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Oct 20, 2026 · by Tawked

Transactional email API in Saudi Arabia 2026: providers, SAR prices and how to choose

Compare transactional email APIs in Saudi Arabia: SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Resend, Arsel and Tawked Email at SAR 0.01 a message, with sources and dates.

Who this is for

A transactional email API sends the messages your system owes a customer: an order confirmation, an invoice, a password reset, a sign-in link. For a Saudi business the choice is between global providers billed monthly in US dollars (SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, Resend, Brevo) and a few Saudi ones. Tawked Email is a Saudi transactional email API at SAR 0.01 a message (SAR 10 per 1,000), taken from your balance with no monthly fee, sent from your own domain by API or SMTP. It is in early access: you request it from the Tawked console and our team reviews each request. Below, every provider's public price, with the date we read it, and where Tawked is not the cheapest.

The short answer

  • Tawked Email costs SAR 0.01 per message and nothing monthly. The global APIs sell a monthly plan in US dollars with a bundle of messages: Resend Pro at $20 for 50,000, Postmark Basic at $15 for 10,000, SendGrid Essentials from $19.95, Mailgun Basic from $15.
  • At low volume Tawked costs less; at higher volume a monthly plan wins. Below about 5,600 messages a month Tawked costs less than any of those paid plans. Above about 7,500 a month, Resend's $20 plan (about SAR 75) is cheaper than Tawked, and the gap grows with volume. We say so plainly.
  • Most Saudi providers sell by quote. Deewan and Gateway.sa publish no email price. Arsel publishes SAR plans from 115 SAR a month for 5,000 emails, VAT added.
  • What matters as much as the price: sending from your own domain with DKIM, bounces and spam complaints handled for you, an event on your webhook for each message, and retries that never send twice.

Where Tawked fits

Tawked Email sends transactional mail from your business domain only (orders@yourstore.sa, never a Gmail or Outlook address). You add one DKIM record at your domain's host; Tawked recognises the host, shows you where the record goes, and checks it every 10 minutes for up to 72 hours.

Your system sends with one API call per message (POST /v1/email/messages, with an Idempotency-Key so a retry never sends twice) or over SMTP (smtp.tawked.com, port 587 with STARTTLS or 465 with TLS, a live key as the password), which suits WordPress, Laravel and other systems that already speak SMTP. Your application's webhook receives each message's delivery, bounce, complaint or failure.

  • Price: SAR 0.01 per message from your balance, no monthly fee. The price returns to your balance once if the message bounces, is rejected or cannot be sent; a message the recipient reports as spam keeps its price, because it was delivered.
  • Attachments: up to 10 files, 10 MB together, at no extra price, such as a PDF invoice.
  • Arabic: Arabic sender names, Arabic subjects and Arabic domains.
  • Privacy: the body of your message is not stored; the addresses, subject, your reference and the events are kept for your message log.
  • Limits: 1,000 messages a day per account to start, raised when you ask from the console; up to 5 sender domains per application.
  • Not for: newsletters, offers and bulk campaigns. There is no direct Salla or Zid connection that sends a store's mail on its own.

The full detail is on the Tawked Email page and in the developer docs.

The comparison

Provider What it is Lowest paid entry Per 1,000 beyond the plan Free tier Billed in API and SMTP
Tawked Email Saudi transactional email API, own domain only, early access None: SAR 0.01 per message SAR 10 Free test messages from the console to your own address SAR, prepaid balance Both
Resend Developer email API Pro $20 a month, 50,000 emails $0.90 3,000 a month, 100 a day USD Both
Postmark Transactional email service Basic $15 a month, 10,000 emails $1.80 (Basic), $1.30 (Pro), $1.20 (Platform) 100 a month USD Both
SendGrid (Twilio) Email API and marketing Essentials from $19.95 a month Not listed on the page we read 60-day trial USD Both
Mailgun Email API Basic from $15 a month From $1.80 (Basic), $1.30 (Foundation, $35), $1.10 (Scale, $90) 100 a day USD Both
Arsel Saudi email platform 115 SAR a month: 5,000 emails, 1,000 contacts Not listed 100 emails a month SAR, 15% VAT added Both
Deewan Saudi communications platform with an Email API No public price; contact form Not listed Not listed Not listed API
Gateway.sa Saudi Email API "Contact our sales team for a custom quote" Not listed Not listed Not listed API

Prices read on 2026-10-20 on the pages listed under Sources. Brevo also sells transactional email beside its marketing suite; its price page did not show a readable price when we checked, so it is not in the table.

What it costs a month

Riyal figures use USD 1 = SAR 3.75, before any tax. Each provider at its cheapest plan that covers the volume, from the prices above. Postmark at 50,000 is its Platform plan ($18 for 10,000) plus 40,000 extra emails at $1.20 per 1,000; its page may offer a larger bundle for less.

Messages a month Tawked Email Resend Postmark SendGrid Essentials
1,000 SAR 10 SAR 0 (free tier, at most 100 a day) SAR 56.25 SAR 74.81
5,000 SAR 50 SAR 75 SAR 56.25 SAR 74.81
10,000 SAR 100 SAR 75 SAR 56.25 From SAR 74.81
50,000 SAR 500 SAR 75 SAR 247.50 Not computed: the plan's volume is not on the page

At 10,000 and 50,000 messages a month Tawked is not the cheapest. It is built for a business that sends a few thousand messages a month, pays in riyals from one balance, and wants no dollar card and no monthly plan.

What the table does not show

Your own domain. Receiving servers check that a message is signed with DKIM in the name of the domain it comes from. Resend, Postmark, SendGrid, Mailgun and Arsel all let you sign with your own domain; check how many domains your plan allows and how long the record check takes.

Bounces and complaints. An address that bounces for good, or a recipient who marks you as spam, should never be sent to again. Ask whether the provider stops those sends for you, and whether you still pay for a message that bounced. At Tawked, sending to such an address stops before anything is charged, and a bounced message is refunded.

Retries. A network error mid-request is normal. Without an idempotency key a retry can send the same invoice twice. Ask whether the API accepts one.

Currency and tax. A plan in US dollars is paid with an international card and moves with the exchange rate. Check whether a price includes VAT: Arsel adds 15% at invoicing.

Marketing versus transactional. Several providers here sell newsletters and campaigns too. A transactional service sends only what a customer expects after doing something. If you want newsletters, pick a marketing platform.

What to check before you sign up

  1. Can you send from your own domain, and how many domains? Tawked: own domain only, up to 5 per application.
  2. API, SMTP or both? Your own code is simpler on the API; WordPress and many ready-made systems speak SMTP.
  3. Is there a webhook for delivery, bounce and complaint? You need it to stop resending to a dead address.
  4. What is refunded? Tawked returns the price of a bounced, rejected or failed message.
  5. What is the daily limit to start, and how is it raised? Tawked starts at 1,000 a day per account and raises it on request.
  6. Is the provider open to you today? Tawked Email is in early access: you request it with what you send, your monthly volume and your domain, and the team reviews every request.

For sign-in codes by SMS rather than email, see our comparison of SMS OTP providers in Saudi Arabia.

Frequently asked questions

What is a transactional email API? It is a service your system calls to send one email to one customer because of something they did: an order, a payment, a password reset, a sign-in. It differs from a newsletter tool, which sends the same message to a list.

Which transactional email providers bill in Saudi riyals? Tawked Email bills SAR 0.01 per message from a prepaid balance, with no monthly fee. Arsel sells monthly plans in SAR. Resend, Postmark, SendGrid and Mailgun bill monthly in US dollars.

How much does one transactional email cost in Saudi Arabia? At Tawked, SAR 0.01 a message, or SAR 10 per 1,000. A global plan costs from about SAR 56 to SAR 75 a month and includes a bundle, so its price per message falls as you send more.

Can I send from Gmail or Outlook? Not with Tawked Email: it sends from your business domain only, verified with one DKIM record. Mail from your own domain is what receiving servers trust, and it is what your customer expects to see.

Does Tawked Email work with SMTP? Yes. The server is smtp.tawked.com, port 587 with STARTTLS or 465 with TLS, username tawked, and a live key as the password. The SMTP guide has the setup for Laravel, WordPress and Nodemailer.

Can I send newsletters with it? No. Tawked Email sends transactional mail only: order confirmations, invoices, password resets and sign-in links. Newsletters, offers and bulk sends are not what it is for.

Can the email be in Arabic? Yes. Sender names, subjects and domains can be Arabic. Your system writes the HTML, so a right-to-left body is set in your own HTML with dir="rtl".

Is Tawked Email available now? It is in early access. You request it from the Tawked console with what you send, your messages a month and your domain; the team reviews every request and answers in the console and by email. Test messages from the console to your own address are free.

Sources (checked 2026-10-20)

If a price above is out of date, write to support@tawked.com and we will correct it with the new check date.

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