> Or imagine something like a system that alerts people when X band announces a concert date in Y town. Lots of people subscribe to get an email notification about that so it's 1 email to 500 people in Duluth. Not exactly a newsletter, not exactly transactional.
That is bulk email, fyi.
> I have a friend with a service that sends out 10k-ish customized mealplans each week to their paying customers (each email is fairly unique given where they are at in the customer cycle, preferences, tracking, etc.)
This was still a bulk email based on when I talked to Mandrill about it when I initially set it up.
> Thanks for getting in touch! It's primarily designed to support transactional emails, you can send any legal, non-spam message through Mandrill as long as it maps 1:1 with a human interaction and/or alert from an automated event.
That is a literal quote I had from the support ticket when I created my Mandrill account. Both you and the OP didn't follow what I [or the Mandrill/Mailchimp employee I talked to] interpreted the ToS as.
Similarly the OP seems to be the same usecase:
> They’re merging it into MailChimp, but updated the TOS and AUP with immediate effect in ways that essentially banned what was the service’s raison d’être: sending bulk mail programmatically.
They told you it was for transactional email. I'm not sure how you concluded that meant "bulk mail" was okay.
> Mandrill is an email infrastructure service designed to help applications or websites that need to send transactional email like password resets, order confirmations, and welcome messages.
> Any bulk email should be sent through MailChimp, rather than Mandrill.
That is bulk email, fyi.
> I have a friend with a service that sends out 10k-ish customized mealplans each week to their paying customers (each email is fairly unique given where they are at in the customer cycle, preferences, tracking, etc.)
This was still a bulk email based on when I talked to Mandrill about it when I initially set it up.
> Thanks for getting in touch! It's primarily designed to support transactional emails, you can send any legal, non-spam message through Mandrill as long as it maps 1:1 with a human interaction and/or alert from an automated event.
That is a literal quote I had from the support ticket when I created my Mandrill account. Both you and the OP didn't follow what I [or the Mandrill/Mailchimp employee I talked to] interpreted the ToS as.
Similarly the OP seems to be the same usecase:
> They’re merging it into MailChimp, but updated the TOS and AUP with immediate effect in ways that essentially banned what was the service’s raison d’être: sending bulk mail programmatically.
They told you it was for transactional email. I'm not sure how you concluded that meant "bulk mail" was okay.