MailWizz

Overview

MailWizz is a self-hosted email marketing software that allows businesses to install and run their email marketing operations on their own servers rather than relying on cloud-based SaaS platforms. Founded in 2013 and developed by Onetwist Software, the platform has been continuously improved over 12 years and now serves over 18,000 businesses and individuals who prefer to own their email marketing infrastructure. Written in PHP and using MySQL for data storage, MailWizz positions itself as an affordable alternative to subscription-based email marketing services like Mailchimp, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign.

What differentiates MailWizz from cloud-based email marketing platforms is its one-time purchase model and unlimited sending capacity. Instead of paying monthly fees that scale with subscriber count or email volume, users purchase a license once and can send unlimited emails to unlimited subscribers, with the only limitations coming from their hosting environment and chosen SMTP service. The platform provides full-featured email marketing capabilities including campaign creation, list management, autoresponders, segmentation, and analytics, comparable to premium SaaS tools but with complete data ownership and no recurring costs. For newsletter creators with technical skills or access to development support, MailWizz offers a cost-effective solution that eliminates the monthly rent model, though it requires managing your own server infrastructure and email delivery configuration.

Best For

MailWizz is ideal for technically proficient newsletter creators, digital agencies, email marketing service providers, and businesses with large subscriber lists who want to eliminate recurring subscription costs. The platform works particularly well for users who have experience with web hosting, SMTP configuration, and server management, or who have access to technical support for initial setup and ongoing maintenance. Newsletter creators sending high volumes of emails to large lists will benefit most from the unlimited sending model, as the one-time license fee quickly becomes more economical than subscription platforms that charge based on volume. The software also suits agencies and entrepreneurs who want to offer email marketing services to multiple clients through the extended license, creating their own white-label SaaS business without building infrastructure from scratch.

Key Features

• One-Time License Purchase: MailWizz operates on a lifetime license model where you pay once and own the software forever, eliminating recurring monthly fees that typically plague email marketing platforms. The regular license costs $86 and includes all future updates at no additional cost, making it highly cost-effective for businesses with established email marketing operations or those projecting long-term usage.

• Unlimited Subscribers and Sending: Unlike SaaS platforms that charge based on list size or email volume, MailWizz imposes no artificial limits on the number of subscribers you can store or emails you can send. Your only constraints come from your hosting server capacity and the throughput of your chosen SMTP service, giving you true scalability without worrying about crossing pricing tier thresholds or facing surprise bills from volume spikes.

• Multi-Delivery Server Support: The platform allows you to configure multiple SMTP servers from different providers including Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, SparkPost, and custom SMTP services, with automatic load balancing and failover capabilities. This multi-server approach enables high-volume sending up to 100,000 emails per minute according to user reports, distributes sending load across providers to maximize deliverability, and provides redundancy if one service experiences issues.

• Complete Data Ownership and Control: As a self-hosted solution, MailWizz gives you complete ownership and control over your subscriber data, email content, and infrastructure without third-party access. This data sovereignty is particularly valuable for businesses operating under strict compliance requirements like GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific regulations that restrict where customer information can be stored and who can access it.

• Multi-Tenant SaaS Capabilities: The extended license version for $275 enables you to create unlimited customer accounts with separate dashboards, allowing you to run your own email marketing SaaS business or manage multiple client accounts from a single installation. Each customer can have their own branded interface, dedicated delivery servers, custom price plans, and isolated subscriber lists, making it suitable for agencies and resellers offering email marketing services.

• Advanced List Management and Segmentation: MailWizz provides comprehensive tools for importing subscribers from CSV files, external databases, or via API, with automatic duplicate detection and custom field support. The platform offers sophisticated segmentation capabilities based on demographics, behavior, custom attributes, and engagement levels, allowing you to create highly targeted campaigns that deliver personalized content to specific audience segments.

• Multiple Email Editors: The platform includes three email creation options to accommodate different skill levels and preferences: a drag-and-drop visual builder for quick design without coding, an HTML editor for those comfortable with markup, and a plain text editor for simple, no-frills messages. This flexibility ensures both technical and non-technical users can create professional emails efficiently.

• Comprehensive Campaign Types: MailWizz supports regular one-time campaigns, recurring campaigns that send automatically on schedules, autoresponder sequences triggered by subscriber actions, and campaigns dynamically generated from RSS feeds or JSON data. This variety covers virtually all newsletter scenarios from basic broadcasts to sophisticated automated sequences.

• Detailed Analytics and Reporting: The platform tracks essential email metrics including open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, unsubscribes, and geographic distribution, with detailed reports that can be shared with clients or team members. The analytics dashboard provides real-time campaign performance monitoring, though some users note concerns about report accuracy and suggest comparing metrics with delivery server logs for validation.

• Full-Featured API: MailWizz includes a comprehensive RESTful API that enables integration with ext