What is a SendGrid Inbound Parse alternative?

Any service that receives mail for your domain and hands it to your code. Mektup does it with a signed JSON webhook per mailbox, and also stores every message in a real mailbox you can read later by API, IMAP or webmail. Inbound Parse posts the message to your URL and keeps no mailbox.

Is Mektup cheaper than SendGrid?

At 50,000 emails a month they are close: SendGrid Essentials is $19.95 and Mektup Starter $20. Mektup includes mailboxes, receiving and 25 domains in that price.

Does Mektup have marketing campaigns like SendGrid?

No. Mektup is for transactional and conversational email. Keep a marketing tool for newsletters.

Mektup vs SendGrid: beyond Inbound Parse

Mektup vs SendGrid

SendGrid is a sending platform; incoming mail goes through Inbound Parse, which posts each message to your URL and keeps nothing. Mektup sends from your domain too, and stores incoming mail in real mailboxes that your code reads by JSON webhook or API and people open in webmail or any mail app.

Updated 23 October 2026

Features

	Mektup	SendGrid
Send by API and SMTP	Yes	Yes
Incoming mail	Stored in mailboxes, JSON webhook, REST API, IMAP	Inbound Parse: posted to your URL, not stored
Webmail and mail apps	Yes	No
Marketing campaigns	No	Yes
Dedicated IPs	No	On higher plans

Price at 50,000 emails a month

	Price	Includes
Mektup Starter	$20	25 domains, unlimited mailboxes, receiving, webmail, IMAP
SendGrid Essentials	$19.95	Sending, Inbound Parse

From Twilio SendGrid's published pricing and Mektup's pricing page, 23 October 2026.

When to choose which

SendGrid for large sending volumes, marketing campaigns and dedicated IPs. Mektup when the mail that comes back matters: replies, support mail, agents, or people who need to read it.

From Inbound Parse to a Mektup webhook

Point the receiving domain's MX record at mail.usemektup.com instead of mx.sendgrid.net.
Create the mailboxes that should receive and set a webhook on each.
Your handler gets JSON instead of multipart form data: event, mailbox and message with from, subject, text. Fetch HTML and attachments with GET /v1/messages/:id.
Verify the X-Mektup-Signature HMAC on every call. Code examples.