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Self-Hosting Listmonk: Email Newsletters Without Mailchimp

Listmonk is a self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager. Unlimited subscribers, no per-email costs, beautiful campaign editor.

listmonkemailnewslettersmarketing

Why Replace Mailchimp?


Cost

Mailchimp pricing escalates fast:

  • Free: 500 contacts, limited sends
  • Essentials: $13/month for 500 contacts
  • Standard: $20/month for 500 contacts
  • 10,000 contacts: $100-150/month
  • 50,000 contacts: $350-500/month

    • Privacy

    Mailchimp tracks opens, clicks, and subscriber behavior. Your subscriber data is on their servers.


    What Listmonk Offers


    Subscriber Management

  • Unlimited subscribers
  • Custom attributes and segmentation
  • Import/export CSV
  • Subscribe/unsubscribe workflows
  • Double opt-in

    • Campaign Creation

  • Rich text and HTML editor
  • Template system
  • Personalization with template variables
  • A/B testing
  • Scheduled sending

    • Analytics

  • Open rates
  • Click rates
  • Bounce tracking
  • Subscriber growth

    • Lists

  • Multiple mailing lists
  • Subscriber can be on multiple lists
  • Per-list unsubscribe

    • Email Delivery


    Listmonk handles the newsletter management, but you need an email delivery service for actually sending:


    Amazon SES

    $0.10 per 1,000 emails. 50,000 emails = $5.


    Postmark

    $1.25 per 1,000 emails. Good deliverability.


    Resend

    Modern email API. Developer-friendly.


    Self-hosted SMTP

    Possible but not recommended (deliverability issues).


    Cost Comparison (10,000 subscribers)


    Mailchimp Standard: $100/month = $1,200/year

    Listmonk + SES: ~$7/month = $84/year (TinyPod $5 + SES ~$2)


    Savings: **$1,116/year**


    At 50,000 subscribers: savings exceed $4,000/year.


    Deployment


    1. Deploy Listmonk on TinyPod

    2. Configure SMTP (Amazon SES, Postmark, etc.)

    3. Import your subscriber list

    4. Create your first campaign

    5. Set up subscription forms on your website


    Resources: 1 CPU, 512 MB RAM. Incredibly lightweight.