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)?

Our volume is dozens of thousands of email per month. Up to 15k at once.

I need to make the right decision now and sincerely need your help; please pitch in with your experience with these or other solutions:

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.

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?

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.

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...

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.