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You use Mailtrain to manage your list subscriptions and manage your email blasts. If you want your email to then land in inboxes instead of spam, you can use an

by joecot 9y ago

You use Mailtrain to manage your list subscriptions and manage your email blasts. If you want your email to then land in inboxes instead of spam, you can use an emailing service, like MailGun or Amazon SES, to actually send the mail. Instructions for using both are on Mailtrain's wiki. The problem with MailChimp is that it's very simple and easy to use, and once your list actually gets popular the pricing falls off a cliff. At 2,000 subscribers MailChimp is free; at 3,000 it's $50 a month, and it keeps going up. There's no monthly fee to send email through Mailgun, and the only thing they charge for is number of emails: you can send 10,000 a month for free, and it's $5 per 10,000 after that. You can also manage mailing lists directly through mailgun, but it doesn't have as polished an interface (and you need to send the actual mailings yourself through the API). So if you want a polished interface, use MailTrain to manage your lists and Mailgun to send the emails. Amazon SES is even cheaper, and also hooks into Mailtrain. "$0 for the first 62,000 emails sent per month, and $0.10 per 1,000 emails sent thereafter." MailChimp offers better deliverability than Mailgun and SES, but at a pretty steep cost. If you're a professional company with income, pay the $50+ a month for Mailchimp. If you're doing a list for a sidegig or a hobby, use Mailtrain.

eli 9y ago
That difference in price only gets more pronounced as you scale up. The cost isn't just in dollars, but in time and hassle. MailChimp will halt your send and wait for a human to review it and your list practices if you hit various undisclosed triggers. Makes sense, but if your emails are time critical and have real revenue riding on them, it's not really workable.
- wefarrell 9y ago
  The alternative is to use a service that doesn't review suspicious activity, which is going to have significantly worse delivery rates.
  - eli 9y ago
    I think a much more common alternative is to work with a provider who specializes in enterprise customers instead of small retail customers. I'm happy to sign a long term contract and make guarantees about my list acquisition practices, but I lose money and my readers' trust if I click the Send button and it doesn't send.
tscs37 9y ago
Last I checked Mailgun still doesn't do SEPA Debit, correct? Cuz that is why I no-go'd them a while back. Using credit card instead of debit is incredibly annoying.
- dawhizkid 9y ago
  why...?
  - zaarn 9y ago
    In Europe SEPA Debit is cheaper and easier than credit card and you get customer protection in case anything goes wrong. Plus I can tell my bank at any time that a specific vendor or merchant is no longer allowed to pull from my account.
  - askmike 9y ago
    In most countries in Europe people don't really use credit cards. I only have a credit card because I travel outside Europe a lot (and want to pay online where proper payment solutions like iDeal or even PayPal are not supported). Even when I travel outside I can use my Maestro card (tied to my bank account) 90% of the times, my credit card is more for backup purposes. In my country (the Netherlands) you'll have a hard time paying for stuff with a credit card, most shops only accept Maestro cards and NFC payments through your phone. Though most ATMs do support credit cards. More and more shops start to not take cash anymore (expensive to handle). I personally don't like credit cards since they are about as insecure as you can design a payment system (imo). EDIT: I meant the insecurity of using credit cards for online payments.
    - gerardnll 9y ago
      You mean, most people use Debit cards? Because everyone has one in its wallet. Although it's true I only use credit cards outside Europe, because AFAIK debit cards don't work.
      - askmike 9y ago
seanwilson 9y ago
> The problem with MailChimp is that it's very simple and easy to use, and once your list actually gets popular the pricing falls off a cliff. At 2,000 subscribers MailChimp is free; at 3,000 it's $50 a month, and it keeps going up. I really like the MailChimp functionality and interface but I could never understand this pricing model and how they can justify charging that much for a few thousand users. Compared to e.g. the monthly infrastructure cost an app or SAAS project your newsletter is about, $50 for 3K users seems really disproportional to how important a newsletter is. Am I missing something here?
- bluedino 9y ago
  It's really for a marketing list and not something like reminder emails or updates if you are running a software product (email user x every time event y happens type of thing)
  - seanwilson 9y ago
    For an app or service though, sending out newsletters about new features or related articles is pretty common and 3K users isn't that many.
bluedino 9y ago
Yea, the pricing on a service like that is crazy. If you have 50,000 customers (which is nothing in terms of online services), MailChimp is incredibly expensive. With a one-time purchase of mailing list software like InterSpire you can send as many as you want using a VPS. You'll want to monitor the logs and every couple weeks request being removed from Yahoo or AT&T's blacklists, but it costs virtually nothing to run.

by joecot 9y ago

eli 9y ago

That difference in price only gets more pronounced as you scale up. The cost isn't just in dollars, but in time and hassle. MailChimp will halt your send and wait for a human to review it and your list practices if you hit various undisclosed triggers. Makes sense, but if your emails are time critical and have real revenue riding on them, it's not really workable.

wefarrell 9y ago
The alternative is to use a service that doesn't review suspicious activity, which is going to have significantly worse delivery rates.
- eli 9y ago
  I think a much more common alternative is to work with a provider who specializes in enterprise customers instead of small retail customers. I'm happy to sign a long term contract and make guarantees about my list acquisition practices, but I lose money and my readers' trust if I click the Send button and it doesn't send.

tscs37 9y ago

Last I checked Mailgun still doesn't do SEPA Debit, correct? Cuz that is why I no-go'd them a while back. Using credit card instead of debit is incredibly annoying.

dawhizkid 9y ago
why...?
- zaarn 9y ago
  In Europe SEPA Debit is cheaper and easier than credit card and you get customer protection in case anything goes wrong. Plus I can tell my bank at any time that a specific vendor or merchant is no longer allowed to pull from my account.
- askmike 9y ago
  In most countries in Europe people don't really use credit cards. I only have a credit card because I travel outside Europe a lot (and want to pay online where proper payment solutions like iDeal or even PayPal are not supported). Even when I travel outside I can use my Maestro card (tied to my bank account) 90% of the times, my credit card is more for backup purposes. In my country (the Netherlands) you'll have a hard time paying for stuff with a credit card, most shops only accept Maestro cards and NFC payments through your phone. Though most ATMs do support credit cards. More and more shops start to not take cash anymore (expensive to handle). I personally don't like credit cards since they are about as insecure as you can design a payment system (imo). EDIT: I meant the insecurity of using credit cards for online payments.
  - gerardnll 9y ago
    You mean, most people use Debit cards? Because everyone has one in its wallet. Although it's true I only use credit cards outside Europe, because AFAIK debit cards don't work.
    - askmike 9y ago

seanwilson 9y ago

> The problem with MailChimp is that it's very simple and easy to use, and once your list actually gets popular the pricing falls off a cliff. At 2,000 subscribers MailChimp is free; at 3,000 it's $50 a month, and it keeps going up. I really like the MailChimp functionality and interface but I could never understand this pricing model and how they can justify charging that much for a few thousand users. Compared to e.g. the monthly infrastructure cost an app or SAAS project your newsletter is about, $50 for 3K users seems really disproportional to how important a newsletter is. Am I missing something here?

bluedino 9y ago
It's really for a marketing list and not something like reminder emails or updates if you are running a software product (email user x every time event y happens type of thing)
- seanwilson 9y ago
  For an app or service though, sending out newsletters about new features or related articles is pretty common and 3K users isn't that many.

bluedino 9y ago

Yea, the pricing on a service like that is crazy. If you have 50,000 customers (which is nothing in terms of online services), MailChimp is incredibly expensive. With a one-time purchase of mailing list software like InterSpire you can send as many as you want using a VPS. You'll want to monitor the logs and every couple weeks request being removed from Yahoo or AT&T's blacklists, but it costs virtually nothing to run.