Litmus vs Mailgun

Choose Litmus if you send high-volume campaigns through a platform like Marketo or HubSpot and want each draft built and approved before launch. Choose Mailgun if you build software that must send receipts and alerts by API. Mailgun has a free plan, then paid plans billed by the month.

An email designer or deliverability specialist at a large sender gets one workspace in Litmus. It offers a code and visual editor plus a review and approval workflow that routes drafts to stakeholders before launch. Email analytics adds read time and Dark Mode data to engagement reports. Litmus sits beside the sending platform rather than replacing it, so a team still needs a separate sender to deliver the mail.

A developer wiring receipts and password resets into an application starts with Mailgun. It sends through a programming interface or a mail relay and parses inbound replies into the application. It also turns domain authentication reports into a view of sending sources. The application still decides what gets sent, and campaigns built in a drag-and-drop editor come from a separate Sinch product.

Litmus's users praise reporting and engagement tracking, plus previews and test sends that are easy to use. Some customers complain of billing disputes, with charges continuing after a trial and refunds refused. Mailgun's reviewers like fast support that fixes problems, including for users who do not pay. Reviewers also find it easy to integrate with an application, and mail is delivered well. Others report an account or domain disabled with little explanation, and support slow or unhelpful on setup.

Litmus describes a digital marketing agency that builds bespoke email for clients, and the agency simplified its workflow from code collaboration to client approval, testing and analytics. The result was higher deliverability, less time per campaign and more accurate emails. One Mailgun customer, an ecommerce marketing platform, relies on the service for email delivery and domain verification at scale. The result is that the platform removes the domain verification email flow entirely.