Compare · Email infrastructure

Sendy vs MailWizz

Researched 2026-06-22 · perishable specs (license price, versions) verify with each project at time of decision

Who should read this comparison?

If you want a self-hosted email tool on a one-time license and have narrowed it to these two, this page is for you. Both keep your lists and data on your own server, both avoid monthly SaaS fees, and both have no subscriber limits. The decision is about how much platform you need and how you want to send.

Two readers benefit most. The first wants to send newsletters cheaply and simply, is comfortable with Amazon SES, and does not need visual journey builders or deep automation — Sendy is built for exactly that, and it is hard to beat on cost. The second wants a fuller marketing platform — a modern builder, automation workflows, richer multi-client management — and the freedom to choose or change delivery providers, which is MailWizz’s territory. Underneath both sits the same question every tool in this category raises: where your mail actually sends from, and what that costs you in money, control, and reputation.

A useful way to place yourself is to picture your setup two years out, not today. Sendy and SES make a brilliant starter combination — the cheapest way to put real volume into inboxes — and if your needs stay simple it never stops being the right answer. But if you can already see automation, multiple sending engines, or a reselling business in your future, choosing the tool that bends in those directions saves a migration later. The license cost barely differs, so the decision is really about which tool’s ceiling you are likely to hit first, and whether hitting it means a quick settings change or a move to different software entirely.

Sender versus platform, and SES versus anything

Two axes separate these tools, and they point the same way. The first is scope. Sendy is an email sender: lists, segments, one-off and scheduled campaigns, drip autoresponders, A/B testing, and tracking, all done plainly. It is not trying to be a marketing automation suite — there are no visual journey builders or behavioural triggers, and the interface is functional rather than modern. MailWizz is a fuller platform: a drag-and-drop builder, automation workflows Sendy lacks, deeper segmentation and reporting, and stronger multi-customer management for agencies.

The second axis is delivery coupling, and it is where the comparison gets interesting. Sendy was built around Amazon SES — that pairing is its whole economic story, sending at roughly ten cents per thousand. Newer Sendy can speak to some other SMTP, but the product assumes SES. MailWizz is delivery-agnostic by design: it connects to SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, SparkPost, or a self-hosted engine, and can route across many delivery servers at once. So the split is not only how much platform you get, but how much freedom you have in how it sends — and that second freedom is what lets one of these tools own its delivery while the other rents it.

What each one actually is

Sendy is a self-hosted PHP and MySQL application sold by sendy.co on a one-time $69 license. Its design centre is Amazon SES: you supply an AWS SES API key and send for a fraction of SaaS prices, which is why it became the open secret of cost-conscious senders. It installs in about twenty minutes, runs on ordinary hosting, and covers lists, segments, scheduled and one-off campaigns, drip autoresponders, A/B testing, UTM tracking, unlimited brands for multiple clients, and rule-based webhooks. What it does not offer is a modern builder or sophisticated automation — it sends email well and cheaply, and stops there.

MailWizz is a self-hosted PHP email-marketing application on a one-time license — around seventy-nine to eighty-six dollars for the regular tier, with a higher extended tier for resellers. It offers a drag-and-drop editor, automation workflows, segmentation, deep reporting, and multi-customer accounts with permissions and quotas, and it is delivery-agnostic: multiple SMTP or MTA providers at once, with routing across as many as fifty delivery servers to spread risk. It is the heavier and more capable of the two, aimed at agencies, resellers, and higher-volume senders who want flexibility and control without enterprise pricing.

What does the side-by-side look like?

The table sets the minimalist sender against the fuller platform. Wins land on both sides; the rows that matter most are automation depth and delivery flexibility.

License prices and SES rates are perishable — verify current terms with each project and AWS; verify price as of date.

Where Sendy is the better choice

Where MailWizz is the better choice

The honest framing is that the small license gap hides a real difference in ambition. Sendy is the right answer when simple, cheap, SES-based sending is genuinely all you need — and for many senders it is. MailWizz is the right answer when you need more platform, more delivery freedom, or a path to owned infrastructure, and are willing to run a slightly larger system to get them.

What does Sendy’s Amazon SES dependency mean?

Sendy’s greatest strength and its sharpest limit are the same fact: it is built for Amazon SES. The strength is cost and reliability — SES is the cheapest reputable sending available, and Sendy turns it into a usable newsletter tool for almost nothing. The limit is everything you inherit from SES along with it. SES bills per recipient, puts you on shared IPs by default with dedicated IPs at extra cost, keeps your data in an AWS region rather than a country you choose, and ties your sending to an AWS account whose policies and suspensions you do not control. None of that is a problem at modest volume; all of it can become one as you scale or as reputation and residency start to matter.

It is worth being precise about when SES stops being the obvious answer, because Sendy’s pitch can make it feel like the permanent one. The per-recipient model is cheap until it is not: at a few hundred thousand a month it is trivial, but a serious sender mailing tens of millions is paying SES a real recurring sum that a fixed-cost owned engine would undercut. Shared IPs are fine until a neighbour on the pool misbehaves and your placement dips for reasons you did not cause and cannot fix. And the AWS-account dependency is invisible until the day a policy review or a sending pause lands on infrastructure you do not control. These are not reasons to avoid SES — it is excellent for what it is — but reasons to know that “cheap via SES” is a starting position, not a destination, and to choose a platform that can move when you need to.

MailWizz’s delivery-agnosticism is the practical answer to all of that. Because it can point at any engine, you can start on SES and move to owned IPs later without leaving the platform — the kind of option Sendy’s SES-shaped design makes harder. That single difference, more than any feature, is what separates a tool you can grow with from one you may eventually grow out of.

# Sendy — one engine, SES economics
engine   Amazon SES (API key)   ~$0.10 / 1,000, shared IPs, AWS region
cost     $69 once + SES per recipient
# MailWizz — choose the engine, including one you own
engine   SES | SendGrid | Mailgun | self-hosted PowerMTA/KumoMTA
cost     ~$80 once + your engine (owned = no per-recipient fee)

Where MCSNET fits

As elsewhere in this category, MCSNET runs the delivery layer rather than competing with the platform. The fit is sharpest here because delivery is the very axis that separates these two tools. Sendy hands its sending to Amazon SES; MailWizz can hand its sending to anything — including a PowerMTA or KumoMTA that MCSNET hosts managed in Toronto, with IP warming, authentication, and deliverability monitoring handled. Point MailWizz at that engine and you trade SES’s shared pool and per-recipient pricing for your own IPs, no per-message fee, full control of throttling, and data kept in Canada under PIPEDA, while keeping the platform you chose. The honest line for Sendy is that at modest volume on SES it is already cheap and simple, and an owned engine is more than it needs; the owned-engine case appears at scale, or when reputation, control, or residency start to matter — and MailWizz is the tool built to make that switch. The build is on the PowerMTA server hosting page.

Read against these two tools specifically, the managed engine reframes the whole comparison. The reason Sendy looks cheaper is that it leans entirely on SES’s shared, metered infrastructure; the reason MailWizz looks more flexible is that it can lean on anything. A managed PowerMTA or KumoMTA turns that flexibility into a concrete upgrade path: you keep MailWizz’s interface and automations, but the mail now leaves from IPs you own, warmed and monitored by people who do deliverability for a living, with no per-recipient meter and a Canadian residency story. For a sender still small enough that SES is plainly enough, none of this is urgent, and saying so is the honest position. For one approaching the scale, reputation, or compliance thresholds where shared SES stops fitting, the combination of a delivery-agnostic platform and a managed owned engine is the difference between rebuilding later and simply repointing a setting.

Which should you pick?

A practical test: decide whether you need a simple sender or a fuller platform, and whether SES is your long-term delivery answer. Cheap, simple, SES-based sending points to Sendy; more platform and delivery freedom point to MailWizz. And because delivery is the axis that divides them, the engine question is not a footnote — choosing MailWizz keeps the door open to owned infrastructure, which a managed PowerMTA or KumoMTA turns into a practical upgrade rather than a project.

Common questions

What is the difference between Sendy and MailWizz?

Sendy is a minimalist, self-hosted email sender built around Amazon SES, on a $69 one-time license — cheap, light, simple, but dated UI and basic automation. MailWizz is a fuller self-hosted platform: a drag-and-drop builder, automation workflows, richer multi-client features, and support for many SMTP providers at once, not just SES. Sendy sends; MailWizz manages marketing.

Is Sendy cheaper than MailWizz?

Upfront, yes — $69 once versus MailWizz’s roughly $79-86 Regular (higher Extended for reselling). Both then run on modest hosting plus sending costs. The license gap is small, so the real choice is features and delivery flexibility, not price.

Is Sendy locked to Amazon SES?

Effectively, by design. Sendy was built around SES and that is its economic pitch — about $0.10 per thousand. Newer versions can use some other SMTP, but the product assumes SES. MailWizz is delivery-agnostic: SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, SparkPost, or a self-hosted engine, routed across many servers.

Which is better for an agency or multiple brands?

Both run multiple brands on one install, but MailWizz goes further — deeper multi-customer accounts, permissions, quotas, a white-label Extended license for reselling, and the delivery flexibility to give different clients different engines. Sendy’s unlimited brands suit simpler multi-client newsletters.

Can I run Sendy or MailWizz with my own delivery engine instead of SES?

MailWizz, easily — point it at a self-hosted PowerMTA or KumoMTA for owned IPs, no per-recipient fee, and control. Sendy can use a non-SES SMTP in newer versions but is happiest on SES. MCSNET hosts both engines managed in Toronto, so MailWizz especially can send through a delivery engine run for you, with data in Canada under PIPEDA.