[HN Gopher] Show HN: Built an email marketing platform after pay...
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Show HN: Built an email marketing platform after paying $230/month
Spent the last month building Fertit - basically a newsletter
manager but you bring your own SMTP and skip the DevOps nightmare.
All the features (subscriber management, admin dashboard, custom
preferences) without the infrastructure markup. The math that
broke me: Mailchimp: $230/month for 15k contacts My solution:
$10/month infrastructure + $10 SendGrid = unlimited What I
learned: The "enterprise" features are mostly database operations
with SMTP APIs. But the 3 weeks of Go/PostgreSQL/Redis setup
explains why people just pay ConvertKit $300/month. Here's the
thing: Even open-sourcing it, I realized most people don't want to
deal with servers, Docker configs, and database migrations. So I
built an affordable hosted service starting at $5/month. More
features and security measurements, zero setup - just bring your
SMTP and start sending. You get all the cost savings without any of
the self-hosting headaches. Now testing this hosted version at
$5/month - middle ground between DIY pain and SaaS pricing. Hosted
version: https://www.fertit.com Open source:
https://github.com/rasadov/NewsletterManager Anyone else tired of
choosing between expensive self-hosting and expensive SaaS? Would
love feedback on the approach.
Author : rasadov
Score : 16 points
Date : 2025-07-21 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fertit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fertit.com)
| more_corn wrote:
| Email marketing is called spam.
| rasadov wrote:
| There's definitely a difference between spam and permission-
| based email marketing. Fertit is built specifically for
| legitimate newsletter subscriptions - subscribers opt-in
| through proper signup forms and can easily manage preferences
| or unsubscribe. It's the same model used by every legitimate
| business newsletter, from GitHub updates to Substack
| publications. The focus is on providing value to people who
| actually want to receive the content.
| Saris wrote:
| Huh? How is it spam when I receive newsletters I sign up for?
|
| Are you confused between newsletters/marketing and actual spam
| maybe?
| yoz-y wrote:
| I would be willing to bet that vast majority of "subscribed"
| newsletters are spam.
|
| I always receive a ton of newsletters. Never once have I
| signed up, I always uncheck all sign up prompts and always
| immediately unsubscribe if I receive one.
|
| Even then, immediately after any sort of purchase I get
| resubscribed. I'm convinced that most shops completely ignore
| all user choices and resubscribe everyone to all mailing
| lists after purchase.
| rasadov wrote:
| You're absolutely right about this being a huge problem and
| it's exactly why I built proper consent management into
| Fertit from the ground up. What you're describing (auto-
| resubscribing after purchase, ignoring unsubscribe
| requests) is both illegal under CAN-SPAM/GDPR and terrible
| business practice. The legitimate use case is businesses
| that actually respect their subscribers. Think GitHub
| release notes, Substack authors, or local businesses
| sending monthly updates to customers who genuinely want
| them. But you're spot on that too many companies abuse
| email marketing, which ruins it for everyone.
| financltravsty wrote:
| Only to tech nerds. When it's B2B, and targeted and positioned
| properly, it's business
| more_corn wrote:
| When you're on the receiving end of it... still spam.
| financltravsty wrote:
| If it doesn't offer anything of value, sure.
|
| But the good ones do.
| Saris wrote:
| Would love to see some screenshots of a few parts of the
| interface, like the editor, sign up forms builder, and contacts
| management.
| rasadov wrote:
| Hey, thanks for feedback. While there are some screenshots in
| product hunt launch, I will definitely add more images and
| videos later to make it easier to use platform.
| https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fertit
| tommasoamici wrote:
| I run a few instances of listmonk [0], what makes fertit
| different/better?
|
| One thing I don't particularly like about listmonk is that it
| doesn't really support multitenancy. It's lightweight enough that
| I can spin up multiple instances for different domains, but it'd
| be nice not to.
|
| https://listmonk.app/
| rtsil wrote:
| The main reason people pay expensive ESPs is deliverability,
| which is practically impossible when self-hosting when it comes
| to marketing, non-transactional emails, and in any case much more
| expensive than any ESP subscription.
|
| How does Fertit position itself in relation to that?
| rasadov wrote:
| Fertit actually leverages the best of both worlds through our
| SMTP integration approach:
|
| Use Established ESPs for Delivery: Fertit connects to your
| existing SMTP provider (SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, etc.) -
| so you still get their deliverability infrastructure and IP
| reputation.
|
| Save on Interface & Features: Instead of paying $50-300/month
| for ConvertKit or Mailchimp's full platform, you pay
| $5-10/month for Fertit's management layer while using a cheaper
| transactional email service for actual delivery.
|
| Cost Comparison: Traditional ESP: $79/month for 5,000
| subscribers Fertit approach: $9.99/month (Pro plan) + $15/month
| (SendGrid) = ~$25/month total
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(page generated 2025-07-21 23:01 UTC)