[GET] Mailgun - Free SMTP alternative to Mandrill - Update

[vipteam]

This afternoon i received a rather disappointing email from them regarding changes to the service:

"Going forward, all Mandrill users will be required to have a paid monthly MailChimp account and verify ownership of all sending domains. Here's the timeline: Starting 3/16, all new Mandrill users will create accounts through MailChimp, and current Mandrill users can merge their existing Mandrill account with a monthly MailChimp account. Current users will have until 4/27 to merge their accounts."

I can't believe this. I use their free plan because I send a minimal amount of email per month. Absolutely no way I'll consider going to $20 per month for my basic needs.

Now that Mandrill will no longer be free, what's a good alternative for a tiny volume free transactional service?


Bye Mandrill, Hi Mailgun

I've tried a lot of these services and think Mailgun wins for all the fellow Mandrill refugees.


MailGun
===========================================
https://www.mailgun.com/

- 10,000 emails free every month if you just sign up directly. (30,000 free emails per month if you sign up via Google cloud compute).
- No credit card required.
- Quick and easy to set up, unlike some other services/plugins.
- Works reliably and you don't have to pay anything, since you will never actually reach free account limit of 10,000 messages.
- Works with popular "contact form 7" plugin straight out of the box.

Domain verification is strongly encouraged but not required. The first 10,000 emails per month are free, and you don't even need to enter a credit card if you are certain to stay below that amount.

Plugin: Mailgun for WordPress
https://wordpress.org/plugins/mailgun/


SparkPost
===========================================
https://www.sparkpost.com/

- 10,000 emails free every month.
- Easy to sign up. Easy to integrate. Start sending in minutes.
- No credit card required for free accounts.

You need to be aware that there are some other issues with Sparkpost that maybe can affect your business. Sparkpost add an unsubscribe header to all the email by default. If you are using Sparkpost for transactional emails, the problem is bigger because you do not want your users to unsubscribe to the “reset password” emails for example.

All the emails come with an unsubscribe link by default. But that link wont unsubscribe from your app/plugin but will mark the user as unsubscribe on Sparkpost instead.

There is another issue, and it is that the Sparkpost domain will appear as the sender on all the emails. It is not possible to whitelist their domain and use your own on Sparkpost.

So if this issues do not concern you and the price is the most important thing, Sparkpost can be your solution.

Plugin: SparkPost
https://wordpress.org/plugins/sparkpost/


SendGrid
===========================================
https://sendgrid.com/

- Send up to 12,000 emails a month.
- No credit card required.
- ... but seems too complicated.

One thing to note is that you can’t start using your SendGrid account right away – so if you are planning to switch to SendGrid, it’s a good idea to sign up early. They will review you and your website to make sure you aren’t a spammer. It’s also a good idea to make sure your website is looking/working great before you sign up for SendGrid.

Do not invest time (and money) into Sendgrid. Once you start growing, they will cause you a serious headache once dropped and need to move on while you operating. And yes their stats looks fancy but are useless.

Plugin: SendGrid
https://wordpress.org/plugins/sendgrid-e...implified/


PepiPost
===========================================
http://www.pepipost.com/

- Free plan and send up to 15,000 emails each month. Free forever.
- No credit card required.

Pepipost add an unsubscribe footer (see Sparkpost) to all the email by default. All the emails come with an unsubscribe link by default. But that link wont unsubscribe from your app/plugin but will mark the user as unsubscribe on Pepipost instead.

Pepipost replaces the links in the body of the source email with its own URLs. There is a provision to skip process of tracking if demanded from the client.

Plugin: SMTP Mailer
https://wordpress.org/plugins/smtp-mailer/


Bye Bye Mandrill. Oh Man-drill ... Fuc* you.

[roybatty]

Thanks for that. It comes in handy.
Good luck in your campaigns.
BTW,I couldn't add reputation. Is it me or the system?

[melfx]

Thank you ... I signed up with them as well ... Upon registration my account was disabled requesting "business verification" ... I immediately contacted support reassuring them that I will be using mailgun for transactional emails only and I had my account up and running in 5 minutes. Excellent.

I can't add reputation to you for some reason. The system tries to open the reputation popup box via the email anonymiser ...

Thanks

[softman7]

Also disappointing in Mandrill, using now pepipost.com

[xufi123]

Thanks for sharing :)
I couldn't add reputation. I think System having some problem....

[tlandn]

OP has great share, max reps added :-)

[roybatty]

Finally, repped!!

[vipteam]

(02-26-2016 12:09 PM)roybatty Wrote:  Finally, repped!!

Thanks. I greatly appreciate your valuable time and efforts.

Regards

[Darkgod]

Thanks for this valuable post...

[pjbuxs]

Killer share... THANKS!!! +5 Reps Added For You!!!