☢Email Marketing

Where beautifully crafted emails get sent to people who immediately archive them.

Last updated: 2026-03-16

👑 Champion

Resend

"Developer-first email that actually makes sending beautiful emails through code a joy, not a nightmare. React Email changed the game — write emails like components."

⚔️ Challenger

Loops

Threat Level:

7/10

"Modern email marketing with a gorgeous UI, built for SaaS. What Mailchimp would be if Mailchimp started over in 2023 with taste."

🐴 Dark Horse

Plunk

"Open-source transactional + marketing email. Self-host your email infrastructure. The privacy-first Resend."

Watch: If Plunk nails the developer experience while being fully open-source, they could become the PostHog of email.

☠️ Nuked

Mailchimp

"Mailchimp's free tier gutted, UI bloated, acquired by Intuit. No developer in 2026 reaches for Mailchimp first. It's the tool your marketing team insists on because they set it up in 2019."

Displaced: 2024 · By: Resend + Loops

🔥 Hot Take

Mailchimp got acquired by Intuit and immediately started acting like a TurboTax product — upsells everywhere, free tier destroyed, UI cluttered with features nobody asked for. Resend won developers by making email infrastructure beautiful (React Email is genuinely elegant), while Loops won marketers by being the Mailchimp alternative that doesn't feel like navigating an airport. The email marketing space is bifurcating: developers want APIs, marketers want drag-and-drop, and Mailchimp is somehow bad at both now.

☢ Nuke Timeline

Sep 2021

Intuit acquires Mailchimp for $12B

The acquisition that signaled the beginning of the end for Mailchimp's developer love.

Jun 2022

Mailchimp gutts free tier (500 contacts)

The free tier that built Mailchimp gets slashed. Developers start looking elsewhere.

Jan 2023

Resend launches with React Email

Write emails as React components. Developers collectively say 'finally.'

Jun 2023

Loops launches for SaaS email