Every plan has the same features, with Plunk branding on emails while you stay free. Plunk is an open-source email platform for transactional email, campaigns and event-triggered workflows. The pricing page lists a Free plan of 1,000 emails a month with no credit card required and a pay-as-you-grow plan at $0.001 per email, which is $1 per 1,000. It says every feature is on every plan, including unlimited contacts, SMTP relay, inbound email, email validation, custom domains with DKIM, a REST API and an MCP server. Free emails carry Plunk branding, and the paid plan removes it and adds a monthly spend cap. You can also self-host with Docker Compose. Community feedback is thin. We found no G2, Capterra or Trustpilot pages, and a Hacker News commenter argued that Plunk is a self-hosted platform that relies on a cloud service to actually send email.
Free tier quotas
Emails
1,000 emails a month on the hosted Free plan
Card
No credit card required, per the Plunk pricing page
Contacts
Unlimited contacts
Features
Transactional email, workflow automation, campaign broadcasts, inbound email, email validation, custom domains, click and open tracking
Branding
Free emails carry Plunk branding
Self-hosting
Free to self-host with Docker Compose, with the source on GitHub
Developer tools
REST API, SMTP relay and an MCP server for agents
Last sniffed Oct 17, 2026. Always confirm on the official pricing page.
👍 Good boy
+Every feature is on every plan, so the Free plan includes workflows, broadcasts, inbound email and email validation, per the pricing page.
+Contacts are unlimited, so a large list does not push you up a price tier.
+Pricing is one rate, $0.001 per email, with a monthly spend cap you can set on the paid plan.
+You can self-host with Docker Compose and own your data, which the page calls full data ownership and no per-email costs.
+A Reddit post in r/selfhosted announced Plunk became fully open source, describing it as a self-hosted alternative to services such as SendGrid, Resend or Mailgun.
+A commenter in an r/Emailmarketing thread on free self-hosted tools pointed to Plunk, noting it had just become fully open source.
+The page lists an MCP server and a REST API, which suits agent and script workflows.
👎 Watch out
−1,000 emails a month on Free is small, and the emails carry Plunk branding until you move to the paid plan.
−A Hacker News commenter argued that Plunk is a self-hosted platform which uses a cloud platform to actually send email. The excerpt cuts off, so read the thread for the full point.
−A general r/selfhosted comment on sending email says the hurdle with self-hosted email is deliverability and that the problem grows with users. That thread is not specific to Plunk.
−We found no G2, Capterra or Trustpilot pages for Plunk, so there is far less independent review evidence than for the larger providers here.
−The pricing page lists one flat rate with no volume tiers, so a high-volume sender should compare it with per-thousand rates from other providers.
−Self-hosting means you run and update the service yourself, and the pricing page says nothing about support for self-hosted installs.
The catch
The hosted Free plan is 1,000 emails a month, and your emails carry Plunk branding. The paid plan removes the branding at $0.001 per email and adds a monthly spend cap.
Plunk is open source and can be self-hosted with Docker Compose. A Hacker News commenter pointed out that it uses a cloud service to actually send the email, and the excerpt we read cuts off before the rest of the argument. Check which sending service your self-hosted install relies on.
A Reddit commenter in a general thread on self-hosted email says deliverability is the hurdle. That is about self-hosted email in general, not about Plunk specifically.
We found no G2, Capterra or Trustpilot pages for Plunk. Treat the review evidence as light.
What’s included
✓Transactional email
✓Campaigns and newsletters
✓Event-triggered workflows
✓SMTP relay
✓Inbound email
✓Email validation
✓Custom domains with DKIM
✓Open and click tracking
✓REST API
✓MCP server for agents
✓Self-hosting with Docker Compose
Free tier value
Generosity
A
Estimated value
1,000 free emails a month with every feature, or free self-hosting
Feature parity
Same features on Free and paid. Pay as you grow costs $0.001 per email.
Screenshots
HomepagePricing page
Paid plans
Pay as you grow, $0.001 per email
Everything in Free, no Plunk branding, a monthly spend cap and unlimited emails. That works out to $1 per 1,000 emails.
Self-hosted, free
Run Plunk on your own infrastructure with Docker Compose. The page says you get full data ownership and no per-email costs from Plunk.
Common questions
Is Plunk free?
The hosted Free plan includes 1,000 emails a month with no credit card required. Plunk is also open source and free to self-host.
What does Plunk cost after the free emails?
$0.001 per email on the pay-as-you-grow plan, which removes Plunk branding and adds a monthly spend cap.
Are there feature tiers?
No. The pricing page says every feature is on every plan.
Can I self-host Plunk?
Yes. The page says you can deploy with Docker Compose, and the source is on GitHub under useplunk/plunk.
Where are the independent reviews?
We found Reddit and Hacker News discussion but no G2, Capterra or Trustpilot pages for Plunk.
Change history
Checked October 22, 2026
Pricing read from the Plunk pricing page. Community evidence from Reddit and Hacker News excerpts only. No G2, Capterra or Trustpilot pages were found.
