SendGrid’s free plan is gone. What should a contact form use now?
By MAVID Digital ·
If your website’s contact form sends email through SendGrid, check it. In May 2025, SendGrid replaced its permanent free plan with a 60-day trial. After the trial, an account needs a paid plan to keep sending. Small business sites that set up a free SendGrid account years ago can stop delivering messages, and the form may still say “Thanks, we got it.”
How to tell if your form is affected
Send yourself a test message from your own contact form. If it doesn’t arrive within a few minutes, look at whoever built or hosts the site and ask what sends the email. If the answer is SendGrid on a free account, that’s the likely problem.
Free and low-cost options in 2026
These are the options we’d look at for a small business site that gets a handful of form messages a day:
| Service | Free allowance | Good fit when |
|---|---|---|
| Resend | 3,000 emails a month, up to 100 a day | You want a simple email API on any host |
| Brevo | 300 emails a day | You also want basic newsletter tools |
| SendGrid | 60-day trial, then paid | You already pay for it or need its marketing tools |
Free allowances change, so check each provider’s pricing page before you choose.
What we check on MAVID sites
We check that form notifications reach the intended inbox, that spam protection works and that failures produce an error rather than a false confirmation. Your public contact address needs a separate delivery test if it forwards to another inbox.
Automatic replies, newsletters and marketing campaigns have different requirements from a simple inquiry notification. We agree on those needs and any provider costs before adding them.
The bigger lesson
A contact form is the most important page on most small business websites, and it’s the one nobody tests. Whatever service you use, send yourself a test message once a month. It takes 30 seconds and you’ll know right away if leads have stopped coming through.
