What do you need for sending mass emails yourself?

The main requirements are ...

(i) A self-hosted autoresponder ("ARP-reach" is highly recommended by many Warriors and run/owned by a respected Warrior);

(ii) The technical skills and knowledge to install, run, and manage one (or an ultra-reliable outsourcee with those skills);

(iii) A hosting deal which includes both a server compatible with whatever kind you use, and a facility to send out bulk email to your subscribers without getting into trouble or having your mail-sending too "throttled" (it varies from hosting company to hosting company);

(iv) Lots of respect for, and detailed knowledge of, the terms of service of your host/ISP/ESP and the Can-Spam legislation, because it's all your own services that you'd be putting in jeopardy "if anything goes wrong", rather than those of a hosted service like Aweber, who (to some extent) "insulate" you from all those other legal and practical considerations within their own terms of service.

Email marketing questions live here: Email Marketing


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Those marketers you mentioned use an smtp/email API services, so it does not matter what solution you use, what matter is the IP sending that email.

These services manage their IPs reputation. and for a small fee you can use these pools of shared IPs that they provide to send your emails.

Well know services are Amazon SES, Mandrill, Mailgun, sendgrid... etc

Be aware though that they do not like spam emails sent through their platforms.

And some of them might ask you where did you get your email list from.

There are a TON of ways to set this up and it depends on what your goals are here... Is this a customer list for a retailer? Leads list? Are you thinking you are going to rent a list and mass mail them (warning, warning, the 'list' isn't where the money is at, the RELATIONSHIP with the list is where the money is)

Simply stated:
Domain & Hosting + Email Script + SMTP mailing system would work.

Definitely would think long and hard about why you are doing this and what the long term benefit would be to you. We have many lists, some over 25,000 responsive subscribers and in all honesty, the time/effort it takes to set all that up plus set up compelling squeeze pages plus market it plus build a relationship with the list is a lot to take on.

We rely on Aweber, download our list all the time (every time we scrub it) and stay focused on the 20% that creates 80% of the results... Split testing landing pages and building the relationship with the list.

The cheapest solution would be using an email marketing script with smtp API and use Amazon ses to send out the mails.

Even though this is the cheapest (which has a negative connotation to it in this business), it's also a very good solution. I'm having an app created which you can use if you're interested (let me know it's free). With that you will only be paying for Amazon ses services which is $1 for 10K mails.