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For those that use email for marketing. Is there anyone cheaper/better than Elasticemail? 1m emails/mo: elasticemail.com - $90 sparkpost.com - $474 mailgun

For those that use email for marketing. Is there anyone cheaper/better than Elasticemail? 1m emails/mo: elasticemail.com - $90 sparkpost.com - $474 mailgun.com - $515 sendgrid.com - $534.95 smtp.com - $900 Or is there anyone between elasticemail / mailgun worth considering? Thanks * Please don't suggest Amazon SES.

jonstokes 8y ago
What's wrong with SES? (Not a rhetorical question. I've played around with it and it seems ok, so looking to hear about downsides.)
- no1youknowz 8y ago
  Many of their IPs have been blacklisted by spammers. When I last tried to use them for marketing purposes with paying clients, it was really hit and miss. See below. They are old links, but serves my point. [0]: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=233001 https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=233001 [1]: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=538207 https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=538207 [2]: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=220517 https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=220517
  - adrr 8y ago
    Also if your sending that amount of emails, you want your own IP. Maybe even two IPs, One for transactional and one for marketing.
    - robjan 8y ago
      SES allows you to purchase dedicated IPs
coltonv 8y ago
Considering that those prices are for 1 million emails a month, I'd say price is so similar between all of them that you should just pick whichever one gives you and your customer the best experience. The hours saved for your employees will easily save more than they cost if you pick the one that saves them the most time.
- jm20 8y ago
  Exactly, if you're at the point where you're sending 1 million emails a month you're either spamming people or you don't care about the difference between $100 and $900.
  - jazoom 8y ago
    Or you run a popular free service or service that makes so little money this is important. Consider F5bot. It wouldn't take too many subscribers getting several emails per day to hit 1000000 per month.
    - overcast 8y ago
      That's why you don't run a free service with actual value that people would pay for. F5Bot is just being taken advantage of in my opinion. They recently got front page of HN again, and their patreon page went from $41 a month to a whopping $50.
      - jazoom 8y ago
        I can come up with examples all day of things people could create where they care about $900 leaving their pocket each month. Dismissing all these projects wholesale (as the parent comment did) is not helpful.
        manquer 8y ago
        If you are on shoe string , sending your own email is a better solution. It will take few weeks to establish your rep, as along you process the abuse reports , it is not a problem for transactional email. The original question was for marketing email, if you are sending a million marketing emails a month and not making enough money then the conclusion that you are sending spam is not unreasonable
somebodythere 8y ago
I use Pepipost but not at that scale. They quote up to $245 a month for 1 million emails.
- no1youknowz 8y ago
  Didn't know about these guys. Thanks for suggesting them.
- venturedfleet 8y ago
  they have a logo which looks very similar to mailchimp..
thejosh 8y ago
Postmark? Been using them for a while for inbound/outbound and they are great. For that volume, give them a call.
- robotmay 8y ago
  Yep I have used Postmark for years and I'd recommend them over anyone else. Fantastic service that does exactly what I need and no farting about with tacked-on features.
kuwze 8y ago
Which has the best API?
putlake 8y ago
I've been looking for a low-cost provider so I signed up for Elasticemail. Their new account confirmation email went to Gmail's spam folder. Not a good sign :( I guess I'll have to keep looking.
maltalex 8y ago
What about setting up your own SMTP server? I’m genuinely curious. Just configure SPF and DKIM, and send email basically for free, no? Is there some back magic that these services perform to avoid getting blacklisted? What’s the benefit of using one of these services besides a nicer API and a dashboard?
- wefarrell 8y ago
  Sending a high volume of mail through a server with a new IP will raise red flags.
  - koolba 8y ago
    If cost is a concern it does pay dividends in the long run though. Biggest hassle is the initial setup.
    - wefarrell 8y ago
      It warrants physical infrastructure, which for many companies this is a non starter. Cloud IP addresses tend to have pretty terrible reputations with email clients.
- nvahalik 8y ago
  The API alone is pretty amazing. SendGrid allows you to send up to 1000 customized non-campaign (transactional) emails in a single call. This is huge if you send a ton of email. Plus the deliverablity stats for transaction emails is great, too.
- singlow 8y ago
  My favorite features: 1. SAAS web app to manage the service with logs, and configuration as well as multi-user management with various roles. 2. HTTP Rest-like api for sending mail from your app 3. API keys for authentication, managed through web app 4. They do monitor black-lists and removals from blacklists. They also manage the warm-up time for your IP to make sure it is ready to send the volume of email you are sending, and can queue emails to avoid sending too many at once to the same destination mail service. 5. Spam control, in case you use the key in an app that turns out to have a relay vulnerability. 6. Return-path management to catch blocks and smtp errors. I've managed my own SMTP services with PostFix and SendMail, and I will never go back to doing that myself again. It would take a lot more than 1M emails/month to make that worthwhile.
curun1r 8y ago
No personal experience with them, but socketlabs.com is pretty close to mailgun for price. At a previous job (company sent ~2m emails/day), I was good friends with the engineer in charge of our mail infrastructure and he was really impressed by their platform, particularly the APIs around getting non-deliverability notification.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
NightlyDev 8y ago
If this is marketing mail receivers want to receive and anyone in the company has experience with setting up email systems: Use some fresh IPs and run your own. As long as it isn't spam and bounces are handled appropriately deliverability shouldn't be a problem.
- h1d 8y ago
  You can't likely know which IP is fresh until you test it with a certain volume and check for deliverability. The costs for delivery service aren't really high, not sure what the point of sending it all by yourself. You should at least use a long living domain to increase deliverability.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > anyone in the company has experience with setting up email systems I could very easily see someone spending $500/mo of their time, or a couple of days at most, fiddling with the mail system every month or dealing with crises.

jonstokes 8y ago

What's wrong with SES? (Not a rhetorical question. I've played around with it and it seems ok, so looking to hear about downsides.)

no1youknowz 8y ago
Many of their IPs have been blacklisted by spammers. When I last tried to use them for marketing purposes with paying clients, it was really hit and miss. See below. They are old links, but serves my point. [0]: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=233001 https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=233001 [1]: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=538207 https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=538207 [2]: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=220517 https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=220517
- adrr 8y ago
  Also if your sending that amount of emails, you want your own IP. Maybe even two IPs, One for transactional and one for marketing.
  - robjan 8y ago
    SES allows you to purchase dedicated IPs

coltonv 8y ago

Considering that those prices are for 1 million emails a month, I'd say price is so similar between all of them that you should just pick whichever one gives you and your customer the best experience. The hours saved for your employees will easily save more than they cost if you pick the one that saves them the most time.

jm20 8y ago
Exactly, if you're at the point where you're sending 1 million emails a month you're either spamming people or you don't care about the difference between $100 and $900.
- jazoom 8y ago
  Or you run a popular free service or service that makes so little money this is important. Consider F5bot. It wouldn't take too many subscribers getting several emails per day to hit 1000000 per month.
  - overcast 8y ago
    That's why you don't run a free service with actual value that people would pay for. F5Bot is just being taken advantage of in my opinion. They recently got front page of HN again, and their patreon page went from $41 a month to a whopping $50.
    - jazoom 8y ago
      I can come up with examples all day of things people could create where they care about $900 leaving their pocket each month. Dismissing all these projects wholesale (as the parent comment did) is not helpful.
      - manquer 8y ago
        If you are on shoe string , sending your own email is a better solution. It will take few weeks to establish your rep, as along you process the abuse reports , it is not a problem for transactional email. The original question was for marketing email, if you are sending a million marketing emails a month and not making enough money then the conclusion that you are sending spam is not unreasonable

somebodythere 8y ago

I use Pepipost but not at that scale. They quote up to $245 a month for 1 million emails.

no1youknowz 8y ago
Didn't know about these guys. Thanks for suggesting them.
venturedfleet 8y ago
they have a logo which looks very similar to mailchimp..

thejosh 8y ago

Postmark? Been using them for a while for inbound/outbound and they are great. For that volume, give them a call.

robotmay 8y ago
Yep I have used Postmark for years and I'd recommend them over anyone else. Fantastic service that does exactly what I need and no farting about with tacked-on features.

kuwze 8y ago

Which has the best API?

putlake 8y ago

I've been looking for a low-cost provider so I signed up for Elasticemail. Their new account confirmation email went to Gmail's spam folder. Not a good sign :( I guess I'll have to keep looking.

maltalex 8y ago

What about setting up your own SMTP server? I’m genuinely curious. Just configure SPF and DKIM, and send email basically for free, no? Is there some back magic that these services perform to avoid getting blacklisted? What’s the benefit of using one of these services besides a nicer API and a dashboard?

wefarrell 8y ago
Sending a high volume of mail through a server with a new IP will raise red flags.
- koolba 8y ago
  If cost is a concern it does pay dividends in the long run though. Biggest hassle is the initial setup.
  - wefarrell 8y ago
    It warrants physical infrastructure, which for many companies this is a non starter. Cloud IP addresses tend to have pretty terrible reputations with email clients.
nvahalik 8y ago
The API alone is pretty amazing. SendGrid allows you to send up to 1000 customized non-campaign (transactional) emails in a single call. This is huge if you send a ton of email. Plus the deliverablity stats for transaction emails is great, too.
singlow 8y ago
My favorite features: 1. SAAS web app to manage the service with logs, and configuration as well as multi-user management with various roles. 2. HTTP Rest-like api for sending mail from your app 3. API keys for authentication, managed through web app 4. They do monitor black-lists and removals from blacklists. They also manage the warm-up time for your IP to make sure it is ready to send the volume of email you are sending, and can queue emails to avoid sending too many at once to the same destination mail service. 5. Spam control, in case you use the key in an app that turns out to have a relay vulnerability. 6. Return-path management to catch blocks and smtp errors. I've managed my own SMTP services with PostFix and SendMail, and I will never go back to doing that myself again. It would take a lot more than 1M emails/month to make that worthwhile.

curun1r 8y ago

No personal experience with them, but socketlabs.com is pretty close to mailgun for price. At a previous job (company sent ~2m emails/day), I was good friends with the engineer in charge of our mail infrastructure and he was really impressed by their platform, particularly the APIs around getting non-deliverability notification.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

NightlyDev 8y ago

If this is marketing mail receivers want to receive and anyone in the company has experience with setting up email systems: Use some fresh IPs and run your own. As long as it isn't spam and bounces are handled appropriately deliverability shouldn't be a problem.

h1d 8y ago
You can't likely know which IP is fresh until you test it with a certain volume and check for deliverability. The costs for delivery service aren't really high, not sure what the point of sending it all by yourself. You should at least use a long living domain to increase deliverability.
pjc50 8y ago
> anyone in the company has experience with setting up email systems I could very easily see someone spending $500/mo of their time, or a couple of days at most, fiddling with the mail system every month or dealing with crises.