Sendy alternative
A Sendy alternative for when autoresponders are not enough
Sendy is cheap and very good at sending newsletters through Amazon SES. ReplaMail adds a visual automation builder that branches on behaviour, landing pages, and seven sending providers.
Every product here was checked on its own site on 6 October 2026.
Sendy in 2026, fairly described
Sendy is a PHP application you install on ordinary web hosting. It costs $69 once per domain and sends through Amazon SES, which is why its users pay cents per thousand emails. Version 7, released this spring, added a drag-and-drop editor; the current version is 7.1.5.
- Brands with client logins: give each client access, set what they can see, limit their sending, and charge them per campaign through PayPal.
- Bounces and complaints handled automatically through Amazon SES.
- Autoresponders: emails at set intervals, yearly emails and one-off dates, plus “rules” that notify you, call a webhook or move someone between lists.
What it does not document is a visual automation builder, or any branching inside a sequence on “did they open it?” or “did they click?”. That is the gap people usually leave Sendy over.
The self-hosted options side by side
| Price | Runs on | Automation | Latest | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sendy | $69 once, per domain | PHP, MySQL | Timed autoresponders and rules | 7.1.5 |
| listmonk | Free, AGPL | Go, PostgreSQL | None documented | v6.2.0, June 2026 |
| Mautic | Free, GPL | PHP 8.2+, MySQL 8.4+ | Visual campaign builder with branches | 7.2.1, September 2026 |
| MailWizz | $79 lifetime or $59 a year | PHP 8.2+ | Autoresponders and recurring campaigns | 3.0, August 2026 |
| Mailcoach | $249 one domain, $999 unlimited | Laravel (PHP) | Automations with triggers | 10.0, March 2026 |
| Acelle Mail | $80, or $220 to resell | Laravel, PHP 8.2+ | Workflows (vendor’s description) | 4.2.0, April 2026 |
| ReplaMail | $299 once | Python; Docker optional | Visual builder, branches on opens, clicks, tags, lists, fields | 1.1.0, October 2026 |
Where ReplaMail is different
Automations that branch
- A visual flow builder: send, wait, ask a question, tag, add to a list, call a webhook
- Branches on opened, clicked, has a tag, is on a list, a field matches
- Unsubscribing takes a person out of every automation at once
More ways to send
- Seven providers: Amazon SES, SMTP2GO, Resend, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark or any SMTP server
- Each brand can use a different one
- The SES connection test shows your quota and warns if you are still in the sandbox
- Hard bounces and spam complaints reported by any of them block the address at once
Pages and people
- Signup forms and landing pages, built in the same editor as the emails
- Double opt-in per form, with when and where people joined recorded
- An MCP server for AI assistants that drafts and reports, with no send tool
The designer has 21 block types and 15 starting emails, ten of them written for a trade. There is a REST API with brand-locked keys, signed webhooks, and Zapier and Make apps.
Where Sendy is still the better choice
Price
$69 against $299. If timed autoresponders cover what you send, Sendy is the cheaper tool, full stop.
Clients who pay through it
Sendy can charge a client per campaign through PayPal. ReplaMail gives clients their own sign-in, but you invoice them yourself.
Shared hosting
Sendy runs on ordinary PHP web hosting. ReplaMail needs a small server where it can run all the time, about €5–15 a month.
So the choice is about automation. If you want welcome series, follow-ups to people who clicked and branches on tags, ReplaMail does it in a visual builder. If you send a newsletter and a fixed sequence, keep Sendy.
Moving from Sendy
- Export each list from Sendy as a CSV.
- Import them into ReplaMail, one brand per Sendy brand.
- Paste the unsubscribed, bounced and complaint addresses into the brand’s blocked list, so nobody Sendy had stopped emailing is emailed again.
- Connect the same Amazon SES account. Your domain’s sending reputation comes with you.
- Rebuild your autoresponders as automations, adding the branches Sendy could not do.
Try the builder first in the live demo: demo / demo, read-only.
Questions people ask
Is Sendy really a one-time payment?
The licence is $69 once, for one domain. Updates are free within a major version; moving from 6.x to 7.x cost $34 for licences bought before 8 November 2025. Checked on sendy.co, 6 October 2026.
Does Sendy only work with Amazon SES?
No longer. Since version 6.0 each brand can send through SMTP instead, but Sendy’s automatic bounce and complaint handling is documented for Amazon SES, Elastic Email, SendGrid and Mailjet only.
What is the best free alternative to Sendy?
listmonk (AGPL, Go and PostgreSQL) for fast newsletters without automations, or Mautic (GPL, PHP) for a full marketing-automation suite that takes more looking after. Both are open source.
Does ReplaMail handle Amazon SES bounces like Sendy?
Yes. Give Amazon SNS the address on the brand’s Email service page and every hard bounce and spam complaint is blocked for that brand at once, with Amazon’s signature checked on each report. Postmark, SendGrid, Mailgun, Resend and SMTP2GO reports work the same way.
Can clients log in to ReplaMail like Sendy brands?
Yes. Each client can have their own sign-in limited to their brand, as an editor or a view-only viewer. What ReplaMail does not have is client billing: if clients must pay per campaign through the software, Sendy is the better fit.
Is ReplaMail open source?
No. It is a commercial licence that includes the complete source code. listmonk, Mautic and phpList are the open-source options.
Own your list.
$299 once. Every brand you run, unlimited contacts, your own sending account. Nobody bills you again because the list grew.
The demo signs in with demo / demo and is read-only. Questions first? hello@replamail.com