SparkPost

SparkPost is an email sending infrastructure delivered by API and SMTP, used by applications to deliver event-triggered messages and to track the results of sends. Today the product is sold by Bird under the name Bird Email.

According to the announcement on Bird's own website, SparkPost was acquired by MessageBird, a company that is now called Bird. Bird's pages say the delivery engine is unchanged and that the email API runs on it. An existing SparkPost integration, however, is treated by Bird as a separate integration: Bird's FAQ recommends reviewing API calls, domain records and events with the account team.

Typical use: the application sends event-triggered emails, such as confirmations and password resets, through the REST API or SMTP. The team authenticates its sending domains and then follows deliveries, failures and suppressions through events and webhooks.

Who uses it: engineering teams that need reliable sending from code. Anyone evaluating SparkPost today should read Bird's current documentation.

SparkPost is now sold as Bird Email, and Bird publishes a free plan of 1,000 emails per month, with no credit card and a cap of 50 emails per day, plus paid plans from US$ 15 per month.

On Bird's email pricing page:

• Startup: US$ 15 per month.
• Growth: US$ 250 per month.
• Scale: US$ 1,000 per month.

According to the page, these amounts fund a shared Bird balance, and email is charged per send.

Note that Bird's pages diverge. A regional page lists Startup at US$ 15 for 50,000 emails and Growth from US$ 80 per month, while the email pricing page uses the balance model above. The vendor does not state in one place what each tier includes, so confirm on your country's page before budgeting.

List prices published by the vendor, checked in October 2026. Through Nexforce Marketplace, SparkPost can be purchased in reais, with a Brazilian invoice (nota fiscal).

The main features of SparkPost are sending by REST API and SMTP, templates, delivery events and webhooks, a suppression list and sender authentication.

• Sending: REST API and SMTP. In the SMTP API documentation, SparkPost recommends TLS and reusing connections to inject up to 100 messages each, and states that the template language is not supported over SMTP (the substitution_data field is ignored).
• Templates: the templates API lets you draft and publish templates.
• Events: the events API searches recent events with filters, and similar data can arrive through webhooks.
• Suppressions: the list can apply to the whole account or to a specific list, with bulk import of up to 1,000,000 entries.
• Subaccounts: subaccount keys receive specific grants, such as managing suppressions or viewing webhooks.
• Authentication and reputation: according to Bird, the engine includes DKIM, SPF and DMARC signing, automatic IP warmup, suppression and blocklist monitoring.

The documentation exists in two generations, with different endpoints and event names: the older SparkPost one and the current Bird one. Confirm which applies to your account.

SparkPost is worth it for teams that already use it and need API email sending with events and suppression, and less so for those starting now, because the product was folded into Bird Email and the documentation is split.

Pros:

• Sending by REST API and SMTP, with webhooks and an events API to follow deliveries and failures.
• The suppression list accepts bulk import of up to 1,000,000 entries and can apply per account or per list.
• Subaccounts with per-key permissions, such as managing suppressions or viewing webhooks.
• Bird has a free plan of 1,000 emails per month, with no credit card.

Cons:

• The product is now called Bird Email, and Bird treats an old SparkPost integration as separate, to be reviewed with the account team.
• The documentation has two generations, with different endpoints and event names, and you must confirm which applies to the account.
• The free plan caps sending at 50 emails per day, and Bird's pricing pages diverge on what each paid plan includes.
• Over SMTP, the template language does not work, and the substitution_data field is ignored.

The alternatives to SparkPost are API email sending services such as SendGrid, MailerSend, Mailjet and Brevo, and the difference lies in the entry price and in how much the product mixes marketing and transactional email.

• SendGrid: Twilio's email product, which puts email alongside SMS, voice and verification in the same API communications company.
• MailerSend: transactional sending by API and SMTP relay, with a Free plan of 500 emails per month and paid plans from US$ 7 per month.
• Mailjet: marketing and transactional email, with a Free plan of 6,000 emails per month and paid plans from US$ 9 to US$ 29 per month.
• Brevo: campaigns, automation, transactional messages, SMS, WhatsApp and a CRM, with a Free plan and Starter from US$ 9 per month.

If the need is only transactional email from code, MailerSend is the most direct comparison. If the marketing team also sends campaigns, Mailjet and Brevo cover both uses.