A Resend alternative with real mailboxes included
By the Olvane team · Updated
Resend made sending email from code pleasant: a clean API, good SDKs and a dashboard developers like. If transactional email is all you need, it's a strong choice. But many teams end up paying for a second service for the other half of email: the mailboxes people actually read and reply from.
Olvane puts both on the same domain and the same bill. Here's how they compare, including where Resend is the better pick.
The main difference
Resend is built for application email. It can receive mail too: when we checked in November 2026, every plan included three inboxes, more cost $1 per inbox per month, and inbox mail counted against your sending quota. Received mail is delivered to your code through webhooks.
Olvane gives every plan real mailboxes with webmail and IMAP/SMTP, so your team can use them in Outlook, Apple Mail or on their phones, alongside an email API for your app. The marketing site, the API and you@yourcompany.com all live in one account.
Side by side
| Resend | Olvane | |
|---|---|---|
| Sending API | Yes, with official SDKs for many languages | Yes, same request format as Resend's /emails endpoint |
| SMTP sending | Yes | Yes |
| Mailboxes people log in to | No: inbound goes to your code | Yes: webmail, IMAP and SMTP |
| Scheduled sends, batches, idempotency keys | Yes | Yes |
| Signed webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan | 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day | 100 emails a day, 3 mailboxes, 2 GB |
| Limits on paid plans | Monthly volume | Daily volume, domains and mailboxes |
Pricing
Resend's Pro plan was $20 a month for 50,000 emails when we checked, with higher tiers for more volume. Olvane's plans are priced by daily sending, domains and mailboxes:
| Plan | Price | Emails per day | Domains | Mailboxes | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $9/month | 500 | 5 | 25 | 30 GB |
| Pro | $29/month | 2,000 | 15 | 100 | 100 GB |
| Business | $79/month | 5,000 | 50 | 250 | 250 GB |
If you send large volumes and need no mailboxes, Resend's volume tiers will usually work out cheaper. If you need a handful of mailboxes and moderate application email, one Olvane plan usually costs less than an email API plus a separate mailbox provider.
When to choose Resend
- You send hundreds of thousands of emails a month.
- You want official SDKs, React Email integration and a large ecosystem.
- Your team's mailboxes are already with Google or Microsoft and you're happy there.
When to choose Olvane
- You want team mailboxes and application email on one domain, one dashboard and one bill.
- You're a small team, agency or side project where per-user mailbox pricing adds up.
- You want to import existing mailboxes from PST, OLM or MBOX files.
Moving from Resend
Because the send request uses the same fields (from, to, subject, html, text, reply_to, scheduled_at) and the same Idempotency-Key header, switching your code is usually a matter of changing the base URL and API key. On the DNS side:
- Add your domain in Olvane and copy its records.
- If Resend's records use the same names, such as an SPF and MX record on
send, replace them, because a name can only point to one provider. Keep Resend's DKIM record until you've finished switching. - Send a test email, check the headers for SPF, DKIM and DMARC passes, then switch production traffic.
See the email API for the full feature list, or check your current records with the email DNS checker.