

Ask HN: Ways to send mass email + analytics - nick-dap

What is your preferred way to send a lot of email (newsletters, as well as transactional)?<p>Our volume is dozens of thousands of email per month. Up to 15k at once.<p>I need to make the right decision now and sincerely need your help; please pitch in with your experience with these or other solutions:<p>1. Pay for SendGrid or AuthSMTP to ensure deliverability. SendGrid has the additional benefit of built in analytics; for AuthSMTP I'd have to roll my own analytics. Both options are cheaper than Campaign Monitor (our current provider), but still relatively expensive in the long run -- we are a non-profit and function entirely off donations.<p>2. Pay for Google App Engine and roll my own analytics code. I have a lot of questions about this one. Is this the most cost effective solution in the long run? Is deliverability comparable to SendGrid/AuthSMTP for sending up to 15k emails at once? ie. Do the mail facilities in App Engine take care of SPF, domain keys, black lists, bounces?<p>I am _very_ cautious of having to write a mountain of new code for option two. Unfortunately, this is where it gets fuzzy for me. I've no experience writing analytics code (do you? headache?). Most importantly, I have no idea how much of the email plumbing I would have to do on App Engine. Please stop me if I'm biting off more than can be chewed by one person in a few weeks! Assume a no thrills solution: send to a list and track opens and clicks in the most trivial way possible -- no templates, segments, fancy UI or anything else.<p>Any other options out there?
======
ordinaryman
I too am in the process of discovering the answers for Google App Engine mode,
so that users like you - who work for non-profits and businesses - need not
have to.

For now, the feature (Bulk emails using email-templates) is in preview mode :
[http://blogs.ifreetools.com/2010/05/feature-preview-email-
te...](http://blogs.ifreetools.com/2010/05/feature-preview-email-templates-
and.html)

iFreeTools Creator is free and ad-supported for low volumes. Custom
deployments ($99/year or $9/month for up to 25 users) are also available - so
that you can make use of Google's free quota (2000 emails/day) and buy more as
required directly from Google. (my email in my HN profile, if you are
interested)

------
johng
Been using MailChimp -- it seems to be the cheapest of the mailers that
actually have a "professional" interface and analytics.

I'm happy with em.

------
danielnicollet
Mailchimp is my favorite service for that.

------
ddemchuk
Sign up for someone like MailChimp or AWeber or Constant Contact and tie into
their API. Emailing at volume can be a bitch, so follow in marketer's
footsteps and go with a 3rd party. You can be up and running in a day with
analytics.

~~~
nick-dap
We're using Campaign Monitor and its faaaar too expensive. Sending 40k/mo
would cost over $400/mo and thats ridiculous for email. Mailchimp and others
cost pretty much the same.

~~~
greg_hyer
Are you sending to 40,000 different email addresses or sending a total of
40,000 emails per month? If you are sending to 10,000 addresses 4 times a
month (for example) then take a look at iContact. 10,000 subscribers 6x a
month would cost $74 a month.

