Overview

MailWizz and Sendy are the two most popular buy-once, self-hosted email marketing tools. Both are PHP applications, both are affordable, but they're very different products.

The Feature Gap

MailWizz is a full email marketing platform. Automation workflows, A/B testing, landing pages, multiple delivery servers, bounce management, white-label support. It's been developed since 2013 with consistent feature additions.

Sendy sends newsletters via Amazon SES. That's basically it. No automation, no A/B testing, no landing pages. It does one thing and does it cheaply.

SES Lock-in vs Flexibility

Sendy only works with Amazon SES. If SES restricts your account or you want to switch providers, you're stuck. MailWizz supports SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, SparkPost, and generic SMTP, letting you rotate between providers or use multiple simultaneously.

The Real Cost

Sendy's $69 sounds cheaper than MailWizz's $86, but you also need hosting for both. The $17 difference is negligible compared to the feature gap. If you need anything beyond basic newsletters, MailWizz is the better investment.

For teams that don't want to manage servers at all, Sequenzy offers managed email with Stripe integration and AI sequences at $49/month.