[tejasm]

markdownmail.io looks pretty easy to use and gets points for being a hosted service.

We use http://sendy.co/ - they have a one time fee per domain and needs to be installed on our server. The best part about sendy.co is the beautiful reports. You should check it out and try to integrate some/all of them in markdownmail.io to make it more effective.

All the best.

[antonydenyer]

Yeah we did pay for http://sendy.co and admittedly spent way too much time looking at those shiny graphs.

Part of the problem we had with sendy was just general stability with the amount we where sending. All of sudden you need to support a mysql and php db. It was just another thing to worry about. So we thought if we have to worry about it lets write it ourselves.

[tejasm]

Agreed - and hosted is where markdownmail.io has potential advantage.

But the graphs are easy to digest, and the generated CSVs (list of people opening the mail etc) are very helpful (at least to me).

[antonydenyer]

Fair enough, thanks for the feedback.

Any thoughts on pricing?

[tejasm]

How about a free tier? Both MailChimp and MailJet have it, and the guy is going to pay for SES anyways.

Also, I'd reach out to AWS guys and ask them to provide $50 (or $20 - whatever they agree to) credit to every customer that signs up for your free tier since that'll lead the guys sitting on the fence to explore your product.

[alecsmart1]

I think $20 per mo is steep. Should be more like $5-$10.

[alecsmart1]

You can also think of adding a pay per use. Since you are talking to a price conscious audience (the non price conscious ones are already using MailChimp). Maybe $5 per use (unlimited mails).

[antonydenyer]

I think your right the initial entry is a bit steep. The thing that scared the crap out of us with mailchimp was that there was no end in sight for price increases. If they had a max of $500 then we may have stayed on mailchimp. I guess our thought process was if you start with us you'll never leave because our prices will top out. But yes I think we'll introduce $5 for the first 1000 to get you going something like that maybe?

[antonydenyer]

Pay per use is a difficult one, I think once you start complecting the pricing model like that people don't know where they stand. Personally I prefer simple.