 3,000/mo ceiling | Requires a paid plan - free tier caps at 100/day |
| 5,000 emails/mo | $20/mo (Starter, includes a real mailbox) | $20/mo (Pro - free tier caps at 3,000/mo) |
| 50,000 emails/mo | $20/mo (Starter, 10 domains, includes a real mailbox) | $20/mo (Pro, 10 domains, sending + webhook inbound only) |
Mektup doesn't build marketing-broadcast tooling - audience segmentation, campaign scheduling, unsubscribe management for newsletters. If you run marketing sends on top of transactional email and a real inbox, keep a dedicated tool for that specific job alongside Mektup. Everything else on this page - domain sending, receiving, IMAP/SMTP, webmail, REST API, MCP server - Mektup covers natively, on your own domain, starting on the free tier.
hello@yourdomain.com) - Mektup's from field takes a bare address; a mailbox's display name comes from its identity setting, not the send call.POST https://api.resend.com/emails becomes Mektup's POST https://api.usemektup.com/v1/emails, same Authorization: Bearer pattern, near-identical body shape (from/to/subject/html, plus replyTo if you were using Resend's reply_to).No. Resend added inbound email support that parses incoming mail and POSTs it as structured data to a webhook endpoint you build. There's no mailbox to check in Outlook or Apple Mail, no webmail, no IMAP - it's built for an app to consume, not a person to read.
Yes. Mektup fully covers Resend's core job - reliable transactional sending from your domain via REST API - and adds what Resend doesn't have: a real mailbox with IMAP/SMTP/webmail, so you, your team, and an AI agent can all send from, receive into, and read the same inbox instead of wiring up a separate webhook just to see replies.
Most people migrate off Resend entirely - Mektup covers everything Resend's sending API does, plus the inbox it doesn't have. The one exception is marketing-broadcast tooling (audience lists, campaign scheduling) - if you run newsletters, keep a dedicated tool for that alongside Mektup.