Show HN: Communal Growth, find others with similar interests in books or papers (communalgrowth.org)

Spent the last month building Fertit - basically a newsletter manager but you bring your own SMTP and skip the DevOps nightmare. All the features (subscriber management, admin dashboard, custom preferences) without the infrastructure markup.

The math that broke me: Mailchimp: $230/month for 15k contacts My solution: $10/month infrastructure + $10 SendGrid = unlimited

What I learned: The "enterprise" features are mostly database operations with SMTP APIs. But the 3 weeks of Go/PostgreSQL/Redis setup explains why people just pay ConvertKit $300/month. Here's the thing: Even open-sourcing it, I realized most people don't want to deal with servers, Docker configs, and database migrations. So I built an affordable hosted service starting at $5/month. More features and security measurements, zero setup - just bring your SMTP and start sending. You get all the cost savings without any of the self-hosting headaches.

Now testing this hosted version at $5/month - middle ground between DIY pain and SaaS pricing. Hosted version: https://www.fertit.com Open source: https://github.com/rasadov/NewsletterManager Anyone else tired of choosing between expensive self-hosting and expensive SaaS? Would love feedback on the approach.

Comments (4)

Saris · 19m ago

Would love to see some screenshots of a few parts of the interface, like the editor, sign up forms builder, and contacts management.

more_corn · 1h ago

Email marketing is called spam.

rasadov · 24m ago

There’s definitely a difference between spam and permission-based email marketing. Fertit is built specifically for legitimate newsletter subscriptions - subscribers opt-in through proper signup forms and can easily manage preferences or unsubscribe. It’s the same model used by every legitimate business newsletter, from GitHub updates to Substack publications. The focus is on providing value to people who actually want to receive the content.

Saris · 20m ago

Huh? How is it spam when I receive newsletters I sign up for?

Are you confused between newsletters/marketing and actual spam maybe?

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Comments (4)