Overview
Resend and Bento both serve SaaS companies but from completely different angles. Resend is a transactional email API focused on developer experience - send password resets, receipts, and notifications via clean API calls. Bento is a behavioral marketing platform that tracks users across your app and triggers emails based on their actions. Read our full Bento comparison for more details.
Pricing Model Difference
This is the biggest practical difference. Resend charges per email sent (about $0.40/1k emails on Pro). Bento charges per user tracked at $0.01/user with unlimited emails. If you send many emails per user, Bento can be cheaper. If you have many users but send few emails, Resend is cheaper. Use our email cost calculator to estimate your expenses.
User Tracking & Behavioral Marketing
Bento's core feature is tracking user behavior. Install their JavaScript snippet and Bento tracks page views, clicks, and events. Then you can trigger emails based on these behaviors, powering automated drip campaigns. Resend doesn't track anything - you call the API when you want to send an email. This is perfect for transactional emails but lacks marketing sophistication.
Developer Experience
Resend wins here. The API is cleaner, the SDKs are better, and React Email support is first-class. Bento's API is fine but not their focus - they're more about the visual workflows and AI email builder. For SaaS onboarding, both can work but Bento has better automation out of the box.
When to Use Each
Use Resend if you're building transactional email into your app and want the best developer experience. Use Bento if you want to track user behavior and trigger marketing emails based on actions. For a unified solution with both capabilities plus Stripe integration, consider Sequenzy.
The Sequenzy Alternative
If you need both transactional emails and behavioral marketing in one platform, consider Sequenzy. We offer smart segmentation, AI-powered email sequences, and native Stripe integration at predictable contact-based pricing.