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:…
In plain words
Fertit is a newsletter management platform that lets users handle subscriber management, campaign sending, and preference customization while using their own email service provider. It targets cost-conscious publishers and marketers who want to avoid expensive email platforms like Mailchimp or ConvertKit. The software reduces infrastructure complexity by handling the application layer while users supply their own SMTP service, significantly lowering total costs compared to traditional email marketing platforms.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
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.
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