One thing that turns you away from Self-Hosted Autoresponder?

For me it's almost entirely the "techie aspects".

I have some huge lists and could probably save a fortune, that way. But I'm very technophobic and incompetent, as well as very demanding of ultra-reliable services and instantaneous fixes for problems. And I think that's bound to be a really bad combination, for using a self-hosted autoresponder. For these reasons, I strongly suspect that I'm not psychologically/emotionally well-suited to one.

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The two people who answered are going with technicality. Mmm... I always been thinking of people are more for Email deliverability.

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For me its having one less thing to worry about so im going to go with technicality.

With mailchimp i create my email, hit send and the rest is taken care for me.

For me is Email deliverability...

I would love to go self-hosted.

But I am yet to find a match for commercial systems that are out there, the ones that include CRM, email marketing, sales, automation etc... (like ontraport, infusionsoft, active campaign etc..)

That's what stops me...

Like many have said: the technical aspects of building and maintaining your lists. Then you have to build up a sending reputation in order for your precious emails to not just wind up in the spam folder. Self hosted I feel is better because you have more control over one of your greatest assets: Your List. But it can definitely take time and be a challenge to pull off. It ain't for everybody to handle, but if you can pull it off you will be in a better position in the long run imo.

For me, it's always come down to inbox delivery. I've tried several options for self-hosted solutions as well as several email platforms. I always ended up sticking with AWeber, because their inbox rate just couldn't be matched in inbox delivery.

However, I've decided to give GetResponse a go, as I've heard a lot of good things about them as of late, and I know they're IM/affiliate friendly, per WF's own abbyhartz.

MailChimp definitely doesn't like affiliate marketing and clearly states it in their terms of use Acceptable Use Policy | MailChimp

I would never put a self hosted autoresponder on a VPS. I did only once and because my lists are so big that I almost lost my hosting because it slowed down the server to much.

It slowed even more so when the bounces came into the server.

So, I do everything from dedicated servers. Having your own autoresponder gives you a lot of independence from all the rules the autoresponder services put on your business.

For example...

I'm not a big supporter of double optin especially when it comes to getting buyer information. My software collects the buyer data without the buyer having to fill out an optin form, which by the way is a violation of PayPal's terms of service. Your not suppose to have a buyer fill out an optin form before they can get to the product they have just paid for. So I do it in the background.

You can't do that with an autoresponder service very easily.

For those that think they are technically challenged and are afraid to have your own autoresponder is there are things you can do that removes all the technical aspects.

1. Purchase your autoresponder from a company that will do the install for you.
2. That company should have very good support so you can get your autoresponder fixed if something were to go wrong.
3. Have it installed on a dedicated server.
4. Back up your list and database regularly. This can be automated.

You have to understand that once it is installed it is just as easy to use as the autoresponder service is you are using now.

You can keep your autoresponder service for as long as you need its feeling of security.

You can download your lists from your autoresponder service and upload it to your self hosted autoresponder and continue from where you left off.

There will be a large amount of work adding your scheduled messages into your self hosted autoresponder and if you have many, many lists like I do, this could take a good amount of time but it is something that could be outsourced.

I don't have any problem with black listing because my server forwards all bounced to my email address that I list in the autoresponder for the sender. If you suddenly get a lot of bounced email messages delete the from email address you are using for the sender and start using a different email address.

This because someone is spoofing your emails. In other words they are spamming using your from email address. Changing the from email address stops this problem. Keep in mind that Spoofing can even happen to you if you are using an autoresponder service.

When you do send with a new from email address you will run into a bunch of spam filters. But all you need to do is answer the spam filters one time and your will never have to do that again.

I have so much freedom by using my own autoresponder and would never go back to an autoresponder service except to do testing.

I hope this has been helpful,
Steve Yakim

Finding paid support for help with self-hosted platforms or a deliverability expert to help consult on strategies is nearly impossible. Especially, North American based help. I've tried Elance, Odesk and Google searches. Paid support and consulting is like finding a needle in a haystack.

I use self-hosted with Interspire Email Marketer on Modwest with SMTP dot com. Standard stock recommendations from Interspire. SMTP and Modwest support (email, chat and phone) have always been fantastic. But, it is a nightmare to find any support if you need 1:1 technical help.

I've been thinking about moving my stuff to Sendy, because their forum is 10x more lively and engaged. Interspire is robust, but you hear crickets when you need support or recommendations for paid support.

It would seem they could provide such a better service if they had a page of people who want to provide their support services. I know MailChimp has an expert's page and so does SendStudio for their Genesis Framework. Those pages are very clear that the people on the page aren't endorsed, but are at least people they know who use their product and have offered paid support, design or consulting. Seems Interspire would be doing themselves and their customers a big favor by doing the same.

I think it's technicality.

For me it's going to be all the technical stuff for sure. It takes too much time building, and maintaining the system. It'll just take too much time to build and maintain my own system.

Mmm... still techinicality is taking the top spot.

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Of course technicalities, why take huge risks and waste time on something that can easily be taken care of by experts?

I am still self-hosting a few lists (~100k) and I send emails using a smtp server.

From an interface point of view, I find self-hosting considerably superior to aweber or getresponse. It's much easier to do data mining and data analysis or branch messages based on subscriber behavior. You can also easily program sophisticated actions based on flexible criteria you decide.

Of course, you need to be technically savvy and know what you are doing.

My main concern with self hosting is my lack of experience with spam matters.

Deliver-ability can be a problem: for example, how many identical emails per minute can you send to a single ISP without triggering a reaction ? How to warm up an IP ?

Even though I absolutely don't do any spam, I fear falling in traps.

Many ISP have very little knowledge of spam and incompetent employees. They can report you by mistake even-though you don't violate any spam rule, and not notify you. They can also simply intercept your emails and refuse to deliver them without reason (and not even notify you). For example, aol was notorious to refuse to deliver any email unless the email box owner had sent an email first.

You need to regularly check all public blacklists. It never happened to me but I fear it may be difficult to restore good standing after having been blacklisted accidentally.

For all these reasons, I plan to abandon self hosting my emails in the future and use one of the common email sending companies. I hope these people have the necessary experience to minimize the risks.

Hosted is just more reliable. They monitor their IPs for spam reports and have pools of them to reduce chances of going to junk folders, and have dedicated people looking after the deliverability at all times.

Believe it or not, I have actually tried almost every sending service on my self hosted account out there. There are some really good things about self hosting. But there are some serious draw backs too. Right now, there seems to be a serious crack down on internet marketing throughout all of these sending companies. Things are getting tough. So I am currently reverting back to hosted accounts. But when the sending was good, the numbers were unmistakably better with self hosted. I was almost double the responsiveness on every email then I was getting with my hosted accounts. But that has changed drastically in the last couple of months. So my recommendation right now would be to stay with a hosted account.