Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash. It's an image of a Macbook with Gmail open. The computer is placed on a cute carpet, giving a cozy feeling. Because carpets are cozy? Also, there's blankets in the background
Email providers: AWS SES, Mailgun, Sendgrid, Mailchimp?
Every company needs to send some emails, but which email provider do I use?.
I want high deliverability. Which in turn leads to the following requirements:
- Inbound email routing
- DKIM and SPF support
(I don’t have enough volume or regularity to warrant a dedicated IP)
For transactional emails, I’d want:
- Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
- Pass template variables in API calls, preferably with validation.
For marketing emails, It would be nice if it could:
- Handle unsubscribing/resubscribing
- Automation workflows, e.g. send welcome email 1 day after signup
- Automated A/B testing of subject lines
GDPR compliance is a must, and I believe integrattons with Facebook Audiences is massively useful for marketing? (But I also don’t want to give Meta money)
Mailgun
Cheap, old, transactional email provider.
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✅ Inbound email routing (from 35$)
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❌ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
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❌ Pass template variables in API calls, with validation.
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❌ Handle unsubscribing/resubscribing
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❌ Automation workflows
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❌ Automated A/B testing of subject lines
AWS SES
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✅ Inbound email routing
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❌ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
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❌ Handle unsubscrsssibing/resubscribing
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❌ Automation workflows
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❌ Automated A/B testing of subject lines
SendInBlue
80% 5-stars, 9% 1-stars on TrustPilot. Almost all 5-star reviews are marked as encouraged 😶, while almost all 1-star reviews are about blocked accounts/verification ✅.
Seems to be taking over for MailChimp in the category of “doing everything”. Includes handling incoming emails in a shared CRM like inbox, and is hosted within EU ✅
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✅ DKIM and SPF support
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✅ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
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✅ Pass template variables in API calls, with validation.
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✅ Handle unsubscribing/resubscribing
-
✅ Automated A/B testing of subject lines
MailerLite
Mailerlite (from 9$ or 19$ for my use case) is a marketing-email service, with a sister-company MailerSend to handle transactional emails. It has a Facebook marketer integration, helping you target similar customers ✅. It’s based in EU ✅
71% 5-stars, 24% 1-stars on Trustpilot. The main reason for bad reviews are strict policies ✅, and technical issues ❌.
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❌ Inbound email routing
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✅ DKIM and SPF support
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✅ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
-
✅ Pass template variables in API calls, with validation.
-
✅ Handle unsubscribing/resubscribing
-
✅ Automated A/B testing of subject lines
MailerSend
Mailersend (from 25$ for my use calse) seems like a very well made, easy to use transactional email provider. Thumbs up! It’s sister-company MailerLite handles the marketing part.
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✅ Inbound email routing (from $25)
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✅ DKIM and SPF support
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✅ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
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😶 Pass template variables in API calls, with validation.
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❌ Handle unsubscribing/resubscribing
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❌ Automation workflows
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❌ Automated A/B testing of subject lines
Activecampaign
Gives off a more marketing vibe than I’d want. Custom domain starts at “Contact sales” pricing, which kind of disqualifies it for transactional stuff ❌
Mailchimp
Mailchimp has been a big name in email for a long time. Unfortunately, they still process all emails in US only ❌ (though they claim to be GDPR complaint still), and their Trustpilot reviews stink .
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✅ Inbound email routing (from $25)
-
✅ DKIM and SPF support
-
✅ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
-
✅ Pass template variables in API calls, with validation.
-
✅ Handle unsubscribing/resubscribing
-
✅ Automation workflows
-
✅ Automated A/B testing of subject lines
Sendgrid
Like Mailchimp, Sendgrid has been a big name in email for a while. Similarily, they still process all emails in US only ❌ (though they claim to be GDPR complaint still), and their Trustpilot reviews stink even worse than Mailchimps.
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✅ Inbound email routing (from $25)
-
✅ DKIM and SPF support
-
✅ Email template editor, so developers aren’t involved in text edits.
-
✅ Pass template variables in API calls, with validation.