Resend vs Payload CMS
The email API for developers — built by the Nodemailer team
vs. TypeScript-first open-source headless CMS — code-first, config-driven
Pricing tiers
Resend
Free
3,000 emails/month, 100 emails/day. 1 custom domain. Ideal for side projects.
Free
Pro — 50k
50,000 emails/month. 10 custom domains. Priority support.
$20/mo
Pro — 100k
100,000 emails/month. 10 custom domains.
$35/mo
Scale — 100k+
Tiered from 100k → 2.5M emails/month. Dedicated IP add-on available.
$90/mo
Scale — 2.5M
2.5M emails/month.
$1150/mo
Enterprise
3M+/month, dedicated IP included, SSO, custom contract.
Custom
Payload CMS
Open Source (self-host)
MIT license. Run free on any Node host. Full admin + APIs.
$0 base (usage-based)
Cloud — Standard
$35/month. 3 GB DB storage, 30 GB file storage, 40 GB bandwidth.
$35/mo
Cloud — Pro
$199/month. Higher resources + priority support.
$199/mo
Cloud — Enterprise
Custom cloud hosting with dedicated support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Resend vs oss on Payload CMS.
| Metric | Resend | Payload CMS |
|---|---|---|
| custom domains | 1 domains | — |
| emails per day | 100 emails/day | — |
| emails per month | 3000 emails/month | — |
Features
Resend · 12 features
- Audiences — Contact list management with custom fields.
- Batch Send — Send up to 100 emails in one API call.
- Broadcasts — Bulk email campaigns with audiences, A/B testing, analytics.
- Dedicated IP — Add-on for high-volume senders. Auto warmup.
- Domains — DKIM/SPF/DMARC auto-verification. Per-domain analytics.
- Idempotency — Prevent duplicate sends with Idempotency-Key header.
- Logs + Analytics — Full email logs, delivery heatmap, events table.
- React Email — OSS library (3M+ downloads) to compose emails in React/JSX.
- Scheduled Send — scheduledAt parameter for future delivery.
- Send API — POST /emails endpoint to send. Supports attachments, scheduled send, idempotency…
- Suppressions — Auto-managed bounce + complaint list. API to add/remove.
- Webhooks — Email lifecycle events: sent, delivered, bounced, complained, opened, clicked.
Payload CMS · 18 features
- Access Control — Function-based per-collection/field access rules.
- Admin UI — React admin — fully customizable components + views.
- Authentication — Built-in JWT + HTTP-only cookies + API keys.
- Blocks — Flexible page-builder pattern via block field.
- Collections — Schema-defined content types with fields, hooks, access control.
- Drafts & Versions — Version every change. Autosave, drafts, scheduled publish.
- Field Types — Rich field library: text, textarea, richText (Lexical), upload, relation, blocks…
- Form Builder Plugin — Dynamic forms with submissions storage.
- Globals — Single-instance documents (site settings, header, footer).
- GraphQL API (auto) — Full schema auto-generated.
- Hooks — Lifecycle hooks: beforeChange/Read/Delete, afterChange, etc.
- i18n — Multi-locale field values + admin UI translations.
- Live Preview — Side-by-side editor + iframe preview of Next.js site.
- Local API (zero latency) — Direct in-process data access. Ideal for Next.js server components.
- Multi-Tenancy Plugin — Multi-tenant content isolation via plugin.
- @payloadcms/plugin-seo — Built-in SEO meta fields.
- Plugins — Official + community plugins (SEO, Stripe, Form Builder, multi-tenant, etc.).
- REST API (auto) — Auto-generated REST endpoints for every collection.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Resend | Payload CMS |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Resend CLI | create-payload-app |
| SDK | react-email, resend-go, resend-node, resend-php, resend-python, resend-ruby | @payloadcms/next (Node) |
| REST | Resend REST API | Payload REST API |
| GRAPHQL | — | Payload GraphQL API |
| OTHER | SMTP Relay, Webhooks (Svix) | Admin UI, Local API (Node.js direct) |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Resend and Payload CMS are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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