Flatstamp vs do it yourself
Why not just use Amazon SES?
You can, and it costs less. Flatstamp sends through Amazon SES too. Amazon charges $0.10 per 1,000 emails; what it doesn't include is everything around the sending. Here's the honest trade.
The money
A year of sending, each list emailed four times a month. Amazon's price only: no server, software or your time.
| Your list | Amazon SES | Flatstamp |
|---|---|---|
| 2,500 contacts10,000 emails a month | $12 | $95$83 more |
| 5,000 contacts20,000 emails a month | $24 | $190$166 more |
| 10,000 contacts40,000 emails a month | $48 | $340$292 more |
Add a server if you run software like Sendy ($69 once, on your own PHP and MySQL hosting). Amazon also charges extra for dedicated IPs ($24.95 a month each), attachments and its deliverability dashboard if you turn them on.
The time: what you'd build and look after
- Ask Amazon to move your account out of the sandbox before you can email anyone but yourself.
- Add and keep DKIM, SPF, DMARC and a bounce (MAIL FROM) domain right in your DNS.
- Catch bounce and complaint notices (through Amazon SNS) and stop mailing those addresses for good.
- Add a one-click unsubscribe header and a working unsubscribe page to every marketing email, plus your postal address.
- Clean imported lists of bad, role and throwaway addresses before the first send.
- Build or install the editor, list management, scheduling and reports, or run software like Sendy on your own server.
- Watch your bounce and complaint rates: if they climb, Amazon can pause sending for your whole account.
Flatstamp does all of this for you, for every send, which is what the difference in price pays for.
Do it yourself if
- You're comfortable with DNS, servers and a little code, and your time is cheap compared to the savings.
- You send a lot: at hundreds of thousands of emails a month, Amazon's own price is far below any service's.
- You're sending app email (receipts, password resets) from your own software and don't need an editor or lists.
Developer sending services (turboSMTP, for example, sells prepaid packs from €49 for 50,000 emails that expire after a year) sit in between: easier than raw Amazon, still built for code rather than newsletters.