I went to send a newsletter out around the PASS Data Community Summit and found that I couldn’t send anything. The mailing list had grown beyond 500 members and Mailchimp paused our ability to send.
Grrrr
I started looking around, and found Sender.net, but they weren’t a lot cheaper than Mailchimp if I looked at 1000 subscribers. I got busy, so things got delayed, but last week I cleaned things up.
I contacted MailChimp about a non-profit discount and they called me to let me know one was available. I filled out some forms, and for now, they are charging me about $13/mo for the list.
I sent out a notice for #1101, SeaQL Saturday in the Netherlands, but I’ll keep an eye on this and see if Sender or someone else makes more sense. Ultimately, I’d like to keep the email costs below USD$100, but it’s also a bunch of work to verify a domain and get the DKIM security set.
Not hard, but work.
In any case, if anyone has other ideas, let me know.
Reminders
I also want to remind people that SQL Saturday is an independent US 501.c.3 corporation organized as a public charity. We are not owned by, or managed by Redgate Software. Redgate donated the brand to the corporation and gave us a grant to run events, but there is no oversight of the corporation. Redgate does maintain a permanent seat on the board of directors, currently occupied by Steve Jones, but has no more influence than any of the other members of the board.
If you or others want to join our mailing list, you can register here: http://eepurl.com/hwVBKn. Please feel free to pass this along to others.