Working on an app for a non-profit - need access to a mail server to use with wwSTMP. Looking for something inexpensive or ideally free. Evidently gmail SMTP is no longer a reasonable option.

Their needs are quite modest - the heaviest usage would be sending their newsletter twice a year to a few hundred addresses.

Any suggestions welcome.

--sg

Honestly you shouldn't use a self-hosted email server any longer. It'll be instantly black listed and most email likely will never make it to recipients. Basically email these days works off of reputation of email servers and a new server will require all sorts of maintenance to make sure it won't be externally abused.

A much better option is to use a mail service like MailGun or SendGrid - they have limited free plans that might work for you - I use MailGun and I'm on the free-ish plan and rarely pay anything and if I do it's a few dollars.

+++ Rick ---

Hello, We send newsletters with

https://www.hmailserver.com/

It's free, the server is setup locally on the LAN ( limited WAN exposure ) and run only for smtp sending, the only limit of this configuration is that it cannot send mails to its own domain.

But isn't hMailserver a self-hosted product? How do you avoid the blacklisting/maintenance issues Rick warns about?

--sg

From the Mailgun site, it sure looks like the only free plan they offer is a 30-day trial. After that their cheapest option is $35/month. Maybe you're grandfathered in on a plan they no longer offer?

SendGrid does appear to have a free plan with a 100 mails/day limit. That would mean breaking our newsletter mailing up over 2-3 days, which would be a bit of a PITA but could be done.

--sg

Yes hMailserver is a self-hosted server I don't have much skill in managing a mail server The first mail server we installed a few years ago was to handle in and out mail and was exposed on the WAN. During this time some major providers refused oure emails and we where blacklisted v( A hacker sent several hundred thousand emails ) .

Now daily mail is done with external provider, hmailserver is on the LAN and only used for smtp mailing ( 3000 / 4000 mails ) No major problems, I just watched and only found one warning out of 80 DNS-based anti-spam databases

• No matching A-Record exists for your Reverse-DNS. DNS is INCONSISTENT *

Hmmm... yeah it looks like mailgun has switched the 5k/month plan to just a trial account. I looked at this not that long ago for another customer and the plan still was there as a standalone - must have changed in the last year or so...

That's always the problem with hosted services - once you're signed up, you're beholden to them. But unfortunately, the days of self-hosting some things that require some amount of trust like a mail server is no longer realistic.

You can look around - there are a number of mail services available, and some may have much better deals than the big guys.

+++ Rick ---

Twilio has a 100 emails per day free for life plan.

Also for mailing lists and the like, services like MailChimp often work better and they let you manage your lists, handle unsubscribe etc.

So for things like email confirmations in an application a low volume service like Twilio might be enough, and for mass mailings using a mail service might be the better choice.

+++ Rick ---

Just a follow up which may serve as a word of warning...

I just hit a dead end trying to implement Amazon's Simple Email Service. On first glance, it looked like their SMTP service would be just what I needed. I set up an account in their Sandbox area and, after some effort to get a valid set of credentials, finally had it working with wwSMTP. I then put in a request to be updated to production status (necessary as they only allow you to mail to validated recipients in Sandbox mode). I described our very modest needs and attached samples of the mailings we send out. To which I got this response:

We reviewed your request and determined that your use of Amazon SES could have a negative impact on our service. We are denying this request to prevent other Amazon SES customers from experiencing interruptions in service. For security purposes, we are unable to provide specific details.

It's hard to imagine how a usage that involves a few hundred mailings a year could elicit that response. Unless they just don't want to mess with that small an account? Whatever, if they won't even hint at what the problem is, I don't see any way forward with this one...

So I'm back to trying some of the solutions suggested in this thread. I'll let you know how it goes.

--sg

Another vote for hMailServer if you are able to setup security.

I ended up going with this service: https://www.sendinblue.com/

Their SMTP option was super easy to configure and they have a free tier that allows sending up to 300 emails a day which will cover what my client currently needs.

--sg

Perhaps SMTP2go.com

It's free for a maximum of 1000 emails sent par month.

SMTP2GO is a great service - lots of useful features like unsubscribe management