🕊️ Postbird
Self-hosted email campaigns over your own SMTP. Stop renting your audience back.
Mailchimp Standard runs about $20/month at 1,000 contacts and climbs past $100/month at 10,000 — you're paying rent on your own audience. Postbird is the same core loop — lists, segments, a drag-block builder, throttled campaigns, open/click tracking — self-hosted over any SMTP provider, with CAN-SPAM compliance enforced in code. $59 once, no contact limits, ever.
Postbird, as it actually looks — a real screenshot, not a mockup.
Features
Lists & subscribers
CSV import with dedupe and invalid-email reporting, public signup endpoint per list, CSV export, full status tracking (pending → subscribed → unsubscribed/bounced/complained).
Double opt-in by default
Signup → signed confirmation link; only confirmed subscribers get campaigns. Consent timestamp + IP stored for GDPR.
Segments
Saved AND/OR filters — domain, name, custom fields, signup date, opened/clicked recent campaigns — with a live count while you edit.
Drag-block builder
Heading, rich text, image, bulletproof button, columns, footer. Compiles to table-based inline-styled HTML — no flexbox, no grid, no Outlook surprises.
Throttled sending, any SMTP
Default 30 msgs/min (configurable) over pooled nodemailer. Pause or cancel mid-send; the queue lives in SQLite, so a restart resumes where it left off.
Opens & clicks
Tracking pixel plus HMAC-signed rewritten links. Per-campaign report: delivered, unique/total opens and clicks, per-URL click map, recipient activity.
Compliance, enforced
Sending is blocked until it passes: non-removable unsubscribe footer, required physical address, RFC 8058 one-click List-Unsubscribe headers on every email.
Bounce handling
Webhook endpoint for SES/Postmark/Mailgun/generic payloads plus SMTP-time 5xx detection. Bounced and complained addresses are suppressed forever.
Postbird vs Mailchimp
Mailchimp at $20+/mo (grows with your list) runs roughly $240/year — $480 over two years. Postbird is $59, once.
| Postbird | Mailchimp | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $59 once | ~$20/mo @ 1k contacts, $100+/mo @ 10k |
| Contact limits | None | Priced per contact |
| SMTP | Any provider — BYO (SES, Postmark, Mailgun...) | Theirs only |
| Your data | Your SQLite file | Their cloud |
| Compliance | Hard send-block until compliant | Soft warnings |
| RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe | Yes, every campaign | Yes |
| Runs as a desktop app | Yes | No |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
At 1,000 contacts, Mailchimp Standard costs more than Postbird every three months, forever. Break-even is ~2 months — and the bigger your list gets, the more you save.
Three steps, no subscription
Buy once on Whop
One-time $59 for the packaged version — no per-contact pricing, no subscription to escalate as your list grows.
Plug in your SMTP
Amazon SES ($0.10 per 1,000 emails), Postmark or Mailgun credentials. You inherit their deliverability reputation; Postbird handles the queue and throttle.
Import, build, send
CSV-import your list, drag blocks into an email, and send throttled campaigns with live progress and open/click reports.
Honest answers
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/postbird, always. $59 buys the packaged installer, 1-click setup and updates — and funds the open-source version.
Will my emails land in the inbox?
Deliverability is your SMTP provider's job, and Postbird is honest about that: use SES or Postmark credentials and you inherit their IP reputation. Mailchimp's managed sending infrastructure is genuinely convenient if you'd rather not think about SPF/DKIM at all — that's what the monthly fee buys.
Is it actually CAN-SPAM / GDPR compliant?
The legal minimums are enforced in code, not suggested: the server returns a 400 if you try to send without a physical address configured, the compiler appends an unsubscribe footer if a template lacks one, and every email carries RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe headers — which Gmail and Yahoo require for bulk senders.
Does it do automations and A/B tests?
No — drip automations and A/B testing are deliberately out of scope for now. Postbird covers lists, segments, campaigns and tracking. If your marketing lives on complex journey builders, Mailchimp still wins there.
Can I run it on my desktop?
Yes, for authoring and small sends — but tracking pixels and unsubscribe links only resolve while the app is running and reachable. For real campaigns, deploy to a $5 VPS with a public BASE_URL.
Deep-dive comparisons:
Own Postbird forever
$59 once. Deploy on your own server — your data never leaves it. No renewal, no account with us, no meter. Or build it yourself from the MIT source — it's the same app.