The Open Source Email Marketing Challenge

Open source projects sit at a unique intersection. You are not a traditional business with customers—you have users, contributors, sponsors, and community members, each needing different communication. A release announcement goes to everyone. A sponsor update goes to backers. A contributor onboarding email goes to first-time PRs. The right email tool helps you manage these different audiences without turning email into a full-time job.

Sponsor Retention Is Your Revenue Lifeline

For projects monetized through sponsorships (GitHub Sponsors, Polar, Open Collective), sponsor retention is everything. Monthly updates showing progress, impact, and roadmap keep sponsors engaged. Projects that communicate regularly with sponsors see significantly lower churn than those that go silent between updates.

The most effective sponsor emails are honest and specific: "This month we merged 47 PRs, fixed 12 bugs, and shipped the new plugin system. Your sponsorship covered 60% of our infrastructure costs." Sponsors want to know their money matters.

From Open Source User to Paying Customer

If your project has an open core model or managed service, email is your primary conversion channel. The key trigger is usage—when someone is running your tool in production, they are ready to hear about enterprise features, SLAs, and managed hosting.

Native payment integration (like Sequenzy's Stripe and Polar connectors) automates this entire flow. Usage events trigger the right emails at the right time, without you manually tracking who is ready for an upgrade conversation.