Blog
Notes on building and selling software you buy once and run yourself.
SES under review: incident playbook when the panel still says healthy
Your SES account is under review for direct complaints while metrics look fine. What triggered it, what not to do, and how to build evidence for Support.
How to choose a transactional email API (deliverability, SES, cost)
Choose a transactional email api service: deliverability, SES vs managed APIs, warm-up, cost at 10k emails, lock-in. For password resets to receipts.
Resend vs SES pricing: cost, lock-in, and AWS email hosting
Resend vs SES pricing: $20–$350/mo vs $0.10 per thousand. Cost comparison, lock-in, and when to send from your own AWS.
The pixel is not the email: SES per-send tracking, and why a leaked SaaS key is not your AWS
Amazon SES now allows per-send tracking overrides for GDPR compliance. Leaked SMTP/API keys are user credentials, not provider breaches.
Per-contact pricing: what you're actually paying for
Most email platforms bill on the size of your list rather than what you send. Here is what that costs at real list sizes, why unsubscribed contacts often still count, and when the model is and isn't defensible.
What it actually costs to send 500,000 emails from your own AWS
A line-by-line breakdown of the AWS bill for running a serverless email platform — SES, Lambda, SQS, SNS and EventBridge — at 50k, 500k and 2M emails a month, including the one line that is not free when idle.
Why we sell a one-time license
Every incentive in software points at subscriptions. Here is the reasoning behind charging once instead, what it costs us, and the specific commitments that make a perpetual license mean something.
Stop paying for the same contacts
every month.
$497 once. Runs on your infrastructure, sends through your own AWS SES account. Launch buyers get agency rights permanently — unlimited client workspaces. First 100 licenses.