Notifuse
- Self-hosted
- Source on GitHub (BSL)
- No per-contact fees
- MJML templates
Our own email platform: campaigns, automations and transactional email, sent through SendGrid, Resend or a real Gmail inbox. It does what most businesses pay Mailchimp for, on one small server.
- 3sending accounts
- €9.49a month for the server
- 1build on it
- 1service it belongs to
A full email platform
Campaigns and A/B tests
Send to a list or a segment, test two subject lines or two versions of an email, and see opens and clicks for every link.
Transactional email over an API
One request sends a template with the person's details filled in. n8n can call it whenever something changes in the CRM.
Automations
Build a journey on a canvas: wait three days, check whether they've booked, then send the next email or call a webhook.
MJML templates
The drag-and-drop editor is built on MJML, so emails keep their layout in Outlook and Gmail. Liquid fills in names and links. We've got 34 templates in ours.
Several sending accounts
Marketing, follow-ups and personal emails each go through their own provider and address, so a newsletter never drags down the reputation of a booking confirmation.
Your list on your server
Contacts, opens and clicks sit in a database we control. Nobody's counting contacts to send us a bigger bill, and we can export the lot whenever we like.
Notifuse is our email platform. It runs on our own Hetzner server and handles lists, segments, campaigns, automations, templates and reports. It also sends transactional email, the one-off messages a workflow triggers, which a lot of hosted tools charge extra for.
Three sending accounts, one set of templates
- SendGrid sends the newsletters and campaigns.
- Resend sends the follow-ups and other transactional email.
- Gmail sends anything that should come from a person, not a company.
Each one has its own name and address, and they all use the same templates.
n8n pulls the trigger
When something changes in the CRM, n8n makes one API call and Notifuse sends the right template, with the lead's name and booking link already filled in. This is the call from our new lead engine:
POST /api/transactional.send
{
"notification": {
"id": "pac_le_missed_call",
"contact": {
"email": "jane@example.com",
"first_name": "Jane"
},
"data": {
"booking_url": "https://pacing.agency/contact"
}
}
}We've written and tested 17 follow-ups like that for our new lead engine: thank-you, missed call, booking reminders, no-show and long-term check-ins. They all share one layout, so they look like a set.
It watches the website too
Notifuse also runs cookieless web analytics on pacing.agency, so the email tool and the site's traffic sit in one place.
Which email platform fits you?
Notifuse isn't the answer for everyone. Pick what you need email for and we'll tell you what we'd use.
Newsletters and follow-ups
| What matters | NotifuseOur pick | Per-contact toolsMailchimp, MailerLite and the like |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | One small server (€9.49 a month for ours, plus backups), plus the sending service | A plan that usually rises with your contact count |
| Unsubscribed contacts | Cost nothing | Some tools keep billing for them until you archive them |
| Transactional email | Built in, using the same templates and contacts | Often a separate add-on or product |
| Who delivers it | Your choice: SendGrid, Resend, Amazon SES, Postmark, Mailgun or any SMTP inbox | Their own servers |
| Where your list lives | A database on your own server | Their servers |
| Who looks after it | You, or us | They do |
Our pick: Notifuse. You get campaigns, automations and transactional email, and the bill stays the same as your list grows.
An online shop
| What matters | Notifuse |  KlaviyoOur pick |
|---|---|---|
| Shop data | Whatever you send it through the API or n8n | Connects to Shopify and pulls in browsing, baskets, orders and products |
| Ready-made flows | You build each one | Welcome, abandoned basket and post-purchase flows ready to switch on |
| Product emails | Templates you design | Product blocks and recommendations from your catalogue |
| SMS | Built for email | Email and SMS in one place |
| Reporting | Opens and clicks | Revenue for each email and flow |
| What you pay for | A server plus the sending service | A plan priced by the number of active profiles |
Our pick: Klaviyo, if you sell online. It knows what each shopper browsed and bought, and that's where shop email makes its money. We set it up for shops.
A sales team on a CRM
| What matters | Notifuse |  HubSpotOur pick |
|---|---|---|
| Where email lives | Beside your CRM, joined up by n8n | Inside the CRM, on the same record as deals and calls |
| Sales emails | Sent from workflows or by hand | Tracked one-to-one emails and sequences for each rep |
| Lead scoring and reports | You build them | Built in on the higher plans |
| What you pay for | A server plus the sending service | Seats and marketing contacts, with full automation on the higher plans |
| Who looks after it | You, or us | HubSpot does |
Our pick: HubSpot, once you've got a sales team. Email, deals and reports on one contact record is worth paying for at that size. We set it up for clients.
Other tools' facts are from their own pricing and help pages, October 2026. Prices change, so we've kept their numbers out. Our server cost is from our Hetzner invoice, August 2026, and is the server alone: daily backups add about €1.90. If you'd rather not host Notifuse yourself, Notifuse Cloud starts at $16 a month.
What we connect it to
Notifuse sends the email. Whether anyone wants it comes down to the list, the timing and the offer.
n8nTriggers each send when something happens.
ResendDelivers follow-ups and transactional email.
SendGridDelivers campaigns and newsletters.
Google WorkspaceGmail sends the one-to-one emails that should come from a person.
HetznerThe server it runs on.
Self-hostedOne of the tools we run ourselves.
Twenty CRMFollow-up emails when a lead's status changes, through n8n.
It's one part of the setup.
If another part is broken, this one wastes money.
What's a customer worth?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Where we've used Notifuse
Services that use it
We don't sell it on its own. Each of these services uses it alongside the rest of your setup.
What Notifuse is
Notifuse is an email platform for newsletters, automations and transactional email. It's written in Go and React, the code is on GitHub, and it runs with Docker on any server. If you'd rather not host it, Notifuse Cloud starts at $16 a month.
A note on the licence: versions up to 39 are open source under the AGPL. From version 40 (September 2026) it uses the Business Source License, so strictly it's source-available rather than open source. It still lets you run it in production for free, including for clients, and turns each version into AGPL four years after it's released. A paid key only unlocks a few extras, like single sign-on, audit logs and more than three workspaces. Unlimited contacts and emails stay free.
Questions about Notifuse
Straight answers on how we work, what it costs and what to expect. If yours isn't here, just ask.
Still have questions?
Talk to usIs 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.
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.
Start with your numbers.
We'll tell you which tools you need and which connections are missing.
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.