A Inbound alternative
Inbound (inbound.new) is a clean email API for agents and indie developers — send, receive, reply, threading, fast inbound webhooks, catch-all routing, and spam checks, with a generous free tier. It is well-built and simple to adopt. tinysend covers send and receive too, and adds a broader surface: newsletters and broadcasts, subscribers, automations, OTP extraction, disposable inboxes, an MCP server, and auth.md so an agent can register with no human.
Inbound is the simpler buy for pure send/receive. tinysend is the bigger surface when you need more than a mailbox.
| capability | inbound | tinysend |
|---|---|---|
| send + receive email via API | yes | yes |
| reply threading | yes | yes |
| fast inbound webhooks | yes | yes |
| newsletters + broadcasts | no | yes |
| subscriber management | no | yes |
| disposable inboxes + OTP extraction | no | yes |
| MCP server | no | yes |
| agent self-signup (auth.md) | no | yes |
Pick Inbound if you want a simple, well-built send/receive/reply API with a generous free tier and you do not need newsletters or an audience.
Pick tinysend if you need newsletters, subscribers, automations, disposable inboxes, MCP, or auth.md self-registration alongside send and receive.
Both are agent-friendly APIs. Some start on Inbound for raw send/receive and move to tinysend when they need broadcasts, automations, or self-registration. See managing subscribers and custom domains.