Pricing, Usage Limits, and Billing

Q: Does MailChannels offer a free plan for the Email API?
A: Yes, MailChannels provides a free developer plan. It allows you to send up to 100 emails per day at no cost. This is great for testing, development, or low-volume transactional needs. Keep in mind that the free tier has basic features – for example, open/click tracking is not available on free – but it is fully functional for sending emails through the API. You’ll still need to sign up and add a valid credit card to activate the account (to prevent abuse), but you won’t be charged as long as you stay within the free limits.

Q: How is the pricing structured for paid plans?
A: MailChannels uses a tier-based pricing model based on the number of emails you send per month. You choose a plan corresponding to your expected monthly email volume. For instance, the entry-level paid plan covers up to 10,000 emails per month (MailChannels has indicated 10k is the smallest paid tier after the free plan). There are higher tiers for larger volumes, each with a set monthly price. If you commit to annual billing, discounts may apply. All plans include the core Email API features; higher tiers might offer enhanced support. You can refer to the official Pricing page to see current volume tiers and costs. The pricing is transparent – it’s primarily based on volume, with no hidden fees.

Q: How are emails counted toward my usage?
A: For Email API accounts, we count the number of sends, not the number of API calls. This implies that if you use personalizations, say, to send the same message to 100 different recipients, we will count 100 sends, even though only a single API call was made to generate the sends.

Q: What happens if I exceed my plan’s email limit?
A: If you hit your daily (for free plans) or monthly sending limit, MailChannels will pause further email delivery to maintain service quality. API calls to send messages will fail; we will never silently hold or drop messages that have already been successfully submitted via the API. You have a couple of options in this case: you can wait until your usage resets at the start of the next billing cycle, or you can upgrade to a higher volume plan to immediately get a higher send limit. If you upgrade mid-cycle to avoid interruption, MailChannels will apply a pro-rated charge for the increased volume cap for the remainder of the month. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on your usage via the MailChannels Console or usage stats API, and upgrade in advance if you expect a big spike, so your critical emails don’t get paused.

Q: Do unused emails carry over to the next month?
A: No, unused quota does not roll over. Each billing cycle (month) you get a fresh allotment based on your plan, and any emails you didn’t send in the previous month are not credited to the next. For example, if your plan allows 50,000 emails/month and you only sent 30,000 this month, next month you still have 50,000 (not 70,000). The counters reset every month.

Q: Is there a tier between the free plan and the 10,000 emails/month plan?
A: Not currently. As of now, MailChannels offers the free developer plan (~100 emails/day) and the next step up is a paid plan for 10k/month (which is about ~333 per day average). There isn’t an official paid tier for, say, 1,000 or 5,000 emails/month. We’re always evaluating customer feedback, so this could change in the future, but at present you’d jump from the free tier to the 10k plan when you need more volume.

Q: Are there any rate limits or throttling on how fast I can send via the API?
A: There’s no fixed “messages per second” cap documented for the outbound Email API – you can send at a high throughput as long as you stay within your monthly quota. MailChannels’ infrastructure is built to handle large volumes and will queue and deliver your messages efficiently. That said, if you suddenly try to send an extremely large burst of emails out of nowhere (especially on the free or a small plan), our anti-abuse system may interpret it as a potential spam outbreak. In such cases, we might rate-limit your account’s sending speed to protect system health (Do you charge for spam messages?). This is generally only if the sending pattern is abnormal (for example, a compromised system sending millions in an hour). For normal use cases, you can send emails as needed and the API will accept them until you hit your plan’s limit. In summary: your volume quota is the main limit. Just avoid sudden massive spikes beyond your typical usage. If you have a use case requiring very high burst rates, consider contacting MailChannels in advance or spreading the send out slightly.

Q: How are billing and payments handled?
A: When you sign up, you provide a credit card, which is stored by MailChannels’ payment partner (we use a PCI-DSS certified service, so MailChannels itself doesn’t store your card number; see Email API - Account Creation). If you’re on a free plan, you won’t be charged at all unless you upgrade. For paid plans, MailChannels will charge your card at the beginning of each billing cycle (monthly, unless you arranged annual billing) for the base plan fee. If you upgrade or change plans mid-cycle, any additional charge is usually pro-rated. There are no hidden fees – you pay for the plan volume, and that’s it (if you consistently need more, you’d move to the next tier). If a payment fails or the card is invalid, we will notify you to update it to avoid interruption. You can manage billing details and see invoices in the MailChannels Console.

Q: At what time each day does the free tier usage limit reset?

A: The 100-sends-per-day limit on our free tier plan resets at 00:00 UTC each day, regardless of your time zone.