How a B2B publisher took control of its email: D2 Emerge
In April 2026, D2 Emerge, publisher of SD Times and ITOps Times, moved its email program off ActiveCampaign onto self-hosted Mautic and Amazon SES. Its monthly bill fell from $1,600 to about $250, an 84% cut, while sending grew from a 900,000-email monthly cap to 1.5 million emails a month.
At a glance
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | ActiveCampaign | Mautic 6, self-hosted on Elestio |
| Sending | Through ActiveCampaign | Amazon SES |
| Contacts mailed | About 100,000 | About 100,000, with room to mail the full list |
| Emails a month | Capped at 900,000 | About 1.5 million, no cap |
| Monthly cost | $1,600 | About $250 ($200 Amazon SES, $50 Elestio hosting) |
| Cost per 1,000 emails | About $1.78 | About $0.17 |
| Average open rate | 22.7% | 30.4% |
| Annual savings | About $16,200 | |
| Sending speed | About 120,000 emails an hour | |
| Who owns the data and sending reputation | The vendor | D2 Emerge |
The situation
D2 Emerge is a small B2B media company. Its email reaches software development professionals, and email is how it delivers content and runs sponsored campaigns for advertisers, so sending is core to the business.
The list ran on ActiveCampaign at $1,600 a month, and ActiveCampaign kept raising its rates. The plan also capped sending at 900,000 emails a month, so even though the list was bigger, D2 Emerge mailed only about 100,000 contacts to stay under the limit. It was paying more every year for less reach, while its data and sending reputation lived in someone else's account.
What we did
We moved D2 Emerge to Mautic 6, self-hosted on Elestio, with sending through Amazon SES. Contacts, segments, templates, forms and campaigns came across, and newsletters kept going out on schedule.
Running Mautic at this volume takes more than installing it. We tuned the setup on D2 Emerge's own list before offering it to anyone, and every client migration now starts from that proven configuration:
- Background workers and scheduled jobs set up so every email goes out once, on time
- Sending tuned to about 120,000 emails an hour
- A dedicated sending IP on Amazon SES, so no other sender's habits affect D2 Emerge's reputation
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured for the sending domain
- Automatic recovery on restart, with monitoring
Results
- Cost: $1,600 a month down to about $250, $200 for Amazon SES and $50 for Elestio hosting, an 84% cut and about $16,200 a year. With Longtrail's $750 run retainer on top, the total is about $1,000 a month, still $600 less than ActiveCampaign, with 67% more volume and no cap.
- More sending, not less: from a 900,000-email monthly cap to about 1.5 million emails a month, 67% more volume. Amazon SES charges per email, so growth costs pennies instead of a plan upgrade.
- Cost per email: about $1.78 per 1,000 emails before, about $0.17 now, roughly 90% lower.
- Speed: about 120,000 emails an hour on a single worker, so a 100,000-contact send finishes in under an hour.
- Ownership: the contacts, the campaign history and the sending reputation now sit in D2 Emerge's own accounts. No vendor can raise the rate or cap the volume again.
- Deliverability: average open rate rose from 22.7% on ActiveCampaign to 30.4% on Mautic and SES, so moving to self-hosted sending didn't cost inbox placement, and the bigger, cheaper sends land at least as well as before. Google Postmaster rated IP reputation High both before and after the switch, and D2 Emerge now sends from its own dedicated IP, so that reputation belongs to it alone.
What it means for you
If you have 10,000 or more contacts and pay $1,000 or more a month for HubSpot, Marketo or Pardot, the same move usually saves five figures a year, and the bigger your list, the bigger the savings. Publishers, associations, event organizers, training companies and nonprofits fit best.
Start with a free savings estimate. Send us your contact count, monthly send volume and current plan, and we'll send back a one-page comparison of what you pay now against Mautic and Amazon SES, including our fees. If switching doesn't make sense for you, the estimate will say so.