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Postal vs Substack
Postal: Self-hosted SendGrid/Mailgun alternative. Substack: Writers making money doing the work they believe in. Same fact set for both, straight from each vendor's docs.
Postal
- Free tier
- Free and open source (self-hosted, MIT license)
- Paid from
- None; self-hosted, infrastructure costs only · pricing page
- Public API
- Yes docs
- MCP server
- No · No MCP server found for Postal
- Best for
- Self-hosted SendGrid/Mailgun alternative
- Website
- https://github.com/postalserver/postal
Substack
- Free tier
- Free to publish, no subscriber cap
- Paid from
- No monthly fee; 10% of paid subscription revenue plus Stripe fees · pricing page
- Public API
- Yes docs
- MCP server
- Community · Community servers on GitHub only
- Best for
- Writers making money doing the work they believe in
- Website
- https://substack.com
Which one?
Postal suits self-hosted sendgrid/mailgun alternative. Substack suits writers making money doing the work they believe in. Pricing changes; the fact tables above link both vendors' live pricing pages. For the rest of the field, see Postal alternatives, Substack alternatives, or the full table.