Which SMTP provider do you use to send transactional emails?

We have our own email server with several IPs (to avoid rate limits). It works quite well.

What are the advantages of using a service like Sparkpost? Better delivery?

I don't have the stats at the moment, but I suppose we would have to pay a 3 digit amount of $$$, if we used Sparkpost for all forum emails: https://www.sparkpost.com/pricing/
 
nocte said:
We have our own email server with several IPs (to avoid rate limits). It works quite well.

What are the advantages of using a service like Sparkpost? Better delivery?

I don't have the stats at the moment, but I suppose we would have to pay a 3 digit amount of $$$, if we used Sparkpost for all forum emails: https://www.sparkpost.com/pricing/
Click to expand...

I'm curious about the motivation behind your question?

If your current system "works quite well" what is it that drove you to look at alternatives like SparkPost?

Genuine question - I'm just trying to work out what the pain points you are experiencing are, because that may help answer the question "why SparkPost" ?

It would help to know how many emails you are currently sending per month - so you can identify how much it is likely to cost you to use a service like SparkPost.

Of course, this is one of the benefits of a service like SparkPost - great metrics, so you know how much you are sending and what happens to those emails afterwards (bounce rates, open rates, click-through rates, etc).

Probably the biggest benefit is not having to run your own mail infrastructure and deal with the ever-changing landscape that is email deliverability - but how big an issue this is, will depend on you and your desire to keep running it yourself, more than anything.
 
Sending around 50k newsletter emails on Tuesdays (1 forum sends 41k+ another 8k+)..

SES rejected us. We are using our own SMTP VPSs (also for costs)
  • an over-kill dedicated server at Hetzner (we are still playing in trying to understand our/Postal bottlenecks)
  • VPSs created using Virtualizor
  • every VPS has 1 IP (currently don't see need for more IPs)
  • software = Postal
Also, recently had a user who was prepared to go extra mile to make sure we report where his data is stored (the usual GDRP case that many of you are used to..). Having own SMTP server made super easy wiping all history and reporting with clean conscience that SMTP server also has been wiped, and contains no historical sent mails to/from his account.

.. have another forum with 4k real users, though the forum is dead > have created another VPS on the same server for this forum.

For the rest use PostmarkApp > perfect service! Can't recommend enough, as long as you don't start sending out huge quantities.

hopefully, this makes sense :)

H

p.s. The server is used for these needs only. + we have a very specific niche (domain name investing) and users know both forums (est. in 2001 and 2006) and almost have no spam report issues.
 
why SMTP while can use free XF PHP built-in mail system? works fine for me, to confirm, to reset passes, also for ads, I send to 350k users 1-4 times per month
 
Helmuts said:
Sending around 50k newsletter emails on Tuesdays (1 forum sends 41k+ another 8k+)

SES rejected us. We are using our own SMTP VPSs (also for costs)
Click to expand...
Did Amazon SES say why they rejected you? I was rejected by SES also on my initial application. However, SES asked for more detailed information, which I provided, and then received approval to get "out of the sandbox".

And SES has been helpful from the standpoint of reducing bounced emails.
 
MaximilianKohler said:
I read that one reason is that it leaks the server IP, leaving you susceptible to ddosing. I suppose they can still DDoS your SMTP server, but that's not as bad as having your forum DDoS'd.
Click to expand...
yes you are right! but my server already use native protected ip address from ddos-guard. I mean my server ip & forum ip are the same.

regardin emails:
the best & cheap smtp is unisender, I have found nothing cheaper, they have 2 webs, one for ads & the other one for smtp,
everyone wants unlimited free, analyzing mail senders market, verdict is: iredmail for emails, mailwizz pay once use unlimited for ads,
so far, not found any better deal.

stopped at mailwizz! can create own single smtp server for all domains, also solves ip address spam problems, you can rent ips & fly free as bird
 
MaximilianKohler said:
I just remembered that one major roadblock for switching to a self-hosted SMTP would be that Xenforo relies on this addon to process bounces & complaints for SES: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/amazon-ses-bounces-support.8319. And there is no addon like that for other SMTPs.
Click to expand...
not fully correct from what tracy has said.
the site i am staff on gets regular bounce alerts for invalid email accounts.
mine does not have that issue since it is about nasty tobacco and gets almost no traffic.
he does have a different bounce account set up dedicated to his domain that is listed in xenforo.
since i also run a site it is something i have been interested in.
it is one of the reasons i am wanting him to get my site set back up with it instead of zoho email for delivery.
the only big issue he has found is several times that people have reported some account confirmation emails as spam or something and it returns as such to amazon and xenforo current setup is not equipped to recognize those spam alert responses to stop delivery to those accounts.
seems like a very easy way to get your email delivery having issues if someone has the time to create a bunch of spam accounts and then report the website account confirmation as junk.
i know tracy has commented on this in our staff area but said it is useless to report it here.
he said those email accounts that report an email as spam or unsolicited and that the mail server shows as such should automatically disable all email to those accounts and require a confirmation.
he has had several recent new accounts that have done such and shows in the email log but are ignored by xenforo.
but apparently xenforo does not agree with the need to moderate those that report valid emails as spam.

i can not speak to my site as it does not get much traffic since it is tobacco related and that is apparently a forbidden subject in society today.
but his site is not and he has seen, from what has been discussed in our staff area, several instances of this recently.

since he can not comment on it here he simply ignores it as he knows what submitting a ticket amounts to ultimately.
 
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i had to set the zoho mail back up because of some issues with amazon.
but using that mail tester i seem to have it back to working now for my site.
i think i will keep it set as it is and not mess with amazon right now.
luckily those accounts were already created and i had notes how to set them back up.

xf mail test.webp
 
@Opus X
I'd check why you are getting "You're not fully authenticated". If everything is set up cirrectly this should be a green "You're fully authenticated".
 
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