# Smtp.dev review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Email testing sandbox with SMTP, IMAP and a REST API Checked Nov 13, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Smtp.dev is an email testing service for developers. An app or test suite sends mail over SMTP to a sandbox address, and the message can be read back through IMAP, POP3 or the REST API, with headers, MIME structure and raw source. Mail only goes to accounts inside the sandbox, never to real inboxes. - **Category:** Email Sending Services - **Made by:** SMTP Labs, Inc. - **Website:** https://smtp.dev - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you want to deliver real email: outbound only reaches accounts inside the sandbox. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 13, 2026, Smtp.dev has a free plan, and paid plans start at $7 per month for Pro. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** Lite plan: 1 domain, 50 accounts, messages kept 7 days, with SMTP, IMAP, POP3, API and email audit. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Lite | $0 | 1 domain, 50 accounts and 7 days of message retention; plus-sign aliasing but no catch-all. | | Pro | $7 per month | 5 domains, 25,000 accounts, 30 days of retention, and catch-all and aliasing. | | Max | $20 per month | Unlimited domains and accounts, 90 days of retention, and catch-all and aliasing. | Read from https://smtp.dev/pricing/ on Nov 13, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Smtp.dev before buying. ## Key features - **SMTP, IMAP and POP3 access:** Standard mail clients and libraries connect with ordinary settings, with no SDK to install. - **REST API:** Accounts, messages, domains and tokens can be managed over the API, which is limited to 4096 requests a minute per user. - **Message inspection:** Shows headers, the MIME tree and the raw RFC 5322 source of each message, plus an HTML preview. - **Own-domain receiving:** Pointing a domain's or subdomain's MX record at the sandbox lets it receive mail from any service. - **Deliverability audit:** Checks sender configuration, HTML structure, links and content patterns that spam filters flag, grouped by severity. - **CI use:** Works with any CI system that can send over SMTP, with guides for GitHub Actions, Jenkins and GitLab CI. ## Good for - Developers testing signup, password-reset and notification emails - CI pipelines that send mail and assert on what arrived - Teams that want inboxes on their own test subdomain ## Worth knowing - It is a testing sandbox: on every plan, outbound mail is delivered only to accounts inside the sandbox, not to real inboxes. - Lite keeps messages for 7 days and allows 1 domain and 50 accounts; catch-all accounts need Pro or Max. - Messages are deleted automatically at the end of the plan's retention window of 7, 30 or 90 days. - The pricing page shows monthly prices only and does not mention annual billing. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.6 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Smtp.dev is a sandbox where your app sends mail over SMTP and you read it back through IMAP, POP3 or an API. Nothing reaches a real inbox on any plan, and the free Lite plan keeps messages for only 7 days. - **Value for money: B.** Pro is $7 a month, inside the cheapest quarter of email sending tools, which start at $9. Max is $20. - **Free plan and trial: B.** Lite is free: 1 domain, 50 accounts and 7 days of messages, with SMTP, IMAP, POP3, API and email audit. One project could live on that. - **Features: C.** SMTP, IMAP, POP3 and REST API access, message inspection, own-domain receiving and a deliverability audit. It does the testing job fully, but it never sends real email. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You point your app or test suite at it and set DNS records for your own domain. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web with an API, plus CI use with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Playwright, Cypress and Nodemailer. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Smtp.dev's own pages on 13 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among email sending services - Smtp.dev's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 34 of the 50 other email sending services we grade, and level with 11. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 35 of 50) and worst on features (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $7 a month, against a middle price of $15 for the category: 6 of the 41 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 3 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/email-sending ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** Nothing Smtp.dev does is plain enough to make in a weekend. The 2 things listed below take a company. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.6 is higher than 34 of the 50 other email sending services we grade. It costs $84 a year. - You could not: Reading the reports inbox providers send about your domain. - You could not: It plugs into other products, GitHub Actions, Jenkins and GitLab CI among them, and has an API. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Playwright, Cypress, Nodemailer **Tags:** Public API, DMARC ## Alternatives - [Mailtrap](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mailtrap): Email API and SMTP for sending, with a sandbox for testing emails. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/mailtrap-vs-smtpdev) - [MailPace](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mailpace): EU-hosted transactional email API and SMTP, without open tracking. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/mailpace-vs-smtpdev) - [EmailEngine](https://toolgpa.com/tools/emailengine): Self-hosted REST API for Gmail, Microsoft 365 and IMAP mailboxes. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/emailengine-vs-smtpdev) - [Nodemailer](https://toolgpa.com/tools/nodemailer): Free Node.js library for sending email over SMTP and other transports. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/nodemailer-vs-smtpdev) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://smtp.dev/pricing/ - https://smtp.dev/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/smtpdev Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).