Live data from Hacker News

Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

blog.mandrill.com

21–30 of 213 posts

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#21
post #18
post #6

This is too bad. Mandrill was a great product I've put several clients and my own apps on. None of these have any use for Mailchimp integration. In December, they began to require the more strict DNS configs for new accounts... that was fine, but this latest change is horrendous in that it's giving business' who've used this service for years, an ultimatum... one that favors finding a new service. It's going to be wo…

Sounds like you're in the same boat as me. Just quickly tried out Mailgun and SendGrid today as alternatives. SendGrid looks more stable, but Mailgun has the advantage of at least being able to see subject lines in emails sent (which can be a great help when troubleshooting for clients).

Yeah, I saw your other post... same boat. It was so nice to confirm emails were sent/received while testing.

There's one project we integrated a private messaging system deeply into their APIs. There's not gonna be a choice on moving that one, but all others will move.

Not sure if it's more greed or incompetence behind the flippant decision.

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes a lot of sense! On the backend, we've already built a way to view content samples (for compliance reasons, e.g. if something looks spammy and we need a human to confirm). It would certainly be possible to expose that functionality to users. I'll run that by the PM on the relevant team - you're not alone in wanting that feature.

I just tried SendGrid out now, unless I'm mistaken you can't even see subject line in the emails that are sent, is this correct?

You can look in the Email Activity tab to see a history of events, along with their category (you might use this for "receipt", "forgot password", etc.).

https://sendgrid.com/docs/User_Guide/email_activity.html

If you're doing one-to-many campaigns, we also have a marketing email product called Marketing Campaigns that offers a more detailed content history.

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#24
post #7

$20 w/MailChimp Transactional: 25,000 mails $20 w/SendGrid: 100,000 mails So let me know if you're thinking about switching. I'd be happy to intro you to someone on our team. Disclosure: I'm with SendGrid. :)

Oh thanks for that. I was already typing "Mandrill alternative" on google.

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage that Mandrill has over SendGrid is the ability to see the content of emails (run a web agency so it helps a lot with troubleshooting for our clients).

That makes a lot of sense! On the backend, we've already built a way to view content samples (for compliance reasons, e.g. if something looks spammy and we need a human to confirm). It would certainly be possible to expose that functionality to users. I'll run that by the PM on the relevant team - you're not alone in wanting that feature.

Definitely +1 on this. It's a great feature to see if A) emails are being sent and B) templates weren't messed up in some way.

(I have had many a batch email with "{{name}" or some other templating error, heh.)

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#27
post #9
post #7

$20 w/MailChimp Transactional: 25,000 mails $20 w/SendGrid: 100,000 mails So let me know if you're thinking about switching. I'd be happy to intro you to someone on our team. Disclosure: I'm with SendGrid. :)

One advantage that Mandrill has over SendGrid is the ability to see the content of emails (run a web agency so it helps a lot with troubleshooting for our clients).

I think NOW it's the time to build that feature, ASAP. cc @etjossem

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#28

This really doesn't make sense. Why not just implement Mandrill into Mailchimp like they wanted and keep Mandrill around also? I don't see it as an either or thing. This move was probably more about the bottom line than anything else.

what isn't?

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#29
At work we have built an email delivery platform on top of Mandrill for marketing/transactional emails. We have many clients that signed up for their own accounts and give us api tokens to send on their behalf.

This is going to suck. Not only are they doing this but now we only have 45 days to migrate those customers to mailchimp accounts they neither want nor need and we don't get to see the headaches there until March 15th. What the actual fuck?!?

Re: Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

#30
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage that Mandrill has over SendGrid is the ability to see the content of emails (run a web agency so it helps a lot with troubleshooting for our clients).

I think NOW it's the time to build that feature, ASAP. cc @etjossem

Yeah absolutely if SendGrid builds this functionality and creates a 'Welcome Mandrill customers' page, then you guys will get a whole heap of new signups right away!
Post reply on HN