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Ask HN: Run your own email server or use 3rd party?

13 points by jpetersonmn ↗ HN
I'm working on a website that will eventually need to be able to send thousands of emails a day. I'm not too worried about receiving any email, just sending them. Is is worth setting up my own email server, or should I just use google or something else? Thanks for your feedback.

16 comments

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sanjayparekh
One site: mandrill.com. From the fine folks at MailChimp. I've been using it and it rocks.
munger
I second Mandrill. 12k free emails per month, $0.20 per thousand after that (and cheaper for very large volumes). This is for a shared IP address with other free tier users. You can add a dedicated IP to build just your own reputation for $30/month. You can easily setup DKIM for your domains even on the free shared IP tier. Libraries in many languages + restful API if needed for others.
jpetersonmn
Definitely sounds like it will be easier to have another service handle it so I can focus on my main goals. What's the advantage of having a static ip for your email delivery?
rbinv
Your deliverability when using a dedicated IP won't be affected by the email quality of others (on a shared IP).
jpetersonmn
Aha, that makes sense. Thank you for the information.
byoung2
We use Amazon SES...very easy API. You don't want the hassle of dealing with IP address blacklists for your own server.
patio11
Do not run your own mail server. Deliverability is a full-time job for somebody. You can share that "somebody" by using a mail service agent (MSA -- Sendgrid, Postmark, Amazon SES, etc) for roughly 1/100th of the cost of employing them directly. Mail server software is also notoriously finicky and every minute you spend administering it is time that doesn't move your business forward.
CyberFonic
Unless you have experienced email person on the technical team, you will waste way too much time on configuring, etc.

I used to have email servers running AWS and eventually gave up. Hosted email services are far less hassle.

rbinv
I can not confirm this at all.

Yes, initial setup can be a hassle, but after that, my experience is that deliverability mostly depends on the content you send, not the MTA or its configuration (you should have SPF, DKIM etc. in place, of course).

However, if you also need (semi-)automated bounce handling (as in, automatically unsubscribe hard bounces), then yes, you probably shouldn't roll that yourself. But I don't really consider that to be MTA-related stuff.

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MalcolmDiggs
This has been my experience as well. At a certain scale, it's worth internalizing this effort of course, but that is (in my opinion) an enterprise-level problem (and has an accompanying enterprise-level headache).

I've had great experiences with MailGun, Sendgrid and Mandrill. Amazon SES not so much; very cheap but deliverability seems to be an issue (anecdotally).

sanemat
I agree. I use Mandrill.
rachelandrew
We use Postmark https://postmarkapp.com/ for most of our emails at Perch - including things like notification emails from the support forums.

It's always been reliable and inexpensive.

tejasm
We use Amazon SES + Sendy. Awesome combination with very less overheads.
dennisgorelik
Google is not a good choice for sending out mass emails.

Even with premium Google account you cannot send more than few thousand emails per day.

So either setup your own server (lots of up front effort to make it right) or use something like Amazon SES or SendGrid.