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Mailgun used to be a HN favourite, great service, great customer support, and quickly resolving issues / providing solutions to problems like this (and many oth

Mailgun used to be a HN favourite, great service, great customer support, and quickly resolving issues / providing solutions to problems like this (and many others). Email is hard, and mailgun made it less hard, helping you solve problems along the way. Several years ago, the customer service got worse, and the fixes / solutions stopped coming. I don't hold my breath that this (or any other issue) will be solved any time soon sadly. What service do HN recommend these days?

z3ugma 5y ago
Postmark, for sure. Run by a small dev shop called Wildbit that is bootstrapped, treats their employees fairly, and grows in small sustainable ways. https://postmarkapp.com/ https://postmarkapp.com/ https://wildbit.com/ https://wildbit.com/
- agrunyan 5y ago
  Second this 100%. Postmark is my go-to for every project
  - evandwight 5y ago
    Why not use AWS ses? It's so much cheaper.
    - aledalgrande 5y ago
      UX and support?
    - svacko 5y ago
      One important decision argument against AWS SES is their policy to keep bounce rate below 5% (account put under review, if unresolevd until end of month, will be suspended, with hard limit of 10%) [1] compared to least strict Postmark's bounce rate of 10% [2]. Sometimes for SAAS products with a huge userbase or freemium pricing model is super difficult to keep the bounce rate so low for transactional emails. [1] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channels-email-deliverability-dashboard-bounce-complaint.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channe... [2] https://postmarkapp.com/support/article/1137-servers-faq https://postmarkapp.com/support/article/1137-servers-faq
      - webbie917 5y ago
        Policy like this is meant to protect sender reputation, not just provider IP pool. High hard bounce rate lowers your inboxing in the long term. If your bounce rate is consistently above 5% consider verifying all new emails before sending them an email > https://www.bigmailer.io/blog/email-verification-service-provider-comparison/ https://www.bigmailer.io/blog/email-verification-service-pro... Natural email decay rate is 2-3% per month so the goal is to stay close to this range, but the lower the better.
- FearlessNebula 5y ago
  What's the advantage here over SendGrid? SendGrid has an unlimited free tier of 100 emails per day, and for $15/mo you can send up to 40k emails/mo. Postmark does have a lower $10/mo starting price for 10k emails per month. But the next jump is $50/mo for 50k emails. I'm currently working on a project and intended to use SendGrid, so I'm wondering if there's any benefits of Postmark.
  - aledalgrande 5y ago
    I opened an account with Sendgrid for a new project the other week. Account got banned right away, didn't even log in one time and they said to contact support to get it unblocked. Only issue is to contact support you have to be logged in and their alternative form also wants you to log in. Sendgrid is not friendly.
    - prophesi 5y ago
      Cool, a highly unlikely anomaly that can't be proven.
    - maxk42 5y ago
      Are you using linux, by chance? Recently I've noticed Amazon, Google, and others reporting my logins from linux as "suspicious activity". I've never logged-in from another OS, so I'm wondering if they're all relying on some third-party service that automatically equates linux with "suspicious".
      - j45 5y ago
        It could be that Linux drive spam bots are using their system.
        sodality2 5y ago
        Spoofing the user agent is probably the first thing these spam bots would do.
      - 5y ago
- Spone 5y ago
  Their customer support is really top-notch!
jiux 5y ago
Another +1 for Postmark. Reliable and insightful. What really sold me personally as a bootstrapper was how they offer initial credit for their services to help get going.
mikeodds 5y ago
Would be interesting to map at which point in time customer service comments turned from positive to negative. Not that I’m suggesting PE buyouts typically lead to this… https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/01/mailgun-changes-hands-again-as-thoma-bravo-buys-majority-stake/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/01/mailgun-changes-hands-agai...
albertgoeswoof 5y ago
I built and launched my own provider: https://ohmysmtp.com https://ohmysmtp.com
welder 5y ago
Mailgun was acquired, which sometimes has a side-effect of product quality decreasing. I wish Cloudflare would launch an email API service, seems a good fit for them.
- alx__ 5y ago
  A private-equity company bought them couple years ago, and felt like the quality took a hit after that. Looks like they were recently aquired by another company trying to compete with Twilio. So maybe things will improve? https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/30/sinch-acquires-pathwire-the-company-behind-mailgun-and-mailjet-for-1-9b-to-add-email-into-its-api-based-communications-platform/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/30/sinch-acquires-pathwire-th...
  - brundolf 5y ago
    What is it about private equity that seems to systematically rot businesses from the inside-out?
    - silisili 5y ago
      I can answer this question from experience as a grunt, and opinions that may not be exactly correct as I've never been on the PE company side myself. The company I work for was bought by PE. Within weeks, most our hireable people left. Perhaps they were scared, perhaps they've seen it before, who knows. Some good people stay, but usually the comfortable ones, not the ones changing the world. How do I know, because I consider myself one of the competent comfortable ones, just being honest. But I'm leaving this year, it weighs on your soul. I barely do anything. At first it sounds like a dream, then you realize you're bored, not learning, and not working your brain. Then, those useless asskissers you assumed wouldn't last long rise like cream to the top. They have no idea what they are doing, but are good at placating, and take positions of power. From my perspective, it's easy to think PE people are dumb to let that happen. Maybe they are. Or maybe they don't care. Or maybe they are smart because they know these placaters will help 'sell' the company when it comes time to dump it. Make no mistake. PE exists to dump your company on some sucker.
a2tech 5y ago
I've been using Amazon SES for a few years with my larger clients. No real complaints about deliverability and since we're aggressively not spam, haven't run afoul of any of their automated tools.
jrodom 5y ago
Mailgun CTO here - I'm sorry that we've let you down. I'd love to better understand any issues you're having. My email address is in my profile.

z3ugma 5y ago

Postmark, for sure. Run by a small dev shop called Wildbit that is bootstrapped, treats their employees fairly, and grows in small sustainable ways. https://postmarkapp.com/ https://postmarkapp.com/ https://wildbit.com/ https://wildbit.com/

agrunyan 5y ago
Second this 100%. Postmark is my go-to for every project
- evandwight 5y ago
  Why not use AWS ses? It's so much cheaper.
  - aledalgrande 5y ago
    UX and support?
  - svacko 5y ago
    One important decision argument against AWS SES is their policy to keep bounce rate below 5% (account put under review, if unresolevd until end of month, will be suspended, with hard limit of 10%) [1] compared to least strict Postmark's bounce rate of 10% [2]. Sometimes for SAAS products with a huge userbase or freemium pricing model is super difficult to keep the bounce rate so low for transactional emails. [1] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channels-email-deliverability-dashboard-bounce-complaint.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/pinpoint/latest/userguide/channe... [2] https://postmarkapp.com/support/article/1137-servers-faq https://postmarkapp.com/support/article/1137-servers-faq
    - webbie917 5y ago
      Policy like this is meant to protect sender reputation, not just provider IP pool. High hard bounce rate lowers your inboxing in the long term. If your bounce rate is consistently above 5% consider verifying all new emails before sending them an email > https://www.bigmailer.io/blog/email-verification-service-provider-comparison/ https://www.bigmailer.io/blog/email-verification-service-pro... Natural email decay rate is 2-3% per month so the goal is to stay close to this range, but the lower the better.
FearlessNebula 5y ago
What's the advantage here over SendGrid? SendGrid has an unlimited free tier of 100 emails per day, and for $15/mo you can send up to 40k emails/mo. Postmark does have a lower $10/mo starting price for 10k emails per month. But the next jump is $50/mo for 50k emails. I'm currently working on a project and intended to use SendGrid, so I'm wondering if there's any benefits of Postmark.
- aledalgrande 5y ago
  I opened an account with Sendgrid for a new project the other week. Account got banned right away, didn't even log in one time and they said to contact support to get it unblocked. Only issue is to contact support you have to be logged in and their alternative form also wants you to log in. Sendgrid is not friendly.
  - prophesi 5y ago
    Cool, a highly unlikely anomaly that can't be proven.
  - maxk42 5y ago
    Are you using linux, by chance? Recently I've noticed Amazon, Google, and others reporting my logins from linux as "suspicious activity". I've never logged-in from another OS, so I'm wondering if they're all relying on some third-party service that automatically equates linux with "suspicious".
    - j45 5y ago
      It could be that Linux drive spam bots are using their system.
      - sodality2 5y ago
        Spoofing the user agent is probably the first thing these spam bots would do.
    - 5y ago
Spone 5y ago
Their customer support is really top-notch!

jiux 5y ago

Another +1 for Postmark. Reliable and insightful. What really sold me personally as a bootstrapper was how they offer initial credit for their services to help get going.

mikeodds 5y ago

Would be interesting to map at which point in time customer service comments turned from positive to negative. Not that I’m suggesting PE buyouts typically lead to this… https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/01/mailgun-changes-hands-again-as-thoma-bravo-buys-majority-stake/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/01/mailgun-changes-hands-agai...

albertgoeswoof 5y ago

I built and launched my own provider: https://ohmysmtp.com https://ohmysmtp.com

welder 5y ago

Mailgun was acquired, which sometimes has a side-effect of product quality decreasing. I wish Cloudflare would launch an email API service, seems a good fit for them.

alx__ 5y ago
A private-equity company bought them couple years ago, and felt like the quality took a hit after that. Looks like they were recently aquired by another company trying to compete with Twilio. So maybe things will improve? https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/30/sinch-acquires-pathwire-the-company-behind-mailgun-and-mailjet-for-1-9b-to-add-email-into-its-api-based-communications-platform/?guccounter=1 https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/30/sinch-acquires-pathwire-th...
- brundolf 5y ago
  What is it about private equity that seems to systematically rot businesses from the inside-out?
  - silisili 5y ago
    I can answer this question from experience as a grunt, and opinions that may not be exactly correct as I've never been on the PE company side myself. The company I work for was bought by PE. Within weeks, most our hireable people left. Perhaps they were scared, perhaps they've seen it before, who knows. Some good people stay, but usually the comfortable ones, not the ones changing the world. How do I know, because I consider myself one of the competent comfortable ones, just being honest. But I'm leaving this year, it weighs on your soul. I barely do anything. At first it sounds like a dream, then you realize you're bored, not learning, and not working your brain. Then, those useless asskissers you assumed wouldn't last long rise like cream to the top. They have no idea what they are doing, but are good at placating, and take positions of power. From my perspective, it's easy to think PE people are dumb to let that happen. Maybe they are. Or maybe they don't care. Or maybe they are smart because they know these placaters will help 'sell' the company when it comes time to dump it. Make no mistake. PE exists to dump your company on some sucker.

a2tech 5y ago

I've been using Amazon SES for a few years with my larger clients. No real complaints about deliverability and since we're aggressively not spam, haven't run afoul of any of their automated tools.

jrodom 5y ago

Mailgun CTO here - I'm sorry that we've let you down. I'd love to better understand any issues you're having. My email address is in my profile.