Building an Email Service Is More Than Just Technology
The challenge of building an email service platform — transactional and bulk marketing — goes far beyond technology.
When I talk about technology, I mean decisions like:
- Which database to choose
- Which programming language to use
- What to adopt for queues
- And whether it’s even worth renting a VPS
How AI Made Things Look Easy (At First)
With the rise of artificial intelligence, many of these decisions became easier. At least, that was the case for me.
I managed to build the Metigan MVP in just one week, even with very limited time. The following week, I launched Metigan on Product Hunt — and what happened next was completely unexpected.
Why Metigan Exists
Metigan was built for myself first.
I wanted to send company emails easily, without having to log into cPanel every time I needed to send an email.
I didn’t want the headache of sending more than 80 emails at once.
And I definitely didn’t want to pay for email marketing platforms that are expensive, complex, and full of bureaucracy.
Out of these frustrations, Metigan was born:
Simple.
Easy.
No bureaucracy.
The Product Hunt Effect
Once the project went live on Product Hunt, feedback started pouring in.
Anyone who has launched there knows how hard it is to get even 5 upvotes — but to my surprise, Metigan reached 129 points, along with incredible comments that pushed me to take the project much more seriously.
When the Inbox Exploded
By the third day, my inbox turned into chaos.
Emails came from everywhere:
- Marketing proposals
- UI/UX improvement suggestions
- Job applications
- Vulnerability alerts
Believe it or not, I received more than 300 emails.
Many of them remain unanswered to this day.
The Question That Changed Everything
Among all those comments, I stumbled upon a concept that is absolutely critical for anyone planning to offer an email service.
Someone asked:
“What about warm-up? How do you handle warm-up?”
I panicked.
I rushed to ChatGPT, generated an answer, copied it, and pasted it.
The person was satisfied.
But the truth is simple:
I had no idea what warm-up really meant.
Using AWS SES, the consequences of that lack of understanding would eventually show up.
And the problems were already lurking in the shadows.
The Pricing Mistake
Trying to gain a competitive advantage, we made another serious mistake:
We offered too many emails per plan.
For example:
- 3,000 emails per month on the Free plan
- No daily sending limit
Basically, we shot ourselves in the foot.
That decision generated some of our worst insights, but also our biggest lessons.
At the time, Metigan had the classic three plans:
- Free
- Pro
- Business
The Business plan allowed unlimited emails per month.
Second shot.
This time, in the other foot.
What Is Email Warm-Up?
When you start an email service, you begin with zero reputation.
To reach the inbox, you must build that reputation gradually, by sending high-quality emails that are accepted by established providers like:
- Gmail
- Outlook
- Yahoo
- UOL
In this process:
Quantity matters just as much as quality
More specifically:
- Emails sent per day
- Per IP address
Imagine you’re a delivery driver on your first day.
To gain trust and receive more deliveries, you need to prove — slowly and consistently — that you’re reliable.
That trust isn’t built overnight.
Warm-up is exactly that:
A gradual increase in sending volume to build reputation with email providers.
When Everything Went Wrong
Now imagine this scenario:
- 7 users on the Free plan
- 2 users on Business
- 3 users on Pro
Meanwhile, AWS SES gave us:
- 50,000 emails per day
- 14 emails per second
The result?
- Our reputation collapsed
- AWS paused our sending capabilities
Metigan, which was supposed to be a solution, was quickly becoming a problem.
To Be Continued…
This story doesn’t end here.
There’s a second part — the moment we:
- Removed AWS SES from Metigan
- Built our own email infrastructure from scratch
If you’re building an email product, a SaaS, or anything that touches deliverability…
Learn from my mistakes.👊
By Francisco Inoque | Metigan Founder
Go to Metigan
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