Botensten Mail

Run your newsletterup to 75% cheaper than beehiiv, up to 64% cheaper than Mailchimp, up to 64% cheaper than Ghost(Pro), up to 45% cheaper than MailerLite

You pay for the emails you send, not for the subscribers who stopped opening in March. From $7 a month.

Savings at 5,000 subscribers, one issue a week, against each plan's monthly price on October 19, 2026.

Start sendingSee the math
  • Every feature on every plan
  • Cancel anytime
  • Your list exports in one click
botensten.com/mail/campaigns/7c1e

Campaigns Issue 42

Draft Send

SubjectWhat broke this week, and the fix

PreviewA queue that lost jobs, a 9-line patch, and a test that would have caught it.

The build log, issue 42

Tuesday the send queue dropped 312 jobs. Nobody noticed for six hours. Here’s what happened, the 9-line patch, and the test I should have written first.

Retries now carry the same idempotency key

HeadingImageCalloutDivider

The math, at every list size

Most newsletter tools price the list. We price the sending, which is the part that costs anything. A 5,000-subscriber weekly newsletter is $27 a month here.

vs beehiiv
−75%$27 vs $109
vs Mailchimp
−64%$27 vs $75
vs Ghost(Pro)
−64%$27 vs $75
vs MailerLite
−45%$27 vs $49

What a list costs a monthone issue a week

Subscribers
  1. KitFree
  2. SubstackFree
  3. Botensten Mail$27
  4. Buttondown$29
  5. MailerLite$49
  6. Mailchimp$75
  7. Ghost(Pro)$75
  8. ActiveCampaign$99
  9. Klaviyo$100
  10. beehiiv$109

At 5k subscribers, Botensten Mail costs less than every paid plan here. Free plans come with a catch: their branding, a cut of your revenue or missing features. Cheapest plan that fits, billed monthly, from each pricing page on October 19, 2026. Names are trademarks of their owners; Botensten Mail isn't affiliated with any of them.

Everything a newsletter needs. Nothing you pay extra for.

An editor that stays out of the way

Type, then press / for headings, pictures and callouts. Preview it on a phone before it goes out.

Scheduled ahead

Pick a day and time, up to a year ahead, or reuse your last issue's. It goes out on its own.

Built to stay out of spam

Built in: authentication on your domain, warm-up, list cleanup and automatic pauses.

Bring your list in a minute

Import from beehiiv, Substack, Mailchimp or any CSV. Bad addresses stay out.

Your domain, your name

Send from your own domain with DKIM and DMARC. No “powered by” badge, on any plan.

Signup forms, welcome emails

Double opt-in and a welcome email for every new reader, from your site or ours.

A real API

Everything the dashboard does, over REST or MCP.

Your AI agent can run it too

Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor over MCP, or use the REST API with a key. Your agent drafts, tests, schedules and reads the stats. Sending to your list can’t be undone, so the send tools are marked that way and your agent is told to ask you first.

MCP setupAPI reference
  1. 1Claude drafts issue 43 from your notescreate_campaign()
  2. 2Claude sends you a testsend_test_email()
  3. 3ChatGPT schedules it for Tuesday, 8 AMschedule_campaign()
  4. 4Cursor imports the readers from your appimport_contacts()
  5. 5Claude tells you how it didget_campaign_report()
C

Charles BotenstenBuilds and runs Botensten Mail

I built this to send my own newsletters, on the same setup you’ll use.

Most newsletter tools bill by the subscriber, including the ones who haven’t opened anything since spring. Sending an email costs a fraction of a cent. Keeping an address costs nothing. So Botensten Mail bills by the email, and readers who stopped opening get one last email instead of a line on your invoice.

It’s built on MailCheap, Marc Lou’s open-source newsletter app, with my own delivery, billing and support on top. The code is public. Read it before you trust it.

Every feature, on every plan

Plans are priced by the emails you send, each with a generous subscriber limit.

Billing

25,000

For up to 12,500 subscribers

Creator

$1.08 per 1,000 emails

$27/month

Billed monthly

Every plan includes

  • Campaigns
  • Scheduling
  • Website
  • Your own domain
  • Signup forms
  • Welcome emails
  • Imports
  • Stats
  • AI agents and API
  • Email support
Subscribe

75% cheaper than beehiiv5,000 subscribers, one email a week: $27 on Botensten Mail Creator, $109 on beehiiv Lite. Prices checked October 19, 2026.

Questions

How do you keep my emails out of spam?

Your emails prove they come from you: DKIM, SPF and DMARC on your own domain, with the records shown on the Domains page.

New senders start slow. Up to 200 emails go out at once, then your account earns its speed over 30 days of clean sends. The first time you email new contacts, 5% of them go first, and the rest follow 3 hours later if bounces and spam reports look normal.

A campaign pauses when over 2% of its emails bounce or 0.08% get marked as spam. Past 5% or 0.3%, the account stops until we review it. One bad sender doesn't get to spoil everyone's inbox placement.

Why charge per email and not per subscriber?

Because sending is what costs money. Storing an address costs almost nothing.

Per-subscriber pricing charges you for readers who stopped reading, and keeps charging until you delete them by hand. Here, readers who ignore your issues for months get one last email. No answer, and they stop getting issues. They're never deleted, and they never cost you anything.

Do I need my own domain?

Yes. You send from your own domain, so the reputation you build is yours and your emails never share a From address with strangers. Add it on the Domains page and copy the DNS records it shows into your registrar.

What happens if I go over my plan?

Signups keep working and confirmation emails still go out. New sends wait until you upgrade or your next month starts. Upgrading takes effect right away, and your next invoice charges only the difference for the rest of the period.

Can I bring my list from beehiiv, Substack or Mailchimp?

Yes. Export your subscribers as a CSV and import it on the Contacts page. You confirm they agreed to get your emails; duplicates, typos like gmial.com, spam traps and throwaway inboxes stay out.

How does it work with my AI agent?

Connect it in Claude or ChatGPT with your sign-in, or give Claude Code, Cursor or Codex an API key. It can write drafts, send you tests, schedule issues and read the stats. Sending to your list asks you first.

Is there a free trial?

No. Plans start at $7 a month for 5,000 emails, and you can cancel anytime. Paying yearly costs 11 months.

Can I cancel or get a refund?

Cancel anytime from the billing page. Your plan keeps working until the end of the month or year you paid for. We don't refund partial periods, unless we close your account without you breaking the terms: then you get the unused part back.

More than 500,000 emails a month?

Email charles@botensten.com with your volume and we'll set up a plan for it.

Who runs Botensten Mail?

Charles Botensten builds and runs it. Questions go to charles@botensten.com, and a person answers.

Bring your list. Keep the difference.

Import it from beehiiv, Substack, Mailchimp or a CSV. A 5,000-reader weekly list costs $27 a month here, $109 on beehiiv.

Start sending