Mailcoach vs Sendy Comparison 2026
Mailcoach is a hosted subscription at $9.99 a month for 2,000 emails, billed by sends, with a self-hosted licence sold separately. Sendy is self-hosted only, a one-time $69 purchase that sends through Amazon SES at Amazon's own rate of roughly $1 to $1.60 per 10,000 emails. At real volume the gap is large: a list sending 50,000 emails a month would run over $100 a month on Mailcoach against a few dollars of SES cost on Sendy, once the one-time $69 is paid. The trade is that Sendy needs a server and SES set up and maintained yourself.
At a glance
- Mailcoach starts cheaper, at $9.99.
- Neither has a free tier.
Side by side
Mailcoach | Sendy | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $9.99 | From $69 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Free trial, then paid | One-time purchase |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Billing (they differ) | Monthly or annual | One-time purchase |
| Free trial | 14 days | Not stated |
| API | Yes |
Mailcoach
Email billed per send, not per contact
Mailcoach charges for emails sent rather than contacts stored, which inverts the pricing of most of this category and matters to anybody holding a large list they mail occasionally. Contacts, lists and automations are uncapped at every level. Bringing your own sending provider halves the per-email rate. A self-hosted licence exists for people who would rather run it themselves, and the hosted version is the same software with the operations included.
Our note
Do the arithmetic on your own sending pattern rather than the headline, because this wins decisively on a large occasional list and loses on a small daily one. The bring-your-own-provider rate halves the marginal cost and is the reason to choose this over MailerLite if you already run your own sending infrastructure.
Sendy
Self hosted sending on top of Amazon SES
Sendy is a PHP application you install on your own server, which then sends through Amazon SES at Amazon's rates rather than at a newsletter platform's. You buy the software once. At a list size where a hosted platform starts charging hundreds a month, the arithmetic is what people come for, and the cost is that hosting, deliverability and upgrades are now yours.
Why people weigh these two
- Sendy instead of Mailcoach
- Sendy is self hosted on top of Amazon SES at $69 once, the other way to pay for sending rather than for contacts.
- Mailcoach instead of Sendy
- Mailcoach bills per send rather than per contact at $10, the same pricing logic without running the server.
Which one should you pick
Pick Mailcoach if you want a subscription that works without touching a server, and the send-based pricing already suits a list that is not mailed daily. There is no free plan, only a 14 day trial, before $9.99 a month covers the first 2,000 emails.
Pick Sendy if your list is large enough that a hosted platform's monthly bill has become real money, and you are willing to run a server and configure Amazon SES yourself. Sixty nine dollars once is the entire software cost, and SES charges roughly $1 to $1.60 per 10,000 emails after that, which is where the arithmetic starts to favour Sendy above about ten thousand subscribers.
Common questions
- Which is cheaper at real volume, Mailcoach or Sendy?
- Sendy, decisively, once a list is large enough. At 50,000 emails a month, Mailcoach's per-email overage pushes the bill over $100 a month, while Sendy's one-time $69 purchase plus Amazon SES charges comes to only a few dollars a month in comparison.
- Do I need to run a server for either of these?
- Only for Sendy, which is self-hosted software you install and maintain yourself, alongside setting up Amazon SES. Mailcoach's main product is hosted, though it also sells a self-hosted licence separately for anyone who wants that route instead.
- Is Sendy really a one-time purchase?
- Yes, $69 once for the software, with free updates within a major version. Sending itself is billed separately by Amazon SES rather than by Sendy, so the ongoing cost is Amazon's rate rather than a recurring platform fee.
- At what list size does Sendy start winning on price?
- Sendy's own listing puts the arithmetic at working out above roughly ten thousand subscribers. Below that, a hosted platform like Mailcoach is cheaper once the time spent maintaining a server and Amazon SES is counted as a real cost.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.