Is SendGrid Down? How to Check SendGrid Status in Real-Time

Is SendGrid Down? How to Check SendGrid Status in Real-Time

Quick Answer: To check if SendGrid is down, visit apistatuscheck.com/api/sendgrid for real-time monitoring, or check the official status.sendgrid.com page. Common signs include email delivery delays, API timeout errors, SMTP authentication failures, bounced messages, and webhook processing issues.

When your transactional emails stop sending, every minute of delay impacts customer experience. SendGrid processes billions of emails monthly for businesses worldwide, making any downtime a critical communications blocker. Whether you're seeing delayed password resets, failed API requests, or SMTP timeouts, knowing how to quickly verify SendGrid's status can save you valuable troubleshooting time and help you make informed decisions about your email infrastructure.

How to Check SendGrid Status in Real-Time

1. API Status Check (Fastest Method)

The quickest way to verify SendGrid's operational status is through apistatuscheck.com/api/sendgrid. This real-time monitoring service:

  • Tests actual API endpoints every 60 seconds
  • Shows response times and latency trends
  • Tracks historical uptime over 30/60/90 days
  • Provides instant alerts when issues are detected
  • Monitors multiple regions (US, EU, APAC)

Unlike status pages that rely on manual updates, API Status Check performs active health checks against SendGrid's production endpoints, giving you the most accurate real-time picture of service availability.

2. Official SendGrid Status Page

SendGrid maintains status.sendgrid.com as their official communication channel for service incidents. The page displays:

  • Current operational status for all services
  • Active incidents and investigations
  • Scheduled maintenance windows
  • Historical incident reports
  • Component-specific status (API, SMTP, Marketing Campaigns, Inbound Parse)

Pro tip: Subscribe to status updates via email, SMS, or webhook on the status page to receive immediate notifications when incidents occur.

3. Check Your SendGrid Dashboard

If the SendGrid Dashboard at app.sendgrid.com is loading slowly or showing errors, this often indicates broader infrastructure issues. Pay attention to:

  • Login failures or timeouts
  • Activity feed loading errors
  • Delayed statistics refresh
  • API key management access issues

4. Test API and SMTP Endpoints Directly

For developers, making a test API call or SMTP connection can quickly confirm connectivity:

API Test:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.sendgrid.com/v3/mail/send \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"personalizations":[{"to":[{"email":"test@example.com"}]}],"from":{"email":"sender@example.com"},"subject":"Test","content":[{"type":"text/plain","value":"Testing SendGrid"}]}'

SMTP Test:

openssl s_client -connect smtp.sendgrid.net:587 -starttls smtp

Look for HTTP response codes outside the 2xx range, connection timeouts, or authentication errors.

Common SendGrid Issues and How to Identify Them

Email Delivery Delays

Symptoms:

  • Emails taking minutes or hours to arrive instead of seconds
  • Message queue building up in your application
  • Delayed webhook events for email opens/clicks
  • "Processing" status stuck in Activity Feed

What it means: When SendGrid's infrastructure is under stress, emails get queued for delayed delivery. Critical transactional emails like password resets, verification codes, or order confirmations may arrive too late to be useful.

API Errors and Timeouts

Common error codes during outages:

  • 500 Internal Server Error - SendGrid server-side issue
  • 502 Bad Gateway - Load balancer cannot reach backend
  • 503 Service Unavailable - Temporarily overloaded
  • 504 Gateway Timeout - Request processing took too long
  • Connection timeout errors (no response within 30-60 seconds)

API-specific errors:

  • rate_limit_exceeded - Unusual if you're within normal limits (may indicate infrastructure stress)
  • unauthorized - Sporadic auth failures despite valid API keys
  • service_unavailable - Explicit service degradation message

SMTP Connection Failures

SMTP is often more resilient than API but can experience issues:

Connection problems:

  • Cannot establish TCP connection to smtp.sendgrid.net:587 or :25
  • TLS/SSL handshake failures
  • Authentication rejections with valid credentials
  • Connection drops mid-transmission

Error messages to watch for:

421 Service not available
451 Requested action aborted: local error in processing
550 Temporary server error. Please try again later

Bounce Rate Spikes

Abnormal bounce patterns:

  • Sudden increase in soft bounces across valid email addresses
  • Generic bounce reasons like "mailbox temporarily unavailable"
  • Previously deliverable addresses now bouncing
  • Bounce events appearing hours after send attempts

During outages, SendGrid's delivery infrastructure may return bounces prematurely or incorrectly mark messages as undeliverable.

Webhook Processing Issues

Webhooks are critical for tracking email engagement:

  • Events not arriving at your endpoint
  • Significant delays (hours instead of real-time)
  • Missing or invalid webhook signatures
  • Incomplete event data

Check your webhook endpoint logs. If your endpoint is operational but events aren't arriving, the issue is likely on SendGrid's side.

Dashboard and Reporting Delays

Signs the dashboard is impacted:

  • Statistics not updating (stale data)
  • Activity feed showing "No activity" despite active sending
  • Export functions timing out
  • Template editor not loading

Dashboard issues often accompany API problems but can also occur independently due to frontend or database infrastructure issues.

The Real Impact When SendGrid Goes Down

Broken User Authentication Flows

Every modern application relies on email for critical authentication:

  • Password resets: Users locked out of accounts
  • Email verification: New signups cannot complete registration
  • Two-factor codes: Login flows completely blocked
  • Magic links: Passwordless authentication fails

For a SaaS platform with 10,000 daily signups, a 2-hour SendGrid outage could block thousands of users from accessing your service.

Lost Transaction Confirmations

E-commerce and financial applications depend on immediate email confirmations:

  • Order receipts delayed or lost
  • Payment confirmations not delivered
  • Shipping notifications missing
  • Invoice emails failing

Customer impact: Without confirmation emails, customers question whether their transaction succeeded, leading to:

  • Duplicate orders from confused customers
  • Support ticket floods
  • Chargebacks and disputes
  • Cart abandonment on future purchases

Interrupted Customer Communication

Marketing and engagement emails:

  • Welcome email sequences broken
  • Cart abandonment campaigns delayed
  • Re-engagement campaigns miss timing windows
  • Scheduled newsletters fail to send

Operational emails:

  • System alerts not reaching admins
  • Security notifications delayed
  • Compliance emails (GDPR requests, legal notices) missing SLAs
  • Internal team notifications dropped

Webhook Data Loss

When webhooks fail during outages, you lose critical engagement data:

  • Email open tracking incomplete
  • Click-through attribution missing
  • Bounce handling delayed
  • Unsubscribe events not processed

Long-term consequences:

  • Inaccurate campaign analytics
  • Email list hygiene degraded
  • Reputation damage from continued sending to bounced addresses
  • Compliance risks from missing unsubscribe requests

Reputation and Deliverability Impact

While rare, extended outages can affect sender reputation:

  • Recipient servers may throttle or block due to retry storms
  • SPF/DKIM signature inconsistencies during failover
  • Blacklist risks if SendGrid's shared IPs are affected
  • Dedicated IP reputation affected by delivery pattern changes

What to Do When SendGrid Goes Down

1. Implement Robust Retry Logic

Queue emails for retry:

async function sendEmailWithRetry(emailData, maxRetries = 3) {
  for (let attempt = 1; attempt <= maxRetries; attempt++) {
    try {
      await sendgrid.send(emailData);
      return { success: true };
    } catch (error) {
      if (attempt === maxRetries) {
        // Queue for later processing
        await emailQueue.add(emailData, {
          attempts: 10,
          backoff: { type: 'exponential', delay: 60000 }
        });
        return { success: false, queued: true };
      }
      // Exponential backoff
      await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 1000 * Math.pow(2, attempt)));
    }
  }
}

Use email queuing systems:

  • Redis + Bull for job queuing
  • AWS SQS for serverless architectures
  • RabbitMQ for enterprise setups

This prevents email loss while allowing automatic retry when SendGrid recovers.

2. Set Up Fallback Email Providers

Enterprise applications often implement multi-provider strategies:

Primary/fallback architecture:

const emailProviders = {
  primary: sendgrid,
  fallback: mailgun  // or AWS SES, Postmark, etc.
};

async function sendEmail(emailData) {
  try {
    return await emailProviders.primary.send(emailData);
  } catch (error) {
    if (isSendGridOutage(error)) {
      logger.warn('SendGrid down, failing over to Mailgun');
      return await emailProviders.fallback.send(emailData);
    }
    throw error;
  }
}

function isSendGridOutage(error) {
  return error.code >= 500 || 
         error.message.includes('timeout') ||
         error.code === 'ETIMEDOUT';
}

Popular fallback providers:

  • AWS SES - Cost-effective, reliable for transactional email
  • Mailgun - Similar feature set to SendGrid
  • Postmark - Excellent for transactional email
  • Resend - Modern API, developer-friendly

3. Cache Critical Email Content

For time-sensitive emails, store content locally:

// Cache password reset tokens and show UI message
async function sendPasswordReset(userId, email) {
  const token = generateResetToken();
  
  // Store token even if email fails
  await redis.set(`pwd_reset:${userId}`, token, 'EX', 3600);
  
  try {
    await sendEmail({
      to: email,
      subject: 'Password Reset',
      html: passwordResetTemplate(token)
    });
  } catch (error) {
    // Email failed, but user can still reset via UI
    logger.error('Reset email failed, token cached for manual retrieval');
  }
  
  // Return success regardless - user has reset path via UI
  return { success: true, token };
}

Provide a "Didn't receive email?" option that allows users to retrieve codes directly from your application.

4. Monitor and Alert Proactively

Set up comprehensive monitoring:

// Health check every 60 seconds
setInterval(async () => {
  try {
    const response = await sendgrid.request({
      method: 'GET',
      url: '/v3/user/profile'
    });
    
    if (response.statusCode !== 200) {
      await alert.send({
        channel: '#critical-alerts',
        message: 'SendGrid API health check failed',
        statusCode: response.statusCode
      });
    }
  } catch (error) {
    await alert.send({
      channel: '#critical-alerts',
      message: 'SendGrid API unreachable',
      error: error.message
    });
  }
}, 60000);

Subscribe to automated alerts:

5. Communicate Transparently with Users

Status communication:

  • Add banner to your website: "Email delivery may be delayed"
  • Provide alternative authentication methods (SMS codes, support ticket)
  • Update support documentation with known issues
  • Post to social media channels

Customer service preparation:

  • Brief support team on the outage
  • Prepare templated responses for common questions
  • Extend password reset token expiration times
  • Offer manual account verification via support ticket

6. Optimize for SendGrid Recovery

When service is restored, you may face challenges:

Prevent email floods:

// Rate limit your queued email processing
const rateLimiter = new RateLimiter({
  tokensPerInterval: 100,  // emails per second
  interval: 'second'
});

async function processQueuedEmails() {
  const queuedEmails = await emailQueue.getWaiting();
  
  for (const email of queuedEmails) {
    await rateLimiter.removeTokens(1);
    await sendEmail(email);
  }
}

This prevents overwhelming SendGrid's infrastructure during recovery and avoids triggering rate limits.

7. Post-Outage Recovery Checklist

Once SendGrid service is restored:

  1. Process queued emails from your email queue (rate-limited)
  2. Review webhook backlog for missed engagement events
  3. Check bounce reports for incorrectly bounced addresses
  4. Verify critical user flows (signup, password reset, notifications)
  5. Audit email logs for any lost messages requiring manual resend
  6. Review deliverability metrics for reputation impact
  7. Update incident documentation for future reference
  8. Assess failover effectiveness and improve resilience

Frequently Asked Questions

How often does SendGrid go down?

SendGrid maintains strong uptime, typically exceeding 99.95% availability. Major outages affecting all customers are infrequent (2-4 times per year), though regional or component-specific issues may occur more often. Most businesses experience minimal downtime from SendGrid in a typical year, though email delivery can be sensitive to even brief disruptions.

What's the difference between SendGrid status page and API Status Check?

The official SendGrid status page (status.sendgrid.com) is manually updated by SendGrid's team during incidents, which can lag behind actual issues by several minutes. API Status Check performs automated health checks every 60 seconds against live SendGrid endpoints, often detecting delivery delays or API errors before they're officially reported. Use both for comprehensive monitoring.

Can I get compensated for losses during SendGrid outages?

SendGrid's Terms of Service include availability commitments but typically exclude liability for consequential damages like lost revenue or customer churn. Enterprise customers with custom agreements may have SLA credits for downtime exceeding certain thresholds. Review your specific plan's terms or contact SendGrid support for clarification.

Should I use webhooks or API polling for email status tracking?

For critical operations, implement a hybrid approach: rely on webhooks for real-time tracking but include periodic API polling as backup. During outages, webhooks may be delayed or lost. Polling the Email Activity API every 15-30 minutes ensures you don't miss important delivery status changes or bounces.

How do I prevent duplicate emails during SendGrid outages?

Use idempotent sending patterns with unique message IDs and track send attempts in your database. Before retrying a failed send, check if it already succeeded:

const sendId = `${userId}_password_reset_${timestamp}`;
if (await redis.get(`sent:${sendId}`)) {
  return; // Already sent successfully
}

await sendgrid.send(emailData);
await redis.set(`sent:${sendId}`, '1', 'EX', 86400);

This prevents retry logic from sending duplicate password resets or order confirmations.

What regions does SendGrid operate in?

SendGrid operates globally with infrastructure across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. An outage may affect specific regions while others remain operational. Regional issues are sometimes not reflected on the global status page. Consider monitoring SendGrid's API from your application's deployment regions for accurate local status.

Is there a SendGrid downtime notification service?

Yes, several options exist:

  • Subscribe to official updates at status.sendgrid.com
  • Enable email/SMS notifications in SendGrid Dashboard (Settings → Notifications)
  • Use API Status Check for automated alerts via email, Slack, Discord, or webhook
  • Set up custom monitoring with tools like Pingdom, Datadog, or New Relic

What should I do about emails sent during an outage?

SendGrid's infrastructure includes retry logic and queuing, so most emails sent during brief outages will eventually deliver. However:

  1. Check Activity Feed after recovery to identify failed sends
  2. Review bounce reports for temporary failures that need retry
  3. Re-send time-sensitive emails (password resets, verification codes) that may have expired
  4. Notify affected users if critical transactional emails were delayed

For emails queued in your application (not sent to SendGrid), process them according to priority—authentication emails first, marketing emails last.

Stay Ahead of SendGrid Outages

Don't let email delivery issues catch you off guard. Subscribe to real-time SendGrid alerts and get notified instantly when issues are detected—before your users start complaining.

API Status Check monitors SendGrid 24/7 with:

  • 60-second health checks across all regions
  • Instant alerts via email, Slack, Discord, or webhook
  • Historical uptime tracking and incident reports
  • Multi-API monitoring for your entire email stack

Need comprehensive monitoring across your entire infrastructure? Check out our other status guides:

Start monitoring SendGrid now →

Last updated: February 4, 2026. SendGrid status information is provided in real-time based on active monitoring. For official incident reports, always refer to status.sendgrid.com.

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