3 ms·

I keep repeating this and just recently a friend sending large mailouts called me to confirm: you do not need Sendgrid or Mailchimp or anything else! IF you are

I keep repeating this and just recently a friend sending large mailouts called me to confirm: you do not need Sendgrid or Mailchimp or anything else! IF you are truly not sending spam, all you need is $5/month DigitalOcean's 512MB server with not previously blacklisted IP. That's it! Paying for Mailchimp a small fortune is like paying for bottled water where all you need is $15/year Brita filter and just drink tap water. Nowadays all major email providers are really good at catching spam. If you are NOT spamming then you are good to go; the key is to start small and grow from there. Do not switch overnight and send 10,000 genuine emails letting your audience know your terms of service have changed; since they don't know your IP, they will consider spam. But if you are getting your newly subscribed audience into getting emails (confirm double opt-in) from your new IP, it will take you 2 months and approx +10% daily raise in sendout to get to $1MM emails per week from your OWN IP at $5/month rate and delivery rate will be similar to those big guys that claim they have the best delivery rate (noone can guarantee you that)! Tested and confirmed!

sethammons 9y ago
And if you end up on a blacklist, even if by mistake? And how do you monitor your system and stats? How do you handle throttling by different MTAs? How are you measuring opens and clicks? How are you managing unsubscribes, and soft and hard bounces? This is not to say that all of this is not something you can't tackle. Instead, many companies prefer to pay a small premium to not worry about any of that and instead focus on their core business.
- vortico 9y ago
  As someone who's just getting into setting up mail newsletters, this is the most useful post in the thread for me, since it explains really what you're buying at MailChimp, SES, etc. I wish they would advertise this. It would be much more straightforward to someone like me.
nothing-special 9y ago
If you're going to do this on your own, this is fantastic advice. The ramp-up period is CRITICAL and you've hit the nail on the head. Don't forget to setup DKIM, SPF, PTR Records, etc!

sethammons 9y ago

And if you end up on a blacklist, even if by mistake? And how do you monitor your system and stats? How do you handle throttling by different MTAs? How are you measuring opens and clicks? How are you managing unsubscribes, and soft and hard bounces? This is not to say that all of this is not something you can't tackle. Instead, many companies prefer to pay a small premium to not worry about any of that and instead focus on their core business.

vortico 9y ago
As someone who's just getting into setting up mail newsletters, this is the most useful post in the thread for me, since it explains really what you're buying at MailChimp, SES, etc. I wish they would advertise this. It would be much more straightforward to someone like me.

nothing-special 9y ago

If you're going to do this on your own, this is fantastic advice. The ramp-up period is CRITICAL and you've hit the nail on the head. Don't forget to setup DKIM, SPF, PTR Records, etc!