Is Notifuse really free?
The software is. You can run it on your own server with unlimited contacts and unlimited emails, and you don't need a licence key for any of that. What you pay for is the server (ours is €9.49 a month on Hetzner, plus backups) and the service that actually delivers the email, like SendGrid, Resend or Amazon SES. A paid key only unlocks a few extras, such as single sign-on, audit logs and more than three workspaces on one install.
What it costs us
One Hetzner server at €9.49 a month runs our whole email platform, with daily backups adding about €1.90. On top of that you pay the sending service you choose, such as SendGrid or Resend.
The licence
Versions up to 39 are open source under the AGPL. From version 40 (September 2026), Notifuse uses the Business Source License, so it's source-available rather than open source. It lets you run Notifuse in production, including for other people, and each version becomes AGPL four years after it's released. Sending, contacts and automations need no licence key.
What you take on
Updates and backups are your job, or ours if we run it for you. If nobody wants to own that, Notifuse Cloud starts at $16 a month (check Notifuse's pricing page).
Also worth asking
Other answers about the same tools.
Can Notifuse replace Mailchimp?
For a small or mid-sized business, yes. It does lists, segments, campaigns, A/B tests, automations, a drag-and-drop editor and open and click reports. It also sends transactional email, which Mailchimp charges for as an add-on (check Mailchimp's pricing page).
The difference is that you host it. You don't pay per contact, but someone has to look after the server.
Will email from a self-hosted platform land in spam?
Not because it's self-hosted. Notifuse doesn't deliver the email itself: it hands each message to a sending service like SendGrid, Resend or Amazon SES, so you get their delivery reputation.
What decides the inbox is your domain set-up (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), a clean list and email people want. On our own site, we send marketing and follow-ups from separate subdomains, so a newsletter never hurts a booking confirmation.
Still have questions?Talk to us
Bring your numbers.
We'll tell you if the spend makes sense.
- A 15-minute callYour goals, your challenges, and whether we're the right fit.
- A 1-hour discovery callWe dig into your numbers. Worth a hundred emails.
- A concrete planAds, a custom build or both, as a one-off project or ongoing.