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MailCheap
MailCheap is a newsletter app you host yourself that writes, sends, and publishes your issues while charging you only for the emails you actually send, not for subscribers who never open anything. Write in an editor with slash commands, images, and content boxes, or send Markdown and HTML emails through the API, then work through a pre-send review that flags subject, preview text, unsubscribe link, and sender problems first. Bring your audience with you: CSV exports from beehiiv, Substack, Mailchimp, Kit, MailerLite, Buttondown, Ghost, and EmailOctopus import with each reader's status and signup date intact. Imports clean themselves, dropping invalid, misspelled, duplicate, throwaway, and spam-trap addresses, and a server-wide never-email list keeps known bad addresses out of every future import, signup, and send. Sending protects your domain: new contacts receive issues in paced steps, sends pause when bounce or complaint rates climb, and Gmail spam rates are watched daily. Every issue becomes a page on your newsletter's website, with a signup form, author page, share images, and a sitemap. Run up to three newsletters per account, each with separate contacts and campaigns, and follow subscribers over time with open and click reports by inbox provider. AI agents can do anything the dashboard can through the MCP server, and scripts get the same reach through the REST API, with sending marked irreversible so agents ask first. Running on a dedicated VPS on RepoCloud with guaranteed CPU, RAM, and SSD, full root SSH access, and a browser serial console. AGPL-3.0 licensed.
Benefits
- Pay Per Email Sent
- Self-hosting is free and sending runs through your own Amazon SES or PostShiba account at roughly ten to sixteen cents per thousand emails, instead of per-subscriber SaaS pricing.
- Imports That Clean Themselves
- CSV exports from eight rival platforms import with status and signup dates, while invalid, misspelled, duplicate, throwaway, and spam-trap addresses are dropped before they can hurt deliverability.
- Deliverability Guardrails Built In
- Paced sending steps, bounce and complaint thresholds that pause or block sends, one-click unsubscribe, and daily Gmail Postmaster monitoring protect your domain reputation without manual watching.
- Agents Can Run It
- Every dashboard action exists as an MCP tool and a REST endpoint, so ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor can import contacts, build segments, and send with confirmation.
Features
- Slash Command Editor
- Write issues in an editor with slash commands, images, and content boxes, or deliver Markdown and full HTML through the API, with a pre-send review checklist.
- Eight Platform Imports
- CSV exports from beehiiv, Substack, Mailchimp, Kit, MailerLite, Buttondown, Ghost, and EmailOctopus import as they are, preserving subscriber status, signup dates, and engagement history.
- Newsletter Website Included
- Each newsletter gets its own website where every issue becomes a searchable page with a signup form, author page, share images, and a sitemap, on your domain.
- MCP And REST API
- A stateless MCP server and REST API mirror the dashboard, with API keys, OAuth connections for chat assistants, rate limits, and sends flagged as irreversible actions.
- Sending Safety Automation
- Paced rollout steps for new contacts, automatic pauses past bounce and complaint thresholds, Gmail Feedback-ID tracking, and a hashed server-wide suppression list protect every send.