Has anybody here ever used Easy Sendy? They've gone down 4 times in the last 5 months. I'm looking for another Sendy hosted solution and I'm curious as to if anyone here has used them before. I keep getting excuses as to why they can't keep servers running.
@Martine -- sorry, never used Easy Sendy and I don't have any Sendy hosted alternatives. You could always self host, after all Sendy was designed for self hosting. Probably cost you less in the long run going self hosted, and, once setup, the ongoing maintenance is not too much. Have a look at my guide a few posts earlier in this topic and see what you think. The instructions may seem daunting at first, but plough through and complete them, and you will feel a great sense of satisfaction at being able to wave goodbye to Easy Sendy etc. If you are a new AWS customer, your first 12 months of AWS usage should be trivial.
I have a 160K list. Im using Sendy on a hostgatorr shared hosting package. After 24 hours its still trying to send to the entire list and has only got through about 8000 of the list. What would you recommend i use to ensure my emails are sent out within at least a 24 hour period.
@humayun -- you need your own dedicated server for that size of list. Lots of different hosts available -- AWS, Digital Ocean, Linode etc. Check out this topic from the start for ideas. Sendy uses AWS SES, so AWS is an obvious option (especially with the 12-month free tier for new customers). AWS SES default is 14 emails/sec, so 160k should be done in less than 4 hours. Have a look at my guide a few posts earlier in this topic for setting up Sendy on AWS. The instructions may seem daunting at first, but plough through and complete them, and you will feel a great sense of satisfaction at being able to wave goodbye to Hostgator and very slow sending!
Hi. I'm interested in knowing if anyone here has ever had an issue with their hosting provider in using Sendy to send out emails, in particular for affiliate marketing? I was using a Sendy Hosted solution, but now think I'm just going to self host it and I want to know if I'm going to have an issue, like a lot of people have had with other providers like Mailchimp, etc. where they want to shut down your account, if you don't fit into their box.
Has anyone here ever had their server terminated from using Sendy? And are there any hosting services that have a "one-click install" for Sendy, like a lot of hosting companies have a "one-click install" for Wordpress?
Is anyone here actually still using Digital Ocean? I was going to set up something with them today, but then I started doing some research online and they have horrible reviews. Seems like their servers keep going down, bad customer service, etc.
@Martine -- email content issues depend on the email sending service.
For example, AWS SES has this Best Practice guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/best-practices.html The guide does not mention affiliate marketing specifically. I get the impression AWS will not interfere with your sending as long as you are sending proper content to people who have actively signed up for your emails. MailChimp I think study your emails in more detail and are more likely to raise issues.
One-click Sendy installs? Sendy was designed for self hosting, so demand for a Sendy hosting service may not be great. Which is perhaps why EasySendy hosting now appears to be focusing on a more comprehensive mail service and not perhaps on your needs :-( Also, I dare say Sendy Ben has already considered a Sendy hosting service -- and the fact that he has not set one up suggests somebody else will have a hard time to make it viable.
We are hosted by an AWS EC2 t2.xlarge 8GB instance for a mailing list of 300k. Our approved send rate is 100/sec but the actual is ~40. We can run the entire list in about 2-hours.
We gave-up using tracking because it caused problems with server functions not working near the end of a run. When it freezes, it continues to send emails but we cannot access admin and it disables all the links (including the unsubscribe link). Even after the end of the run we can only get it working again by rebooting the server or sometimes even stopping and restarting the instance.
We have attempted to solve the problem by repeatedly bumping up the server but the problem persists even at $500 - $700 per mo.
I have my store hosted with Siteground currently, and have been using EasySendy. I'd like to run Sendy on my Siteground account, but need to be 100% sure it's going to work before I can leave EasySendy. So have they changed the cron situation that was mentioned back in 2016 so that it's not a problem now?
I want to take this opportunity to introduce Boldermail, a WordPress plugin that uses the Sendy API to manage lists and subscribers and to create campaigns all from within your WordPress dashboard. My wife and I run The Postman's Knock, the #1 online resource for learning calligraphy. We have a list of 100,000 subscribers, and as a result, we were paying Mailchimp around $500 a month for delivering our emails 2x per week. When I heard about Sendy, I knew I had to make the switch immediately! However, getting my wife on board was a bit more difficult since she was used to the Mailchimp UI. So, I developed Boldermail as a WordPress plugin to interact with our Sendy installation so that my wife would be able to use an interface that she is familiar with, WordPress. We have been using Boldermail for over a year now, and now that it's tried-and-true, we're ready to offer it to others.
Boldermail is both a WordPress plugin and a Sendy hosting service. When you create an account with us here, we manage your Sendy server, and we provide you with an API key to connect your WordPress website to Sendy through our plugin. Then, you can add or update your lists, manage your subscribers, and create newsletters -- all within Wordpress. We also offer the option to convert your blog posts (your RSS feed) to newsletters and send them to your readers at specific times! The plugin includes 8 different HTML templates, or you can design your own.
How are we different? For starters, we were our own first client. Boldermail was developed to meet our needs, and we love it so much that we knew we had to make it available to others. It's an incredible solution for sending out emails without paying a huge premium to do so. You can find our story here! Second, we have studied Sendy's performance extensively for over a year. We have tried several servers configurations at different companies, and chosen the best server options and sending rates for you!
If you are interested in our services, please check out our plans here. You can calculate your savings compared to using Mailchimp here.
I can guarantee you that we strive to make Boldermail the best it can be, as we ourselves still depend on it 100% to power The Postman's Knock mailing list! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.
@Globeadmin curious to know which Hostgator plan you're using? I'm with HG using a business / reseller plan and considering either upgrading to VPS or moving to a different host that's more competitive with VPS pricing. HG isn't exactly working hard to keep my business at this point... Amazon SES is all set up, working and verified, so it's the hosting side I need to get completely nailed down as far as resources needed.
My list is currently 133K and will grow at 1K per month (average) new subs, so I'm having issues with the list upload job being killed using the business plan. Haven't even sent a full campaign if it won't pull the list up without choking. I know it's not really the right plan to use, so I'm curious to know which HG plan you're using?
For more info per the post above, I'm also looking at Dreamhost and Liquidweb for potential VPS hosting. I'd prefer at this point to stay with managed hosting so the server side software (other than what I use, which is fairly minimal) is kept up to date and secure for me.
I don't need tons of storage, overall files right now are at roughly 1 GIG, so it's more important with all things considered to have speed and server resources as opposed to tons of storage or massive amounts of bandwidth. If anyone has input on the VPS's they prefer, I'm listening. Have read through this thread several times, but much of the info is somewhat old.
As an FYI, not looking for AWS or droplets quite yet and eventually may have my own linux network as a segregated network at my office. I have a 10 day deadline until the next marketing campaign, so I am currently focusing on the hosting side of this equation to be solved.
Adding to the last two (2) above posts, I've given up on Hostgator (HG) and did the install for AWS EC t2 that @colcol was gracious enough to documents and post a link to here in this discussion on page 4. MAD PROPS to you, sir, for taking the time to do that!!
It's definitely worth taking the time to do the AWS setup and it's a bit daunting at first, but once it's finally complete, you'll be glad you took the time to do it. One note on the CSV upload, save yourself some time and break the uploads in to 20K chunks if you have a large list, trust me on this. Sendy doesn't seem to want to allow a list much larger than this to be uploaded via CSV, no matter what PHP settings you use server side.
Huge thanks to @Ben@colcol and many other members that have posted + contributed here on this thread and in the discussion forums for silently assisting me in this process.
If Sendy works quite happily on a t2.micro on EC2, then it should work quite happily on a $5/month AWS Lightsail instance, if that helps.
I'm shifting my Sendy installation over from a shared EC2 instance to its own $5/month Lightsail box this afternoon. (I use an Amazon RDS database, too, so could have got away with an even smaller $3.50 Lightsail box, but decided to avoid that.)
Comments
Has anybody here ever used Easy Sendy? They've gone down 4 times in the last 5 months. I'm looking for another Sendy hosted solution and I'm curious as to if anyone here has used them before. I keep getting excuses as to why they can't keep servers running.
@Martine -- sorry, never used Easy Sendy and I don't have any Sendy hosted alternatives. You could always self host, after all Sendy was designed for self hosting. Probably cost you less in the long run going self hosted, and, once setup, the ongoing maintenance is not too much. Have a look at my guide a few posts earlier in this topic and see what you think. The instructions may seem daunting at first, but plough through and complete them, and you will feel a great sense of satisfaction at being able to wave goodbye to Easy Sendy etc. If you are a new AWS customer, your first 12 months of AWS usage should be trivial.
I have a 160K list. Im using Sendy on a hostgatorr shared hosting package. After 24 hours its still trying to send to the entire list and has only got through about 8000 of the list. What would you recommend i use to ensure my emails are sent out within at least a 24 hour period.
Thank
@humayun -- you need your own dedicated server for that size of list. Lots of different hosts available -- AWS, Digital Ocean, Linode etc. Check out this topic from the start for ideas. Sendy uses AWS SES, so AWS is an obvious option (especially with the 12-month free tier for new customers). AWS SES default is 14 emails/sec, so 160k should be done in less than 4 hours. Have a look at my guide a few posts earlier in this topic for setting up Sendy on AWS. The instructions may seem daunting at first, but plough through and complete them, and you will feel a great sense of satisfaction at being able to wave goodbye to Hostgator and very slow sending!
Hi. I'm interested in knowing if anyone here has ever had an issue with their hosting provider in using Sendy to send out emails, in particular for affiliate marketing? I was using a Sendy Hosted solution, but now think I'm just going to self host it and I want to know if I'm going to have an issue, like a lot of people have had with other providers like Mailchimp, etc. where they want to shut down your account, if you don't fit into their box.
Has anyone here ever had their server terminated from using Sendy? And are there any hosting services that have a "one-click install" for Sendy, like a lot of hosting companies have a "one-click install" for Wordpress?
Is anyone here actually still using Digital Ocean? I was going to set up something with them today, but then I started doing some research online and they have horrible reviews. Seems like their servers keep going down, bad customer service, etc.
@Martine -- email content issues depend on the email sending service.
For example, AWS SES has this Best Practice guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/best-practices.html The guide does not mention affiliate marketing specifically. I get the impression AWS will not interfere with your sending as long as you are sending proper content to people who have actively signed up for your emails. MailChimp I think study your emails in more detail and are more likely to raise issues.
One-click Sendy installs? Sendy was designed for self hosting, so demand for a Sendy hosting service may not be great. Which is perhaps why EasySendy hosting now appears to be focusing on a more comprehensive mail service and not perhaps on your needs :-( Also, I dare say Sendy Ben has already considered a Sendy hosting service -- and the fact that he has not set one up suggests somebody else will have a hard time to make it viable.
"One-click Sendy installs? Sendy was designed for self hosting"
Maybe an install script could be developed that sets up Sendy, MySQL, Lets Encrpyt etc along the lines of Discourse:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md
siteground for hosting, and configured a raspberrypi to handle the cronjobs - works great.
DigitalOcean. Relatedly, please support Nginx!
HostGator with Amazon SES. just over 300k a month at about $25--
I am using Sendybay for hosting. Works well so far.
I'm using Kinsta.com It's supposed to be a Wordpress only host, but Sendy is working perfectly on it.
I just rewrote/retested my installation guide on DigitalOcean for Sendy v4. Documented here: https://medium.com/@alexjacobs/installing-sendy-as-a-replacement-for-mailchimp-2019-version-4-update-the-complete-guide-with-a9358bbb2399 . The guide includes a DigitalOcean signup link that will give you $100 credit.
Using Siteground. Less hassles.
I'm using sendybay.com - setup was quick and easy and seems to work ok so far.
I used to use HostGator but now use Squidix.
We are hosted by an AWS EC2 t2.xlarge 8GB instance for a mailing list of 300k. Our approved send rate is 100/sec but the actual is ~40. We can run the entire list in about 2-hours.
We gave-up using tracking because it caused problems with server functions not working near the end of a run. When it freezes, it continues to send emails but we cannot access admin and it disables all the links (including the unsubscribe link). Even after the end of the run we can only get it working again by rebooting the server or sometimes even stopping and restarting the instance.
We have attempted to solve the problem by repeatedly bumping up the server but the problem persists even at $500 - $700 per mo.
I have my store hosted with Siteground currently, and have been using EasySendy. I'd like to run Sendy on my Siteground account, but need to be 100% sure it's going to work before I can leave EasySendy. So have they changed the cron situation that was mentioned back in 2016 so that it's not a problem now?
I use 365hosts.com - good pricing for unlimited plans
Hi there!
I want to take this opportunity to introduce Boldermail, a WordPress plugin that uses the Sendy API to manage lists and subscribers and to create campaigns all from within your WordPress dashboard. My wife and I run The Postman's Knock, the #1 online resource for learning calligraphy. We have a list of 100,000 subscribers, and as a result, we were paying Mailchimp around $500 a month for delivering our emails 2x per week. When I heard about Sendy, I knew I had to make the switch immediately! However, getting my wife on board was a bit more difficult since she was used to the Mailchimp UI. So, I developed Boldermail as a WordPress plugin to interact with our Sendy installation so that my wife would be able to use an interface that she is familiar with, WordPress. We have been using Boldermail for over a year now, and now that it's tried-and-true, we're ready to offer it to others.
Boldermail is both a WordPress plugin and a Sendy hosting service. When you create an account with us here, we manage your Sendy server, and we provide you with an API key to connect your WordPress website to Sendy through our plugin. Then, you can add or update your lists, manage your subscribers, and create newsletters -- all within Wordpress. We also offer the option to convert your blog posts (your RSS feed) to newsletters and send them to your readers at specific times! The plugin includes 8 different HTML templates, or you can design your own.
How are we different? For starters, we were our own first client. Boldermail was developed to meet our needs, and we love it so much that we knew we had to make it available to others. It's an incredible solution for sending out emails without paying a huge premium to do so. You can find our story here! Second, we have studied Sendy's performance extensively for over a year. We have tried several servers configurations at different companies, and chosen the best server options and sending rates for you!
If you are interested in our services, please check out our plans here. You can calculate your savings compared to using Mailchimp here.
I can guarantee you that we strive to make Boldermail the best it can be, as we ourselves still depend on it 100% to power The Postman's Knock mailing list! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Sincerely,
Hernan Villanueva
@Globeadmin curious to know which Hostgator plan you're using? I'm with HG using a business / reseller plan and considering either upgrading to VPS or moving to a different host that's more competitive with VPS pricing. HG isn't exactly working hard to keep my business at this point... Amazon SES is all set up, working and verified, so it's the hosting side I need to get completely nailed down as far as resources needed.
My list is currently 133K and will grow at 1K per month (average) new subs, so I'm having issues with the list upload job being killed using the business plan. Haven't even sent a full campaign if it won't pull the list up without choking. I know it's not really the right plan to use, so I'm curious to know which HG plan you're using?
For more info per the post above, I'm also looking at Dreamhost and Liquidweb for potential VPS hosting. I'd prefer at this point to stay with managed hosting so the server side software (other than what I use, which is fairly minimal) is kept up to date and secure for me.
I don't need tons of storage, overall files right now are at roughly 1 GIG, so it's more important with all things considered to have speed and server resources as opposed to tons of storage or massive amounts of bandwidth. If anyone has input on the VPS's they prefer, I'm listening. Have read through this thread several times, but much of the info is somewhat old.
As an FYI, not looking for AWS or droplets quite yet and eventually may have my own linux network as a segregated network at my office. I have a 10 day deadline until the next marketing campaign, so I am currently focusing on the hosting side of this equation to be solved.
Adding to the last two (2) above posts, I've given up on Hostgator (HG) and did the install for AWS EC t2 that @colcol was gracious enough to documents and post a link to here in this discussion on page 4. MAD PROPS to you, sir, for taking the time to do that!!
It's definitely worth taking the time to do the AWS setup and it's a bit daunting at first, but once it's finally complete, you'll be glad you took the time to do it. One note on the CSV upload, save yourself some time and break the uploads in to 20K chunks if you have a large list, trust me on this. Sendy doesn't seem to want to allow a list much larger than this to be uploaded via CSV, no matter what PHP settings you use server side.
Huge thanks to @Ben @colcol and many other members that have posted + contributed here on this thread and in the discussion forums for silently assisting me in this process.
Here is my current and tested guide for installing Sendy v4 on DigitalOcean including automated database backups and https configuration: https://medium.com/@alexjacobs/installing-sendy-as-a-replacement-for-mailchimp-2019-version-4-update-the-complete-guide-with-a9358bbb2399 .
If Sendy works quite happily on a t2.micro on EC2, then it should work quite happily on a $5/month AWS Lightsail instance, if that helps.
I'm shifting my Sendy installation over from a shared EC2 instance to its own $5/month Lightsail box this afternoon. (I use an Amazon RDS database, too, so could have got away with an even smaller $3.50 Lightsail box, but decided to avoid that.)
Dreamhost. No issues at all.
I use Namecheap Shared hosting but unfortunately it can only work for sending broadcast messages.
It doesn’t work for automation.
I was told to migrate to VPS or Dedicated server to be able to set my cron at */1.
I like DigitalOcean for these types of projects. They have plans as low as $5 if price is a concern, and the hardware is top notch.
Synology DiskStation on premise.