About Bird Email API
Overview
Bird is a communications platform that brings the email delivery engine behind SparkPost under one API alongside SMS, WhatsApp and voice. Founded in 2011 as MessageBird, it now serves customers in more than 150 countries and carries trillions of messages a year.
With the Bird email API, developers build transactional email, marketing campaigns and agent mailboxes on one platform. Send, manage and inspect email through the API, SDKs, CLI or hosted MCP, and follow every message from first send to delivery at scale.
Key Benefits
- Send, receive and track email through the API, SDKs, CLI or hosted MCP.
- Verify your sending identity with DKIM, return-path and DMARC.
- Trace a bounce to its receiving-server response and inspect bounce types.
- Receive email on your domain or a forwarding address, with webhooks for bodies and attachments.
- Retry requests with idempotency keys and retrieve the original response.
- Render React Email to HTML or reuse published, personalized templates.
How It Works
Developers connect through hosted MCP, CLI, SDKs or cURL and work from the Bird dashboard. They verify a sending domain by publishing DNS records, test requests against a sandbox that triggers real delivery events, render templates with values from their app, and act on delivery through webhooks whose signatures the SDK verifies. Teams organize access in workspaces with per-channel API keys and an audit log.
Use Cases
- Ecommerce teams send order confirmations, receipts and delivery updates.
- Product teams deliver password resets and account notifications.
- Marketers run broadcasts, newsletters and promotions to opted-in audiences.
- Customer support agents keep persistent mailboxes to follow threads and reply.
- AI agents send and inspect email through MCP in tools like Claude and Codex.
- SaaS teams connect customer events to relevant messages with email automation.
Why Choose This Product
Bird pairs the email delivery engine behind SparkPost with SMS, WhatsApp and voice on a single API and workspace. Existing SparkPost customers keep their setup, while new customers sign up to Bird and start with free tiers before moving to pay-as-you-go usage and product plans.
Bird Email API Pros & Cons
- Sends email, SMS, WhatsApp and voice on one API
- Free to start; paid email plans from $15/month
- MCP, CLI and SDK support for developers and AI agents
- Domain authentication with DKIM, return-path and DMARC
- Serves 150+ countries with trillions of messages a year
Key Features
Transactional email
Send receipts, confirmations, notifications and account updates from your application through the Bird API or SMTP.
Email marketing
Create broadcasts, newsletters and promotions for opted-in audiences from the same platform.
Hosted MCP
Build and send email through hosted MCP used by Claude, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Gemini.
Inbound email
Receive email on your domain or a forwarding address and fetch message bodies and attachments through webhooks.
Sending authentication
Verify sending identity with DKIM, return-path and DMARC to manage reputation as volume grows.
Delivery analytics
Trace delivery over time and follow a bounce to its receiving-server response and bounce type.
Reusable templates
Render React Email to HTML or publish templates, then personalize each send with values from your app.
Idempotent retries
Retry with the same key and body to retrieve the original response; keys are retained for about three hours.
Agent mailboxes
Give an application or agent a persistent mailbox to follow threads and reply within the same workspace.
Webhook verification
Verify webhook signatures with the SDK before acting on delivery events.
Bird Email API Pricing
View full pricing →- 50,000 emails per month
- Transactional email and campaigns
- Free and paid sending plans
- US outbound long-code segment
- Message rates by destination and sender
- Carrier fees shown separately
- US marketing message
- Bird processing and Meta template charges
- Priced by destination
- US local number per month
- Local and toll-free numbers
- Rental and usage priced separately
- Dedicated sending infrastructure
- Monthly IP rental
- US example rate before tax
- Messaging and presence
- Free tier and paid capacity
| Feature | Email $15/mo | SMS $0.0035 usage-based | WhatsApp $0.005 usage-based | Phone numbers $0.50/mo | Dedicated IPs $24.95/mo | Realtime Free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 emails per month | ||||||
| Transactional email and campaigns | ||||||
| Free and paid sending plans | ||||||
| US outbound long-code segment | ||||||
| Message rates by destination and sender | ||||||
| Carrier fees shown separately | ||||||
| US marketing message | ||||||
| Bird processing and Meta template charges | ||||||
| Priced by destination | ||||||
| US local number per month | ||||||
| Local and toll-free numbers | ||||||
| Rental and usage priced separately | ||||||
| Dedicated sending infrastructure | ||||||
| Monthly IP rental | ||||||
| US example rate before tax | ||||||
| Messaging and presence | ||||||
| Free tier and paid capacity |
Pricing extracted from the product website and may change. Check the source for current details.
Frequently asked questions about Bird Email API
Is a top-up a subscription?
No. A top-up adds money to your Bird balance, and usage and plan renewals draw from that balance. A product plan is a separate subscription with its own allowance and renewal period.
Do I need a paid plan for each product?
No. Each product has its own pricing: free tiers, pay-as-you-go usage, subscriptions or a custom agreement. An email plan covers email, while SMS and WhatsApp are billed separately.
What happens if I have custom pricing?
Your agreed rate replaces the standard rate for that product. Other products keep their own rates, and charges still draw from your shared Bird balance.
Are phone numbers and dedicated IPs one-time purchases?
No. Phone numbers and dedicated IPs have recurring rental charges, and setup and registration fees can also apply. The product pricing page separates these charges from usage.
Which currency will I pay in?
Charges use your account's billing currency. You can select a currency on the product pricing page to see published rates; carrier fees, provider fees and taxes may be additional.
Which products can I start with for free?
Use the Free to start filter to find free tiers and included tools. A free product or tier can still have paid channel usage, capacity limits or optional add-ons.