What it does
Mailgun delivers application email through REST APIs and SMTP, with tracking, webhooks and inbound routes that turn replies into application data. The Free account sends up to 100 emails per day and includes one inbound route and one day of logs. Paid plans increase capacity and retained history.
An inbound Mailgun route can turn a reply into application data. For example, a service can receive a customer's reply at a routed address and pass the parsed message to its own conversation system. A destination ending in json receives a JSON document; other destinations can receive form data or multipart attachments. The raw MIME option serves a different need from parsed text.
The stripped-body fields are best effort and may be absent when parsing fails, so an integration needs to handle the ordinary body fields as well. Response codes matter too: 200 accepts the webhook, 406 rejects it without another attempt, and other failures can cause retries. Mailgun's free sending plan currently includes 100 emails per day, one inbound route and one day of log retention. Basic raises capacity to 10,000 monthly emails and five inbound routes at USD $15 per month, with extra-email charges beyond the allowance. Start through the Free account signup link.
Strengths
- Inbound routes can deliver parsed messages and attachments to an application
- JSON and raw MIME options serve different message-processing needs
Watch out for
- Best-effort stripped message fields can be absent
- The free plan includes only one inbound route and one day of logs
Best for
- Technical teams combining outbound application email with incoming reply processing
Sources
- Transactional Email API Service For Developers - Transactional Email API Service For Developers | Mailgun (Oct 25, 2026)
- Route actions (Oct 25, 2026)
- Mailgun Send pricing (Oct 27, 2026)