Resend vs Loops.so: Choosing the Right Email Platform for Your SaaS

Email is still one of the most essential channels for SaaS products. Whether it’s a password reset, a welcome message, or a product update, getting those emails delivered—and looking good when they arrive—matters.

If you're building a product, you’ve probably hit the "okay now we need email" moment. And if you’re not sure whether to go with Resend or Loops.so, you’re not alone. Both tools are popular with modern dev teams, but they take very different approaches.

This guide breaks it down in plain English: what each tool is best at, how they’re priced, what it feels like to build with them, and how to decide what’s right for your stack.

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TL;DR — Key Differences

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What Are We Comparing?

Both Resend and Loops.so handle transactional and marketing emails, but they approach it differently.

• Resend is all about developers. It’s fast, API-first, with a focus on React-based templating and sending via code.
• Loops.so is more of a full-stack platform. It’s not just an API—it’s an email marketing tool, transactional sender, and analytics dashboard wrapped into one.

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Why Email Still Matters (and Why It’s a Headache)

Emails are mission-critical. When your sign-up confirmation or password reset email gets flagged as spam—or never arrives—you lose trust. Your app starts to feel broken, even if the code is fine.

But setting up good email infrastructure is surprisingly painful:

• You have to wrangle SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
• Test deliverability across dozens of email clients
• Build and preview templates
• Handle compliance (CAN-SPAM, GDPR, etc.)

So choosing the right platform isn’t just a dev decision—it’s a business one.

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Pricing: Email Volume vs. Subscriber Count

This is where the tools start to diverge.

🧮 Resend: Pay Per Email

Resend uses a usage-based model. You pay for the number of emails you send.

• Free: 3,000 emails/month
• Pro ($20/month): 50,000 emails/month
• Scale ($90/month): 100,000 emails/month + SSO support
• Enterprise: Custom

Pros:

• Predictable cost per email
• Great for apps with lots of transactional messages

Cons:

• Marketing campaigns to large lists can get expensive

🧮 Loops.so: Pay Per Subscriber

Loops charges based on your audience size, not email volume. All paid plans include unlimited transactional emails.

• Free: 4,000 emails/month (with Loops branding)
• Starter ($49/month): Based on subscriber count
• All paid tiers: Unlimited transactional emails, no Loops branding

Pros:

• Great for high-volume transactional sends
• Easier to estimate monthly cost if you grow slowly

Cons:

• Expensive if you have a big list and low email frequency

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Email Design: React Templates vs. Visual Editors

🎨 Resend: Dev-First with React Email

Resend lets you build emails with React components. This is a dream if your whole stack is React—email templates live in your codebase and can be version controlled like everything else.

You can also use their visual editor, but it’s more basic.

🎨 Loops.so: Drag, Drop, Ship

Loops has a slick WYSIWYG editor built for both marketers and devs. It’s easy to use, with branded templates and built-in support for best practices.

If your marketing team wants to build and launch without opening VS Code, they’ll love Loops.

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Transactional Emails

Both platforms handle transactional emails well, but there are some tradeoffs.

• Resend: All about dev speed. RESTful APIs, real-time logs, and SDKs in every language.
• Loops: Covers the basics well, but with fewer dev-centric features.

Worth noting:

• Resend offers a true test mode (no emails are actually sent)
• Loops supports SMTP, which is handy for legacy apps

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Marketing & Campaigns

This is where Loops shines.

• Drip campaigns
• Newsletters
• Onboarding sequences
• Re-engagement workflows

You can do all of these with Loops—and manage them in a clean UI.

Resend supports marketing emails too, but with less focus on automation and sequencing.

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Analytics: Technical vs Visual

• Resend: Gives you logs, webhooks, delivery events, and click tracking. Think: developer dashboards.
• Loops.so: Gives you user-friendly charts, campaign tracking, and engagement metrics at the contact level.

If you're deeply technical, Resend’s logging system might appeal more. If you want instant visibility into campaigns and subscribers, Loops feels easier.

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Dev Experience: SDKs and APIs

🧑‍💻 Resend:

• First-class SDKs for Node, Python, PHP, Go, Ruby, Java, .NET, and more
• REST and SMTP support
• Great docs + CLI tools

🧑‍💻 Loops:

• REST API + OpenAPI spec
• Community-maintained SDKs for Laravel, Rails, and PHP
• Zapier, Make, and Webflow integrations

If you live in your terminal, Resend feels more robust. If you like glueing tools together visually, Loops might be more fun.

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When to Pick Resend

Resend is perfect if:

• You’re sending lots of transactional emails (e.g. auth, receipts, notifications)
• Your team is dev-heavy and loves React
• You want full control of templates, testing, and delivery logic
• You care more about code than UI

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When to Pick Loops.so

Loops is a great fit if:

• You need both marketing + transactional emails in one platform
• Your team includes marketers and growth folks
• You want to set up drip campaigns without writing code
• You’re sending branded newsletters, product updates, or user onboarding

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Use Both?

Actually, yeah. Some teams use Resend for transactional and Loops for marketing.

Or vice versa: use Loops for everything at the start, then move to Resend when you need deeper integration or better developer control.

They’re not mutually exclusive—and both play nicely with modern stacks.

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Final Verdict

Both Resend and Loops.so are modern, well-designed, and dev-friendly platforms. The right one depends on your use case:

• Resend: Better for developer-owned infrastructure and heavy transactional email needs
• Loops: Better for teams doing lots of onboarding, drip campaigns, and newsletters

Best of all? You can try both for free.

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Helpful Links

Resend

• resend.com
• Docs
• GitHub

Loops.so

• loops.so
• Docs
• Integrations

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That’s it. Happy sending 📨