Email on Acid vs SendCleared: Which One Do You Actually Need?
Email on Acid and SendCleared both check your emails before they go out, so they get compared a lot. But they solve different problems, and for a lot of freelancers and small agencies the real question isn’t “which is better.” It’s “which problem is actually costing me time?”
The short version
| Email on Acid (now Mailgun Inspect) | SendCleared | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Email teams and developers who need to test how a design renders | Freelancers and small-to-mid agencies who need QA plus client sign-off |
| Core strength | Previews across 100+ email clients and devices, with accessibility, code, link, image and spam checks on the higher plan | Automated content and link QA, then a branded client approval link |
| Client approval | Not the core workflow; built around the person running the tests | Built in from the ground up: named, timestamped, logged |
| Rendering previews | Yes: 1,000 a month on Basic, 2,000 on Premium (each client or device counts as one preview) | Not currently; the approval page shows the email at desktop and mobile widths |
| Pricing | Basic $99/mo, Premium $199/mo, unlimited users; extra previews $0.15 each | Free tier; paid plans from $19/mo; Agency plan $49/mo with 3 seats |
| Works across ESPs | Yes | Yes, by design: any ESP that can send a test email |
| Setup | Upload or paste your HTML, or send to a test address | Add one unique address to your ESP’s test list, once per client |
Where Email on Acid genuinely wins
If your problem is “does this template break in Outlook?”, Email on Acid is the better tool, and it isn’t close. Rendering previews across 100+ email clients and devices, plus accessibility checks, code analysis, link and image validation and spam testing on the higher plan, is a serious testing toolkit. SendCleared doesn’t currently do inbox rendering previews.
It has also long been the more affordable alternative to Litmus for teams that need that depth.
Where it falls short for freelancers and small agencies
The full toolkit isn’t in the cheapest plan. On Mailgun Inspect’s Basic plan ($99/month) you get previews and API access. Accessibility tests, HTML code analysis, link and image validation and spam checks sit on Premium ($199/month).
Previews are metered. Each client or device screenshot counts as one preview, so a single test across 50 clients uses 50 of your monthly allowance (1,000 on Basic, 2,000 on Premium), with extra previews at $0.15 each. That suits a team testing templates all day. It’s more than you need if your real question is whether a campaign is safe to send.
It’s built around the person testing, not the client approving. Email on Acid helps you find problems. It isn’t designed around the step that comes after: getting an external client to review the final version and formally sign off, with a record that holds up in three weeks when someone says “I never approved that.” For agencies, that step is where the time and the risk actually sit.
A rendering problem is usually a once-per-template problem. Most freelancers and small agencies build from a handful of tested templates. The thing that goes wrong on a Friday-afternoon send is rarely Outlook rendering. It’s a broken merge tag, a dead link, a missing unsubscribe, or a client who approved a different version.
A note on the Mailgun Inspect transition
Email on Acid is being succeeded by Mailgun Inspect, a rebuilt QA platform from the same company. Existing subscribers began moving over from June 2026, with annual plans migrating at the end of their current term, and previews and tests from the old platform won’t be transferred. Mailgun Inspect covers previews across 100+ email clients and devices, image and link validation, accessibility checks, code analysis and content spam analysis, and it works with any ESP.
If you’re an Email on Acid customer, expect changes to plans and pricing. It’s a natural moment to check whether you’re still paying for the right tool.
Who should use which
Choose Email on Acid (or Mailgun Inspect) if:
Rendering fidelity across obscure email clients is a recurring problem, you’re building templates from code, and you need spam and accessibility testing as part of that.
Choose SendCleared if:
You send campaigns for clients, your bottleneck is catching content mistakes and getting a clean, provable sign-off, and you want something live in minutes at a freelancer-friendly price.
Use both if you can:
Test a template’s rendering once in Email on Acid, then run every campaign through SendCleared for the checks that change on every send: merge tags, links, alt text, spam triggers, and client approval. They aren’t mutually exclusive, because they check different things at different points in the process.
Also comparing Litmus? See how SendCleared stacks up against Litmus →
SendCleared runs an automated QA check on every campaign, then replaces the usual “looks good” Slack reply with a branded, timestamped approval link your client signs off in one click.
Start free →3 approval links a month, no credit card required