7 Best Sendy Alternatives
Updated on December 30th, 2024
Sendy is an incredibly affordable email marketing tool.
But it comes with limitations that hinder your ability to scale your email marketing.
So, if you need:
- More advanced features, like a drag-n-drop template editor or template library
- Faster sending speed, especially for high-volume senders
- Unlimited custom tracking domains at no extra cost
- More attentive customer support
It’s time to start looking for a Sendy alternative.
I’ve spent 20+ hours signing up for trials and reading through every customer review for these 7 Sendy alternatives from the past year. The email marketing platforms listed below are good Sendy alternatives for the cost-savvy marketer with similar (or better) feature sets.
I divided the Sendy alternatives into 3 categories. Feel free to skip to the section you’re most interested in:
- Hosted platforms that allow you to use Amazon SES – These tools allow you to keep sending costs down by using your own SES connection for sending, like Sendy (best of both worlds). What you get is better asset management and reporting.
- Self-hosted platforms – These are self-hosted (meaning you have to install the software on your server), just like Sendy. They’re cheaper than most but have limited capabilities.
- Hosted platforms – These send emails from their servers and don’t allow sending through Amazon SES. They’re more expensive and don’t usually lack key features.
Here’s how they compare on pricing (excluding Mautic and MailWizz):
1. Best Value For High-Volume Senders: BigMailer
BigMailer is a hosted alternative to Sendy that gives you the option to send emails via Amazon SES.
BigMailer is ideal for marketing agencies, franchises, email consultants, media companies, and large teams. This platform provides the most features for the money out of all the options on this list, especially for large email lists.
Here are my main reasons why:
BigMailer’s built-in brand and user role-based access allows you to easily manage multiple brands and team members (up to 100) from a single account. This allows you to keep all your clients, projects, team members, and email campaigns (marketing & transactional) in ONE place. You can also analyze engagement by each email domain to troubleshoot and improve inboxing.
Its email validation helps you weed out invalid emails and typo spam traps to protect your sender reputation and improve your deliverability (one of the only platforms on this list with this feature built-in).
You can also use email throttling, which helps control the number of emails you send in time intervals to improve deliverability for very large lists (over 100k).
I find BigMailer’s drag-and-drop email template builder quicker and more intuitive than most platforms on this list (many of them are clunky).
Templates can be saved to your library and shared easily with other brands, which is very useful for agency clients in the same industries or franchises. This saves you time on template creation if you manage multiple brands (clients or locations).
Users rave about the very responsive customer service (available 7 days/week from 8 am – 8 pm EST), which connects you with BigMailer’s support team that’s based in the USA.
Interested in a quick tour? Watch this demo video:
Pros
- Affordable pricing based on list size, which makes it especially valuable for high-volume sending
- Multiple brand management and role-based user access controls
- White-label option
- Supports RSS-to-email automation
- Fast email delivery (not limited to your server capacity).
- No upfront setup fees
- You can use Amazon SES to send with BigMailer
- Support via live chat is available 7 days a week
Cons
- Technically, it costs more than Sendy, but it’s still extremely affordable
- Not ideal for DTC or e-commerce companies due to a lack of direct integrations with ecommerce platforms like Shopify
Features
- Supports all email types – Newsletters, transactional, RSS-to-email, automations, and sequences.
- A/B testing – Test up to 3 subject lines to compare engagement rate.
- Live chat and email support (7 days/week from 8 am-8 pm EST)
- Drag-and-drop and HTML template builders – Bring your own HTML email templates, choose from a library of customizable pre-made templates, or design your own templates with a drag-and-drop builder.
- Multi-brand management – Manage multiple brands and projects from a single platform.
- User roles and access control – Control who has access and permissions to your valuable email lists.
- Landing pages – Create landing pages to capture emails for your newsletter.
- Segmentation – Segment based on campaign activities or custom fields.
- Advanced engagement reporting – See engagement by email domain, which helps troubleshoot and optimize your inboxing more easily.
- Built-in email validation – Remove all invalid emails to improve your deliverability.
- Suppression lists – upload lists to exclude from sending (for example, unsubscribes or complainers from another provider) without extra cost
- Email throttling – Control the number of emails sent at a time to improve your deliverability for large lists, especially after changing providers or IP addresses.
- Integrations – Sync your customer records with hundreds of apps by using integrations with Zapier, Make, Pabbly, or Zoho (or webhooks to push data into your app).
- Referral programs – Grow and monetize your newsletter through referrals by integrating with Sparkloop.
- Live chat and email support – Get access to a USA-based support team 7 days per week from 8 am to 8 pm EST.
Pricing
BigMailer offers flexible and affordable pricing based on the number of contacts in your email list.
These are the 4 main pricing plans:
- Startup – Free up to 1,000 contacts and 5 users (Amazon SES required)
- Business Basic – $5/month per 5,000 contacts (starts at $20/month) with up to 20 users (Amazon SES required)
- Business Pro – $12.50/month per 5,000 contacts (starts at $50/month) with up to 20 users
- Agency – $5/month per 5,000 contacts, starting at 300,000+ contacts and $300/mo. White label option.
Note: Using Amazon SES comes with an added cost of $0.1 per 1,000 emails sent, paid to Amazon SES directly. This is one way BigMailer helps keep your bill more affordable if you don’t have a high-frequency schedule. For anyone sending at least 10 emails per month, using Amazon SES doesn’t cost less compared to just sending with BigMailer on a Pro plan.
Here’s how much you’ll pay for the Basic and Pro plans based on the size of your email list:
Check out BigMailer’s pricing page for more details.
Customer reviews
Customers love BigMailer’s ease of use, competitive pricing, range of features, and attentive customer support. There are very few criticisms from customers, but a few wished the template library was more extensive.
Here’s what one verified user has to say about using BigMailer:
2. Best for Budget Users: Pabbly (Hosted + Allows SES)
Pabbly is a hosted email marketing platform best suited for small businesses on a budget. You can send emails via Amazon SES or choose to send from Pabbly’s servers.
There are no extra charges for unlimited email sending, which is ideal if you email your list more than 10 times per month.
It has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder that doesn’t require any coding skills.
You can integrate multiple SMTPs (Simple Mail Transfer Protocols) to ensure continuous email delivery, even if one of your SMTP accounts gets suspended. By connecting your email marketing service with a dependable SMTP relay, you can minimize the risk of blacklisting and enhance the delivery rate of your emails.
There’s a 7-day free trial, which is a downside for getting a good feeling for Pabbly before signing up for a plan.
Some users complain that the customer support (based in India) isn’t great, the analytics are basic, and the templates are limiting.
Pros
- Easy to design emails
- Cost-effective pricing
- Unlimited email sending without additional costs
- Email throttling – This allows you to limit the number of emails sent per day.
- Can connect to Amazon SES to save on sending cost
- Can connect multiple SMTPs
Cons
- Some customers have complained that customer support isn’t great
- Only a 7-day free trial (no free plan)
- Basic reporting and analytics compared to other tools on this list
- Limited amount of templates
- They don’t natively offer AB testing (so you have to do it manually with segments)
- Doesn’t support managing multiple users & accounts
- No white-label option
Features
- Email Builder – Design emails from plain text, HTML code, or a drag-and-drop builder.
- SMTP Routing – Send an email campaign using up to 50 delivery servers to decrease the chances of being blacklisted.
- Auto-follow-ups – Send an automatic follow-up email to non-opens
- Segmentation – Create list segments based on multiple criteria and searches.
- Throttle Emails – Set a sending frequency for mass emails.
- Forms – Capture signups by embedding forms on your websites.
- Automations – Set up custom triggers and delays for automated emails.
- Suppression lists – Create lists for excluding emails from campaigns that unsubscribe, bounce, and complain.
- 1 Click Resend – Resend an email to someone who didn’t open your last email.
- Integrations – Use Pabbly Connect to integrate with 2,000+ apps.
- Support – Connect with customer support via email or live chat.
Pricing
Pabbly offers 3 pricing plans for email marketing and a 7-day free trial for up to 100 subscribers. Paid plans start at $29/month for up to 5,000 subscribers and go up to $1,599/month for 1,000,000 subscribers.
Here’s how much you can expect to pay based on the size of your email list:
Pabbly offers a 20% discount when you pay annually.
Learn more about Pabbly’s pricing here.
Customer reviews
Pabbly received 4.1 stars out of 5 on G2. Users loved its ease of use and competitive pricing. Many complained about software bug issues. One common complaint amongst users was the not-so-great customer support and basic reporting features compared to other tools.
Here’s what Radha has to say about Pabbly:
3. Best for Low-Volume Senders: MailBluster
MailBluster is a hosted platform that allows you to send (only) via SES. MailBluster is a good option if you need to minimize your email marketing costs and send fewer than 10,000 emails per month.
Its pay-per-email pricing structure makes it flexible for businesses that don’t need to send high-volume emails consistently. But it can also get drastically more expensive for consistent high-volume senders.
It’s particularly well-suited for marketers who only need basic automation and aren’t interested in overly complex features.
The platform is easy to use, with a clean dashboard and drag-and-drop email builder, which makes it a great option for non-technical users – after they set up Amazon SES.
One of its unique features is it lets you schedule emails in your recipients’ time zones with TimeWarp Delivery.
MailBluster only supports Amazon SES for sending, which comes with some restrictive policies.
While the platform is known for quick customer support, it lacks comprehensive tutorials, making it harder for beginners to get the most out of it.
Pros
- Easy to use, clean dashboard
- Low cost if you send less than 7,500 emails/month
- No limitation on the number of contacts to store
- Unlimited email sends
- Users find the customer support responsive
- Allows scheduling emails in your subscribers’ time zones
Cons
- Free plan only offers 3,000 sends
- Does not support other SMTP servers (Amazon SES policies can be restrictive)
- Not many tutorials to learn how to use its features
- Gets expensive if you send more than 10,000 emails per month
Features
- Segmentation – Create segments based on opens and link clicks.
- A/B testing – Segment your email list to test different campaigns.
- Templates – Access a library of pre-built templates or create your own.
- Timewarp Delivery – Send emails per your subscriber’s time zone.
- Tracking and reports – Track clicks, opens, bounced, unsubscribes, complaints, and e-commerce conversions.
- Drag & drop email builder – Design emails with a drag & drop email builder or customize further with HTML.
- Double opt-in – Allows leads to verify their email address when they subscribe to help avoid the spam folder.
- Mass add, delete, or unsubscribe leads – Easily delete, add or unsubscribe mass leads.
- Multiple brands, users, & roles – Manage separate brands and set role access for users.
Pricing
MailBluster offers a free plan for up to 3,000 email sends. Its paid plan is $60/year but you’ll need to pay $0.60 per 1,000 emails. In addition, you’ll need to pay $0.0001 per email to Amazon SES.
For pricing comparison purposes, this is how much you’ll pay for various amounts of contacts if you email them 10 times per month (not counting Amazon SES costs):
Check out MailBluster’s pricing calculator for more details.
Customer reviews
MailBluster received a 4.8-star rating out of 5, according to G2. Users enjoyed the ease of use, simple automations, and user-friendly interface. Some complained about the usage-based pricing and would prefer a month-to-month option.
Here’s what Allan P. has to say about MailBluster:
4. Most Similar to Sendy: MailWizz
MailWizz is a self-hosted email marketing platform that costs a one-time purchase fee.
This can be a huge plus for smaller businesses or individuals who want to manage their own email marketing campaigns without recurring monthly costs.
You can send unlimited emails to unlimited subscribers once set up, and it integrates well with SMTP providers like Amazon SES.
Its free email templates and drag-and-drop builder make designing emails quick and easy, especially if design isn’t your thing.
You can translate the system into your language, which is great for international users.
MailWizz’s customer support is limited, so you’ll often need to troubleshoot on your own or pay extra for their support pack.
According to customer reviews, tracking can sometimes be inaccurate, which could make optimizing campaigns and reporting difficult.
Pros
- One-time purchase fee
- Offers some features such as automation and scheduling
- Integration with SMTP Providers (Such as Amazon SES)
- Offers 8 free email templates
- Unlimited subscribers and emails sends
- Easy installation on all popular VPS providers
Cons
- Reviewers often mention the poor customer support
- Technical setup
- You have to pay extra for their support pack
- Not ideal for medium to large businesses
- Known for inaccurate tracking
Features
- Language translation – Translate MailWizz’s platform into your own language.
- Multiple builders – Design email templates from drag-and-drop builders like Basic, GrapesJS, Stripo, and more.
- User management – Set up multiple users and user groups with limits and permissions.
- Email templates – Create and organize as many email templates as you need (8 free templates).
- Dashboard – Quickly view email lists, campaigns, subscribers, list segments, delivery servers, and recent activities.
- Surveys – Run and manage surveys.
- Delivery servers – Create as many delivery servers as needed from your own SMTP servers or major email providers.
- Bounce servers – Add bounce servers to manage bounces when using your own SMTP servers.
- A/B testing – Test variations on your campaigns to see which performs better.
- Landing pages – Create landing pages with a drag-and-drop builder.
Pricing
MailWizz offers 2 plans, where you pay a one-time fee. This includes unlimited subscribers and unlimited emails. Unfortunately, you do have to pay extra for their customer support pack.
The “Regular license” is $86 and the “Extended license” is $275 (for those who want to white-label MailWhizz and sell the system to customers).
Customer support ranges from $40 for one month and goes up to $100 for 12 months.
You’ll also need to pay to use an SMTP server to send emails.
Check out MailWizz’s pricing page for more details.
Reviews
MailWizz has a 4.4 star rating out of 5, according to G2. Users enjoyed the backend features, but they did complain about customer support.
Here’s what Sujith B. has to say about MailWizz:
5. Best Free Option: Mautic
Mautic is a totally free-to-use open-source marketing automation platform with email marketing capabilities. This might be the best option if you’re looking for a free Sendy alternative (besides paying for Amazon SES or another SMTP).
You can use Mautic to handle emails, social media campaigns, SMS, and even web push notifications.
Many users liked that you can organize contacts easily for targeted campaigns, and the advanced automation features set it apart from tools like Sendy. Plus, the platform is available in 35+ languages.
However, many users complain about the setup if you don’t have developer skills.
Some users find the drag-and-drop email template builder challenging to use, which could be frustrating if you care about design.
There are also reports of bugs and stability issues, particularly after updates. Mautic would be best for small businesses and non-profits that need to minimize costs – as long as they have a developer on staff to help with the setup.
Pros
- Free forever
- Backed by a helpful community
- Compared to Sendy, Mautic offers more automation features
- Also offers social media tracking, SMS, and web push notifications
- 35+ language translations
Cons
- You’ll need to pay for a separate email service to send emails (like Amazon SES)
- Setting up Mautic can be complex if you don’t have technical skills
- Some users mentioned that the drag-and-drop email template builder is difficult to use
- Bugs will often take a while to be fixed
- Users report having email deliverability issues
Features
- Multi-channel campaigns – Create and schedule campaigns across email, SMS, and social.
- Automated campaigns – Set specific triggers, actions, or steps for automated messages.
- Templates – Create and store email templates.
- Stages – Assign stages to your leads to track where they are in a customer journey.
- Segmentation – Use custom filters, fields, and tags to create contact segments.
- Page builder – Create landing pages with a drag-and-drop builder or code.
- Forms to capture leads – Create campaign forms to add a contact directly to a campaign or standalone forms to add a contact to a segment.
- Assets – Upload trackable content that gets automatically sent to contacts.
- Reports – Track engagement across emails, assets, contacts, landing pages, and campaigns.
- Email builder – Use the GrapeJS Builder to design emails with a drag-and-drop interface.
- Integrations – Connect via API or directly to Facebook, Instagram, Outlook, Pipedrive, and more.
Pricing
Mautic is forever free.
You’ll just have to pay for an SMTP or ESP to send emails.
Reviews
Mautic receives a 4.6-star rating out of 5 on G2. Users like that it’s free to use and open source. Critics complain that the setup is difficult and requires developer skills.
Here’s what Saad S. has to say about Mautic:
6. Best for Transactional Email: Mailgun
If you’re a developer or business that sends a lot of transactional emails, Mailgun might be a good fit. This hosted email delivery service is API-driven, making it great for embedding email capabilities right into your platform.
You can design emails with HTML or their WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) builder.
If you enjoy in-depth tracking and understanding every detail of what happened with your emails, MailGun’s API’s log retention and email analytics are very detailed.
You’ll be able to track error codes with exact time stamps and explanations so you can diagnose deliverability issues and fix future campaigns.
The free plan allows you to send 100 emails daily. However, some of the users’ biggest complaints are the higher bounce rates, emails occasionally landing in spam folders, and slow support.
Pros
- You can use HTML or the WYSIWYG email builder
- Offers a free plan for sending up to 100 emails/day
- Detailed analytics
- Comes with email validation (on the highest tier)
Cons
- Some users have complained about high bounce rates and emails landing in spam
- Slow support
- Not for those who aren’t tech-savvy
- Doesn’t offer native A/B testing
Features
- Email template builder – Design emails with HTML or a drag-and-drop builder.
- Send API – Send automatic transactional emails by connecting via the API to your app.
- SMTP relaying – Use MailGun’s SMTP servers or use with a local SMTP server at the same time.
- Email logs – Retain detailed logs of email errors for up to 30 days.
- Analytics – Visualize 40+ data points, including delivery rates, opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, error codes, and more.
- Routing – Route and parse inbound emails.
- Validation – Automatically verify new emails or verify email lists in bulk.
- Inbox placement testing – See if your email will land in spam, promotions, social, or main inbox before sending.
- Email preview – Preview what your emails will look like on desktop and mobile before sending.
- Reputation monitoring – Monitor and receive notifications about your domain and IP reputation.
- Deliverability services – Get deliverability consulting from a technical account manager.
Pricing
Mailgun offers 3 pricing plans and a free plan that includes 100 emails/day. Paid plans start at $15/month for 10,000 emails/month and go up to $1,250/month for 2,500,000 emails/month.
Note: Depending on which plan you select, there will be a charge for extra emails that are sent out. For example, if you choose the Foundation plan, extra emails & validations will cost you $1.30 per 1,000 emails and $1.20 per 100 validations. The overage rate can cost you more than the base subscription if you’re not careful.
For pricing comparison purposes, this is how much you’ll pay for various amounts of contacts if you email them 10 times per month:
Check out Mailgun’s pricing page for more details.
Customer Reviews
Mailgun receives a 4.2-star rating out of 5 on G2. Most users enjoyed its API quality. However, many were unhappy with its customer support.
Here’s what Romina L, a verified user, has to say:
7. Best for Messaging Beyond Email: MailerLite
MailerLite is a hosted marketing platform and is a good option if you’re looking for more than just an email marketing tool.
The reason? It supports additional features like SMS, surveys, quiz creation, and a website builder, not to mention more direct integrations with other platforms.
I found the interface really easy to navigate, which is helpful if you’re not great with tech.
MailerLite has many additional features that Sendy doesn’t have, such as multivariate testing. It can handle both simple and more advanced campaigns, so this tool would be a good fit for SMBs. It’s also a good fit for ecommerce companies because of its integrations with ecommerce platforms.
MailerLite can be more expensive compared to the other tools on this list, especially if your subscriber list grows.
If you need a broader range of tools and don’t mind paying a bit more for ease of use and extra features, MailerLite is a good choice.
Pros
- Generous free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers (with limitations)
- Multivariate testing
- Easy to use drag-and-drop email template builder
- Offers non-email marketing features like a website and blog builder
Cons
- Email templates and custom HTML editor not available on free plan
- Some users have also stated that navigating the design edit tools can be a bit challenging.
- One of the most expensive Sendy alternatives on this list
- You have to pay extra for transactional features (Unlike BigMailer, where this is part of the pricing.)
- Live chat support is only available on the more expensive Advanced plan
Features
- Automation – Set up automated workflows and sequences based on triggers.
- Newsletter editors – Design your newsletters with a rich text or drag-and-drop editor.
- Email notifications – Send notification emails to your customers.
- Website & blog builder – Build a website with blog capabilities using a drag-and-drop editor.
- Landing pages – Create customizable landing pages with a drag-and-drop editor or start by generating one with AI.
- Signup forms – Capture signups with embedded and pop-up forms.
- Email verifier – Use MailerCheck to verify email addresses in bulk.
- Digital products – Sell your digital products with Stripe, then deliver them with email.
- E-commerce – Connect your ecommerce platform to send transactional emails.
- Paid newsletter subscriptions – Offer paid subscriptions with their Stripe integration.
Pricing
MailerLite offers 3 main plans for marketing emails. The free plan goes up to 1,000 subscribers. Paid plans start at $10/month for up to 500 subscribers and go up to $1,520 for 400,000 subscribers.
Here’s how much you’ll pay for the Growing Business and Advanced plans based on your email list size:
If you sign up for an annual plan, you can get 10% off.
Check out MailerLite’s pricing page for more accurate details.
Customer reviews
MailerLite has a 4.6-star rating out of 5 on G2. Many users praise MailerLite for their affordable pricing. However, some customers complained that their accounts were blocked after paying for unlimited monthly emails (MailerLite cares a lot about compliance and consent, so this might be related).
Here’s what Giselle G. has to say about MailerLite:
FAQ
What is the best free Sendy alternative?
If you’re looking for a free alternative to Sendy and you have developer skills on hand, you can try Mautic. It’s forever free, open-source, and receives a decent 4.6-star rating on G2.
Why should I consider a Sendy alternative?
Although Sendy is really affordable, it lacks many features that growing businesses need. For example, email sending speed is limited based on your server capacity, so an email campaign can take hours instead of minutes if you’re using a small, cheaper server.
Customer support is minimal and only available through email. Sendy’s editor is very basic with no pre-built templates.
Are there any Sendy alternatives for high-volume email sending?
The best tool for high-volume senders with lists above 50k is BigMailer. BigMailer has cost-effective plans based on the number of contacts without large tier jumps.
Ready to make the switch from Sendy?
If you’re a marketing agency, email consultant, or have a large team, BigMailer has all of the features you need to create, distribute, and grow with email marketing — at an affordable cost.
Have questions about BigMailer’s features or pricing? Reach out to us via chat or schedule a demo.
Or, if you’re ready to give the BigMailer platform a try, get started with a free account.
Author: Jacob Statler
