Clerk vs Resend
Clerk and Resend are both developer tools tools aimed at developers. Resend costs less, from $20/mo versus $25/mo for Clerk. Both have a free plan.
| Pricing | Freemium · $25 | Freemium · $20 |
| Starting price | $25/mo | $20/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers | Developers |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2019 | US · 2023 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Clerk if
React and Next.js teams who want production auth with great UX immediately.
- Beautiful components save weeks of work
- Generous free tier
- Organizations and B2B features built in
Look elsewhere if: Teams requiring full ownership of auth data (Better Auth, Keycloak) or non-JS stacks.
Choose Resend if
Developers and startups who want transactional email that is a pleasure to integrate.
- Best developer experience in email APIs
- React Email templates are a joy
- Free tier for small projects
Look elsewhere if: High-volume senders needing advanced deliverability tooling or full marketing automation.
Clerk vs Resend pricing
Clerk
- Hobby$050,000 monthly retained users per app, 3 dashboard seats
- Pro$25/mo$20/mo billed annually; 50k MRUs, then from $0.02/MRU
- Business$300/mo$250/mo billed annually; 10 dashboard seats
- EnterpriseCustomAnnual billing; 99.99% uptime SLA, volume discounts
Resend
- Free$03,000 emails/mo, 100/day, 3 domains, 30-day retention
- Pro$20/mo50,000 emails/mo, 10 domains, no daily limit
- Scale$90/mo100,000 emails/mo, 1,000 domains, dedicated IP add-on
- EnterpriseCustom99.99% SLA, dedicated CSM, SSO included
Clerk · Key features
- Prebuilt UI components for auth and user profile
- Email, password, passkeys, OTP and 20+ social providers
- Organizations, roles and permissions (B2B)
- MFA, bot protection and session management
- Clerk Billing for subscriptions and feature gating
- SDKs for Next.js, React, Remix, Expo, Astro and more
Cons
- User data lives with a third party
- Per-user (MRU) cost grows with scale
- Enhanced features (SAML, MFA) cost extra
Resend · Key features
- Simple REST API and SDKs for Node, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Java
- React Email for component-based templates
- Domains with DKIM/SPF guidance and dedicated IPs
- Webhooks, idempotency keys and batch sending
- Broadcasts for marketing with audiences and unsubscribe
- Logs, analytics and suppression lists
Cons
- Short log retention on lower plans
- Fewer advanced features than SendGrid
- Younger provider; reputation building
Clerk vs Resend: FAQ
Which is cheaper, Clerk or Resend?
Resend starts at $20/mo and Clerk at $25/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do Clerk and Resend have a free plan?
Yes, both Clerk and Resend have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.