Message Systems, an email infrastructure provider that claims to handle more than 25% of the world’s legitimate email, has rolled out SparkPost, an email delivery and management service that promises all the bells and whistles of the major service providers minus the cost of purchasing and maintaining software. SparkPost had been in beta test since last fall, and will compete with services such as SendGrid and Mandrill.
Small businesses can send 100,000 emails a month for $80 using SparkPost; bigger operations can pay $900 for 2 million or exceed that total on 40 cents-per-thousand, pay-as-you go basis.
“By offering a cloud-based version of the same email sending and delivery platform used by many of the biggest senders in the world—such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Salesforce.com—we’re able to help a whole new class of customers build their audience in the same way we do for all of our customers, who collectively send more than 3 trillion emails a year,” says Message Systems CEO Phillip Merrick.
The service is available in two editions for large and small companies, and offers email feedback loops, authentication service, and protections against spam traps and blacklisting. A key selling point being used by Message Systems is that it applies intelligence from the massive volume of emails it sends for enterprise customers to inform analytics for SparkPost.
SparkPost has already been adopted by beta testers including Pinterest, Bisnow, and Zillow, according to Message Systems, which is offering a free trial of 10,000 emails a month. Sending 400,000 monthly emails costs $275 and sending 1 million costs $575.
