[smoyer]

I came here to say exactly that ... with the addition of the fact that MailChimp is run as an enterprise service while hosting your own on a $5 DO machine is clearly boutique. I'd like to see an up-time comparison as well as the delivery % noted above after 5 years. You're now also in charge of making sure your emails aren't considered SPAM and dealing with the ramifications of people who signed up for your newsletter forgetting and thinking that your emails are unsolicited.

[jjeaff]

AWS SES does all of that. With the exception on handling unsubscribes. But any cheap or free mailer software worth anything does that as well.

You are paying for glitzy UI, marketing, and some nice features as far as email themeing and then of course, support.