Question

I need to enable a mailing list on a website and I was considering to use Simplenews module for it.

I have to send approximately 1500 e-mails per month. I was considering if it is a huge emails amount for drupal and simplenews module and I should use another service, or not.

thanks

Answer 1

Edit II: The Edit Wars – I’ve just read what SimpleNews provides and see that it is a newsletter sender. Skip the next edit and go straight onto the last block.

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Edit: The Phantom Edit – My answer is in the understanding that by mailing list, you meant newsletter. I see now that you could just mean a forum-by-email (like many open source projects operate, for example).

If it’s the second, you’re probably fine just sending it yourself. Sending a couple of dozen emails to each user at once isn’t going to kill your box and hopefully won’t get you labelled as a spammer.

If it’s the first and you’re sending 1500 emails at once for marketing interest, read on.

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I would always argue for a third party service for mailing list – especially if your make money from people actioning these emails.

Why? Because it’s so easy to get blocked as a spammer (even for legitimate emails) if you send enough email. By using a third party, it’s their job to deal with making sure your IP (with them) remain’s unblocked and trusted by all the major players in the spam-scanning world.

It certainly costs more than doing it yourself but with a lowish volume like 1.5k/month, you’re probably not looking at that much money.

I use iContact for a client and they’ve been just great. They have fairly detailed reporting as well (so do lots of email companies) which their marketing bods love. Would cost you $25/month for your volumes.