Does Sendy send email itself?

No, and this is the most important thing to understand about it. Sendy is built around Amazon SES: it manages lists and campaigns, then hands every message to SES for delivery. It also works natively with SendGrid, Mailjet and Elastic Email. The sending reputation belongs to the relay, not to you.

Then why would I put it on a VPS at all?

Because it is your application and your subscriber database, even though the delivery is outsourced. A VPS gives you root, your own PHP and MySQL versions, and a machine nobody else shares. But be clear that you are buying it for the application, not for Port 25 — Sendy will not use it.

How much does Sendy cost?

A one-time licence fee of $69, published on sendy.co. On top of that you pay Amazon SES per message, which is the running cost that actually scales with your sending.

Do I need a dedicated IP or custom rDNS for Sendy?

Not for sending, because SES delivers the mail from its own infrastructure. Every plan here includes a dedicated IPv4 address and custom reverse DNS on request anyway, but with Sendy those are serving your admin interface rather than your mail.

What if I want to own my sending reputation?

Then Sendy is the wrong tool and you should not buy it. You want software that delivers mail itself — Postal is free and MIT licensed — or a campaign application pointed at your own MTA rather than at a relay. Sendy is a front end, and that is the whole design.

Both are light. listmonk is free and AGPL v3 but needs PostgreSQL; Sendy is $69 once and runs on ordinary PHP and MySQL. The real difference is philosophy: listmonk will happily send through your own MTA, while Sendy assumes a relay. If you might want to deliver mail yourself later, listmonk leaves that door open.

How small a server can I use?

Small. The relay does the sending, so your VPS only serves the admin interface and holds the subscriber database. It is the lightest hosting requirement of the six packages on this site.

Do you install Sendy for me?

No. Every plan is unmanaged, so PHP, MySQL, the web server and Sendy itself are yours to set up. Your SES credentials and domain verification are between you and Amazon.

Is Port 25 guaranteed on every plan, or just open?

Both, depending on the range, and the difference is worth knowing before you buy. Outbound Port 25 is open by default on all 16 plans — no ticket, no approval step. On NVMe VPS, Cloud VPS, Classic VPS and VDS it is written into the published plan specification. On it is open because of how the network is run rather than as a documented guarantee. In practice it behaves the same on all of them, but if your business stops when you cannot send, buy the range that puts it in writing.

Sendy · $69 One-Time · Relay-Based

A good interface on top of SES — not a mail server.

Sendy is the cheapest way to get proper list and campaign management for a small one-time fee. It is also, by design, a front end for Amazon SES: it does not deliver mail and it will not use the open Port 25 you get here. If you came looking to run your own mail server, read the next paragraph before you buy.

$69 one-time
Very light to host
Sends via Amazon SES
Not a mail server

Read This First Published Requirements

One-time licence

$69

Plus Amazon SES per-message costs

Cheapest campaign interface here
Runs on almost any PHP host
Delivery reputation is the relay's
Will not use your open Port 25

The One Thing to Understand Before You Buy

Sendy does not send your email. Amazon SES does. Sendy manages the lists, builds the campaigns and reports on them, then hands every message to SES for delivery — it also works natively with SendGrid, Mailjet and Elastic Email. That makes it the cheapest and lightest option here at a $69 one-time licence, and it means the sending reputation is the relay's, not yours. If your reason for self-hosting was to own delivery, control your own IP reputation and use the open Port 25 on these plans, Sendy is the wrong product and we would rather tell you now than sell you a server for it.

Cost: $69 one-time for the licence, plus Amazon SES per-message charges.
Delivery: Amazon SES by default; SendGrid, Mailjet and Elastic Email also supported.
Reputation: the relay's, not yours. That is the trade.
Stack: ordinary PHP with MySQL or MariaDB — almost any host will run it.
Port 25: open on every plan here, but Sendy will not use it.
Right for you if you want a cheap, clean interface and are happy relaying.

If that is not what you wanted: Postal delivers mail itself, free · listmonk works with your own MTA · running your own mail server · VPS vs relay, compared

What You Gain and What You Give Up

Relaying is not a worse choice. It is a different one, with a real upside.

What SES handles so you do not

IP warm-up, blocklist monitoring, feedback loops with the major inbox providers, bounce processing and the standing maintenance of a mail server. That is genuinely skilled work, and it is the reason many senders should relay rather than self-host.

What you give up in exchange

Per-message costs that scale with volume, a sending reputation shared with SES's other customers, and dependence on their acceptable-use decisions. If SES declines your use case, Sendy has little to offer you on its own.

What Sendy Publishes as Its Requirements

Taken from the project's own documentation on 17 August 2026, not from a hosting page's estimate. The source is named underneath so you can check it.

Licence	Commercial (one-time licence)
Cost	$69 one-time
Stack	PHP
PHP	Standard PHP hosting — Sendy advertises that almost any host will run it
Database	MySQL or MariaDB
Also needs	The lightest of the commercial options; it does very little on your server.
Sends mail itself	No — it hands mail to an MTA or a relay

Sources, checked 17 August 2026

Read at each vendor's own documentation rather than taken from a summary. Follow the links and check for yourself — figures like these move.

The $69 one-time price, the PHP and MySQL/MariaDB requirement, and that Sendy sends via Amazon SES with native SendGrid, Mailjet and Elastic Email support sendy.co

Is Sendy Right for You?

You already use Amazon SES and want a better interface

This is precisely the case Sendy was built for, and $69 once is very little for what you get.

You want somebody else responsible for deliverability

Relaying hands the hardest part of email to a company that does it full time.

You want the smallest possible server

With delivery outsourced, the VPS is only serving an interface and a database.

You dislike per-subscriber pricing

A one-time licence plus per-message SES costs works out well for large, infrequently mailed lists.

You wanted to own your sending reputation

Then buy nothing here yet — read the SMTP VPS page instead. Sendy cannot give you this.

Your use case might not suit a relay

If SES or a similar provider would decline your sending, Sendy has no fallback. Self-hosted delivery does.

You want free and open source

It is neither. listmonk is both, and is similarly light.

You need automation or multi-customer support

Sendy is deliberately simple. Mautic and MailWizz cover those cases respectively.

Which Plan Fits

Because the relay does the sending, the VPS only serves the admin interface and the subscriber database. This is the lightest hosting requirement of the six, so the entry SSD plan is genuinely enough rather than a compromise.

Suggested for Sendy

Starter NVMe VPS

The relay does the sending, so the VPS only serves the interface and database.

NVMe VPS

1 Core · 2 GB RAM
20 GB NVMe · 10 Gbps Port

$9.95/mo

+ $1.00 one-time setup

Compare NVMe VPS

This is a starting point, not a rule — list size and sending frequency matter more than the software itself. See all plans · compare all six packages · ask before you order.

Sendy Questions

A small server, honestly described.

From $4.95 a month with root access, a dedicated IPv4 and a 7-day money-back guarantee. If it turns out you wanted your own mail server after all, tell us and we will point you at the right page instead.

See All 16 Plans Ask Before You Order