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Ask HN: Email Services with Good Deliverability

5 points by kabes ↗ HN
I'm currently using Sendgrid to send out emails. However, over the past year I noticed more and more emails are getting blocked because some email providers block some sendgrid IP addresses. Not due to our doing, we have an excellent reputation at sendgrid, but we are on a shared IP pool plan. My main frustration is that it takes days/weeks before sendgrid acts on an IP ban, even if it's a by a major email provider (usually microsoft in our case). I don't get how they can't monitor this and act faster. Their support is also terrible (very slow and only default-template responses).

I could pay more to have a dedicated IP at sendgrid, but that's a lot more expensive. I could also move to another service (SES, Mandrill, ...) but I'd like to ask opinions if that would be any better, since I would also be on a shared IP pool over there. Anybody that can share their experiences in this regard with these other services?

7 comments

[ 6.7 ms ] story [ 31.8 ms ] thread
mtmail
We're happy customers of https://postmarkapp.com/ They only do transactional emails, not bulk like newsletters or such. No free tier and you can only start sending after proving you've done API requests (thus filtering non-developers I think). They put customers on alert ("you will loose the ability to send emails" when spam report rate is over 0.02%. Support was fast and friendly when we needed it.

Edit: Apparently there is a free tier (100 emails per month). We went for the $10 for testing, it's cheap.

jamesponddotco
Postmark user over here as well.

I operate a WordPress hosting company, and have all servers, and WordPress itself set to send emails with them, using their SMTP servers with Postfix on the servers, and their API with WordPress. Never had any issues.

Another option is Mailgun, which I used for other projects in the past. While I did not have any issue with them, if you look around, you might see that the experience is not shared by everyone.

Postmark offers faster delivery times, and better deliverability in general, but it is not like Mailgun is terrible at that. With Mailgun you spend less money, which might be something to consider depending on your sending volume — little differences in price pile up fast.

On the other hand, Mailgun has been involved in data[1] leaks[2] before.

Personally, I value quality support — Postmark has an excellent support team —, and delivery times a lot more than price, which is why I chose Postmark, but it is great to have options.

[1] https://www.mailgun.com/blog/mailgun-security-incident-and-i...

[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/mailgun-hacked-part-of-massive...

kabes
Thanks. I just contacted their support with some pre-sale questions and had a very quick and good answer. I'll give them a try!
sbuccini
Hey kabes, I'm running into the exact same issues and posted almost the exact same Ask HN a few hours after you[0]. You're not alone! Eagerly watching this thread.

I'd also be curious to hear how I can make my system more robust in the face of these issues. Right now, Sendgrid reports these emails as "successfully processed" and so I don't have a good way to programmatically retry these jobs.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24212202

mtsx
One of the best free email hosting provider for your business, Migadu (Based in Switzerland) .
sbuccini
They're a good mail provider for humans but they don't replace the larger-volume, automated emails that web apps need.
ZohoCares
Zoho has recently launched TransMail (https://www.zoho.com/transmail/) - an exclusive service for sending transactional emails via SMTP and API. By isolating transactional emails from marketing emails, TransMail ensures great email deliverability and inbox placement. TransMail is used by 45+ Zoho applications to send transactional emails. It has a user-friendly interface with email performance monitoring and tracking tools. You can even do away with monthly flat prices with TransMail’s pay as you go plan (https://www.zoho.com/transmail/pricing.html), where you buy email credits as and when you use them up. With TransMail, sender reputation and quality of shared IPs are monitored so you won't be forced to pay extra for a dedicated IP. For queries, inbox us: presales (at) transmail (dot) com - TransMail (Zoho)