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Sendy is a newsletter application that gives users access to insights via Amazon Simple Email Service. Many businesses find that they can use the service to send authenticated bulk emails without spending more money than necessary. Businesses can also use the service to learn more about the people on their contact lists.
Sendy includes several features that make it one of the most useful self-hosted email services. It competes against companies like MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. When you compare the available features and costs, though, Sendy quickly looks like the best option for serious businesses that want to make the most of their bulk email newsletter campaigns.
About Sendy
What makes Sendy most interesting is that users get to purchase it once and never pay for future services. It’s a $59 onetime fee. Even future updates are free. Instead of spending money on a subscription service, you purchase the Sendy app. It’s yours, so there is no reason to spend more money in the future.
(Note that while you do not have to pay Sendy for future updates, you do have to pay Amazon SES. The amount that you pay depends on how many emails you send. The prices are extremely low compared to MailChimp and Campaign Monitor.)
Sendy boasts that several top brands use its services. Some of those brands include Comcast and Consumer Reports.
Top Features of Sendy
Sendy comes with a long list of useful features. Some of the top features include:
Multiple Brands
Sendy lets you create campaigns for several products or brands. Each acts independently so that customers don’t get confused. You could even operate two or three completely independent businesses from Sendy. Some businesses find that they can even earn money by giving their clients access independent access to their Sendy software.
Amazon SES
Amazon SES is one of the cheapest ways to conduct massive email campaigns. The Sendy website lets you compare the costs of sending emails with Amazon SES, Campaign Monitor, and MailChimp. Amazon SES is always the cheapest option. It doesn’t matter whether you want to send 100 emails or 500,000, Amazon SES will help you save money without giving inferior service.
Amazon SES is a great service, but it doesn’t offer an email interface. That makes it impossible to use without accompanying software. That’s where Sendy comes in. It fills in the gaps so you can make the most out of Amazon SES’s affordable services.
Visualized Analytics
Sendy makes it easy to understand each campaign’s results. Visualized analytics show you information about clicks, bounces, complains, and other important data. By understanding this information, you can tailor your campaigns so that they become more successful. Over time, visualized analytics can help you grow your readership and client base.
Automatic Services
Any business that sends bulk emails will get some bounce backs, complaints, and unsubscribe messages. Handling those can take a lot of time when a person does it manually. Sendy automates the process so you do not have to worry about it. All unsubscribe emails happen immediately so clients never get unwanted emails. The service also takes care of bounces when newsletters reach inaccurate or dead email addresses. Complaints get sent to you so you can handle them efficiently without getting bogged down in unnecessary details.
Custom Fields
Custom fields make it easy for you to save more information about clients. You can save information such as a client’s birthday, email address, nickname, and membership expiration date. Since you get to customize the field, you choose what information is important to you. This can give you and your clients a more personalized experienced that promotes your brand identity.
Autoresponder
Most businesses don’t have time to write bulk emails daily, weekly, or even monthly. Sendy’s autoresponder feature lets you send automated messages. Just set the schedule and let Sendy take care of the rest.
Criticism of Sendy
Not many people complain about Sendy. There is one criticism that keeps getting repeated by users, though. Unlike MailChimp and other industry leaders, Sendy doesn’t have email templates. This makes it a little more complicated to make visually appealing newsletters that will work with desktop computers and mobile devices.
Sendy, however, says it is working on developing email templates. They aren’t available right now, but they should be included in a future update. When will that happen? No one outside of the company knows. Still, it’s a small setback compared to the excellent features and low price that you get.
Sendy Customer Service
Sendy doesn’t offer much in the way of customer service. It has a large troubleshooting page that can help you answer your own questions. It also has a significant knowledge base that teaches people how to use the software. If you can’t find an answer to your question, though, you will have to send an email to customer service (hello@sendy.co).
The website doesn’t advertise a customer service number, so you might as well not bother trying to call. Send an email and someone in customer service will get back to you as soon as possible.
Frequently Asked Questions About Sendy
Q: Can I install Sendy on more than one domain after I buy it?
A: No, each user license covers one domain. You can, of course, choose any domain that you want. If you wish to use multiple domains, though, you will need to purchase a license for each one.
Q: Can I edit Sendy’s source code?
A: You are free to edit Sendy’s source code to customize it to your needs. You should only do this if you have coding experience. Otherwise, your changes could negatively affect the software’s features.
Q: Is there an SES send limit?
A: Right now you can send 10,000 emails in 24 hours. Amazon SES sends five emails per second, so they go out rather quickly. You can request extended access from Amazon, but Sendy hints that it is working on a solution to increase the send limit.
Conclusion
Plenty of companies rely on emails and newsletters to stay in touch with their customers. Although the trend has been to gravitate towards social media applications, many businesses find that they get better results by sending emails directly to their customers. It’s a great way to increase brand identity and awareness.
There are plenty of newsletter and bulk email services that promise to make this process easy. Most of them work very well, but they tend to cost quite a bit of money when you want to send several thousand emails per month. If your company has any real level of success, that probably means you will spend a lot of money just to send emails to your customers.
Sendy.co offers a self-hosted alternative with plenty of useful features at an extremely affordable price. If you currently use a company like MailChimp, you could literally save thousands of dollars by switching to Sendy. Some people will suspect that Sendy’s low price means that it doesn’t offer great services. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who use Sendy say that, despite one or two small flaws, it gives them the features that they need to make the most of their email campaigns.
