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Plugin Documentation — direct deep-dives
Bulk email software
Most bulk email software is a hosted SaaS that meters you by subscriber count or emails per month, and the bill climbs with your list. AcelleMail takes the opposite approach: it is self-hosted mass email software you install on your own server and own outright for a $80 one-time license — full PHP source, no per-subscriber fee, and no cap on how many emails you send. Point it at Amazon SES (about $0.10 per 1,000 emails — roughly $1 per 10,000), your own SMTP, or one of 8 built-in sending drivers, and blast to your whole list at delivery cost.
Sending one newsletter is easy. Sending hundreds of thousands of emails reliably — without landing in spam or paying more with every new subscriber — is the real problem bulk email software has to solve. The five things that matter at volume:
AcelleMail is built around exactly this list — and because it is self-hosted, none of it is gated behind a higher-priced tier.
AcelleMail runs on your own server (PHP 8.1+, MySQL/MariaDB) and gives you a full mass-mailing platform without a recurring software bill:
You pay AcelleMail once ($80 Regular) and you pay your sending backend only for what you actually send.
"Mass email software" and "bulk email software" describe the same job — reaching a large list in one send — and AcelleMail is built for it. The economics are what separate a self-hosted mass mailer from a hosted one:
A hosted mass-email SaaS at 500,000 sends a month typically costs several hundred dollars monthly, and the price rises as your list grows. AcelleMail moves that spend to raw delivery, where it is a fraction of the cost.
An "email blast" is a large one-time send, and the risk with any blast is deliverability: send too fast from a cold IP and you land in spam or get throttled by receivers. AcelleMail handles the blast safely:
You schedule the blast, AcelleMail paces it across your sending servers, and every open, click, and bounce is tracked on your own dashboard.
Hosted bulk email tools charge a recurring fee that climbs with your subscriber count, so a growing list means a growing bill you never stop paying. AcelleMail is a one-time license ($80 Regular) with lifetime point/minor updates and full, unencrypted PHP source. Your list, your data, and the software itself stay on your server. Pair it with Amazon SES at ~$0.10 per 1,000 and a modest VPS, and a 500,000-emails/month sender pays roughly $50/month all-in — with no per-subscriber pricing on top.
The Extended License turns one install into a multi-tenant product. It bundles customer accounts, subscription plans, 6 payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Razorpay, Paystack, Offline), prorated upgrades, dunning, and white-label branding. You run one install, your clients log in to their own accounts, and all sending flows through your backend — the exact setup agencies and resellers use to sell bulk email under their own brand. See For Developers.
SaaS and SMTP-relay columns describe the general pricing model of each category, not any one vendor; check a specific provider's pricing page for current figures. Amazon SES pricing is the documented AWS pay-as-you-go model (~$0.10 per 1,000). Compare specific tools on the AcelleMail comparisons hub.
Own the data Mailchimp rents — the self-hosted options compared.
Outgrown Sendy's SES-only, lean setup? Where to go next.
How the open-source & source-available platforms really differ.
Self-hosted PHP/MySQL sending apps you run on your own VPS.
Send through SES at cost with a full marketing front-end.
Receipts, resets and alerts sent from a server you control.
Running a list without a per-subscriber bill.
Every AcelleMail vs-competitor comparison in one place.
Bulk email software (also called mass email software or an email blast tool) lets you send one email to a large list of recipients at once, with list management, templates, scheduling, deliverability handling, and reporting. AcelleMail is self-hosted bulk email software: you install it on your own server, connect a sending backend like Amazon SES or your own SMTP, and send to your whole list with a drag-and-drop builder, segmentation, automation, and open/click analytics.
The best choice depends on whether you want to rent or own the software. AcelleMail is a strong pick for high-volume senders who want to own it: it ships full PHP source, runs on your own server, costs $80 one-time with no per-subscriber fee, and puts no cap on send volume — throughput is limited only by your sending backend (Amazon SES, SMTP, and 6 other drivers). Try the live demo before you decide.
The cheapest way to send at scale is to pair self-hosted software with a pay-as-you-go delivery backend. AcelleMail sends through Amazon SES at about $0.10 per 1,000 emails — roughly $1 per 10,000 — so 500,000 emails a month costs around $50 of SES on a modest VPS. Because AcelleMail is a $80 one-time license with no per-subscriber fee, growing your list does not grow your software bill.
Yes. AcelleMail does not meter your subscriber count or your send volume — the license is one-time and sending is unlimited, capped only by the rate limits of the backend you connect. You set per-sending-server throttling and can spread a blast across multiple servers (Amazon SES, SMTP, and others) at once. Hosted bulk-email SaaS tools, by contrast, almost always tier your volume and price by subscriber count.
Hosted SaaS is fastest to start but bills you every month and scales the price with your list. Self-hosted software like AcelleMail is a one-time purchase you run on your own server: you keep your data and list on your infrastructure, pay only your sending backend for delivery, and get the full unencrypted PHP source to audit and extend. If you send in volume and want to control cost and data, self-hosted usually wins; if you send rarely and want zero setup, SaaS may be simpler.
An SMTP relay (or a raw sending API like Amazon SES) only delivers mail — it has no campaign builder, list management, segmentation, or engagement reporting. Bulk email software is the application layer on top: AcelleMail gives you the builder, lists, automation, and analytics, then hands the finished send to your relay of choice. In other words, you still use a relay for delivery, and AcelleMail is the tool you actually run the blast from.
It ships the deliverability tooling a big send needs: SPF/DKIM signing at the application layer with the DNS records generated for you, per-sending-server rate limits and throttling so you stay within each provider's limits, weighted rotation across multiple sending servers, and built-in bounce/complaint webhooks (including Amazon SES via SNS) that auto-suppress bad addresses. You can also A/B test subject lines and content, and run IP warmup, before the full blast goes out.
Yes — that is the AcelleMail Extended License ($199). It adds a multi-tenant layer: customer accounts, subscription plans, 6 payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Razorpay, Paystack, Offline), prorated upgrades, dunning, and white-label branding. You run one install, your clients log in to their own accounts, and all sending flows through your backend. See For Developers.
AcelleMail Regular is $80, one-time — full PHP source, unlimited subscribers, unlimited sending, lifetime updates. Try the live demo before you buy.
Join thousands of companies that have taken control of their email marketing with full source code, no recurring fees, and unlimited sending. One-time $80 license, lifetime updates.
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