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Show HN: Send email via Amazon SES and Sendgrid from your Google Sheets
- vicke4 5y agoInteresting! Do I need to have my own SES or Sendgrid account?
- theindianappguy 5y agoyes
- theindianappguy 5y agobasically this helps to make it affordable
- helsinkiandrew 5y agoSurely not - SES costs $0.0001 per email plus $0.12 per gigabyte of data. This helps make it easy to integrate with google docs etc.
- robbiejs 5y agoLove the idea. I am using Mailchimp right now but can get quite expensive. If I send mails using Sendgrid, or some other provider, using Sendsimple, can I review bounce rates and click rates as well?
- daniellarusso 5y agoSendgrid provides this in their dashboard views. You will need to add some CNAME records for ‘prettier’ link-tracking URLs.
- theindianappguy 5y agothanks for sharing will see if i can show that info in the app do you know if they have api for that info?
- theindianappguy 5y agofor clicks you can use bitly links for now will add bounce rates if possible
- theindianappguy 5y agoi am using convertkit for one of my product blurweb app now i am crossing 1000 soon i. just send product updates so their pricing can get so expensive when i don't even have a much need for automations and other hence using sendsimple its simple and affordable
- ronyfadel 5y agoI'm using SendFox (I'm not affiliated). For my limited use (< 10k list), Mailchimp was getting way too expensive.
- JonoBB 5y agoYou may want to take a look at https://sendportal.io https://sendportal.io, which integrates with SES, Postmark, Sendgrid, Mailgun and shows full info on opens, clicks, bounces, etc. Disclaimer - I work there.
- mxuribe 5y agoWow, I've never heard of this platform! I'll be looking into this; thanks for sharing!
- iKlsR 5y agoBeen using it with mailjet. Since it's open source I just have a job in it that pulls my clients/subscribers from my main app and segments them automatically. I also define some number goals and can send out deals, updates automatically and just check in when I want. Really good tool, I also updated the template previewer so it's more realtime without the preview click.
- mxuribe 5y agoNice!!!
- fogihujy 5y agoIsn't Sendgrid still blocked by half the Internet because of all the spam from them?
- matharmin 5y agoI've found this isn't an issue if you pay for a dedicated IP.
- kawsper 5y agoSome filters I've seen are regex-matching the Sendgrid paths used for their link-tracking feature.
- petercooper 5y agoWe have four dedicated IPs with them and have found there are a variety of providers (such as Comcast and, oddly, a lot of French ISPs) who use systems (such as Mimecast or Symantec) which basically mark down the entirety of Sendgrid's IP address space. So we now have Postmark as a "fall back" for failed deliveries which is working quite well.
- fogihujy 5y agoYeah, there's been a lot of talk about mail admins simply dropping all packets from Sendgrid's range. At least one of my customers assign a higher spam score to mails simply because they're from Sendgrid.
- theindianappguy 5y agoi don't think so
- irjustin 5y agoDon't think so. Doesn't seem like SG would be in business very long if that was the case. We use sendgrid in production. Once in 2 years, we got the report that our shared IP had spam come from it, but was handled automatically by SendGrid once reported.
- gadders 5y agoTypo on the homepage if anyone from the app is reading: "Scale your online bussines without increase in overhead cost of email marketing."
- theindianappguy 5y agothanks let me fix it asap
- cfj 5y agoThere's more: > Unlimited Subscriber's > Send personalise emails
- theindianappguy 5y agoenglish is not my first language, so thanks a lot its really helpful
- giu 5y agoLooks good from a first look at it, congrats on launching it! Just checked if you mention bounces and saw that you track bounces; how does your app show / keep track of the bounces and more importantly of the bounce rate in general? I'm mentioning this since Amazon SES will place your account under review if your bounce rate is 5% or greater; you can find a few useful links on this comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21955614 Best of luck with your app! Disclaimer: I was responsible for the implementation of an e-mail notification system using Amazon SES.
- judge2020 5y agoCould just use the SES dashboard I guess: https://i.imgur.com/htmcpUP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/htmcpUP.jpg
- theindianappguy 5y agoyes
- chinathrow 5y agoNo, this is not the way to handle this. Please read up on how you must treat bounces on AWS SES or you face an account stop/closure. E.g. you MUST remove addresses from future sending once they permanently bounce. Offering a software solution without offering a feature for correct bounce handling is just naive. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/monitor-sending-activity.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/monito...
- ldoughty 5y agoI made my own SES mailer... You can subscribe to post backs from SES. These post back tell you message-by-message if a message was delivered/bounced.. so "simple" process of storing the results. Need to track the unique message ID, some you might get multiple responses for the same message (e.g. delivered, then marked spam) There might also be a CLI call to get summary stats.
- corentin88 5y agoYet another mail merge in town! The site looks very new though. Most links are broken in the footer.
- theindianappguy 5y agowe just launched yesterday, will be completing them all We have plan to be not just "mail" merge i am trying to make sending simple so will be adding text messaging with twillio and even discussing partnership with some whatsapp api to send whatsapp message from google sheets
- theindianappguy 5y agoThanks for amazing response, here is extra 10% coupon : hackernews
- theindianappguy 5y agoGive it a try for free for next 7 days without card or anything if like then i will share the pricing via email
- crispyporkbites 5y agoDoes this include list-unsubscribe headers and unsubscribe links?
- theindianappguy 5y agoits in the roadmap will add it soon (in less than 2 weeks)
- otterley 5y agoHave you spoken with a lawyer yet? You may be facilitating CAN-SPAM violations in the USA, and possibly violations of similar protective legislation elsewhere, if you don’t take proper precautions immediately. If you’re worried, I would suspend operations until you can get a sign off on what you’re doing.
- ben-gy 5y agoThis looks great - well done! My two cents - I personally get put off by business models that include a lifetime access one time purchase option. From my personal experience (as a prolific SaaS early adopter) it typically indicates that either; the software is a get rich quick scheme (e.g. spin up/spin down VPNs), or the founders haven’t accounted for scaling/recurring organisational costs in their business model. If your product is good and it continues to provide value, people will continue to pay to access that value. There is no need to short change your business model with an infinite customer commitment ;)
- theindianappguy 5y agoits just for the first few customers, i am good dev but not too good at marketing i have some good distribution channel for LTD customers to whom i sold blurweb.app to 1000 customers the ltd revenue will fuel and accelarate the growth
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dinkydan 5y agoLooks like a complete copycat of Mailmeteor (same wording, same interface)
- theindianappguy 5y agoas a human we can see face in bread with two tomato slices and some ketchup, yes they have similarity in ux but no they are not same check landing page demo video please
- dinkydan 5y agoare you joking? you copied everything from their website to the interface. I've been using MM for 3 years now and can say this is a very lame attempt at copying a great product.
- theindianappguy 5y agosorry i should not joke, professional answer: i will request to give sendsimple.app a try i have made it free to try no card or anything and see yourself the difference please
- connectsnk 5y agoNo it's not. Mailmeteor seems to be mail merge for gmail.
- theindianappguy 5y agoas for comparison: With MailMeteor you are limited by gmail limit of sending while sendsimple you can use SMTP's like Amazon SES and sendgrid to send unlimited mail every day. We have text messaging in road map too with twillio overall my plan is to make sending simple
- jwithington 5y agoWhere is the Mailmeteor for SMS?
- 7ewis 5y agoIt looks nice, but not really sure who the target market for it is? It's pretty easy for a dev to send emails from Google Sheets using Apps Script. If you want to send bulk, custom emails, then something like MailChimp can do this for free/cheap. If you're looking to send thousands of emails, then you likely have a large customer base or a big marketing budget and can afford a proper tool. I mainly use Sheets to automate internal processes, linking to Google Forms. Plus there's free tools out there, for example AutoCrat[0] that can do a similar thing, albeit without the SendGrid/SES link. But then again, if you're aware of SES you're probably technically minded. I may be wrong though, good luck with it either way. If it doesn't gain traction, open sourcing it with a tip jar may be a nice touch and help keep it alive. [0] - https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/autocrat/539341275670 https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/autocrat/539341...
- theindianappguy 5y agoi think cold emails is a good usecase, with gmail if send 100s of email at a time or have bounce rate more than 5% you will get blocked so SMTP's can be really helpful this is the Version 1 i have a lot planned to be added and improve
- chinathrow 5y agoIf you have a 5% bounce rate or more, you're already doing something wrong - i.e. your emailing addresses no longer existing. Make sure you have permission to email a recipient.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoNo offense but this is a very naive perspective on certain types of emails. For example for one-on-one cold sales emails you don't need their permission to email them. And there is an entire industry built around that.
- theindianappguy 5y ago
- jwithington 5y agoReally excited to see this! I have some small indie projects and often end up making something in Google Sheets to handle basic CRM functions. Really excited to see a productized version of the hacky things I make in Google Sheets + Integromat haha.
- jwithington 5y agoI'd add that something like this for SMS would be killer. There are tons of email sending tools, but I have found far less for SMS. SMS is a great marketing/messaging channel. Much better than email for a number of use cases.
- theindianappguy 5y agoi am adding sms too will update this next week
- gnrlst 5y agoI made something similar in Excel: - an email like template with input fields (to, cc, bcc, from, body, etc). - a table where the user can specify the column headers and add a list of values. The headers are considered keys. The keys can then be referenced in mustache quotes anywhere in the template. I also added attachment functionality since it was for a very specific use-case. The tool would then create 1 email per entry in the user table, filling in all wildcards. As you can imagine, it doesn't use SES or Sendgrid .. it uses Outlook for the sending :) Good times! the business loved it, but coding in VBA is a bit of a PITA.
- theindianappguy 5y agoso is it still around?
- mxuribe 5y agoThis seems like a really neat service! Kudos!
- theindianappguy 5y agoThanks a lot
- Brajeshwar 5y agoIs there a pay-as-you-go pricing (OK to be a higher than monthly) too? I'm looking for something like this but am willing to pay when I need but won't use it regularly.
- theindianappguy 5y agocan you message me via contact widget on website please?
- theindianappguy 5y agomessaged you on twitter please check
- LordAtlas 5y agoPlease fix the content. It should be "Unlimited Subscribers", not Unlimited Subscriber's".
- theindianappguy 5y agoThanks for letting me know let me fix it asap
- Artistry121 5y agoMailbluster.com is similar.
- theindianappguy 5y agoI don't find any similarity than both sends email, please try sendsimple.app its free No cc required
- forgotmysn 5y agoi agree that tracking bounces is critical for this. that said, I'm already a big fan and would love to give this a try. I would also love to see if a pixel can be added to emails so emails and link clicks could be tracked as well.
- theindianappguy 5y agowill do for sure