title: Sending mass mail without going insane (SendGrid? cloud?)
body: <p>I need to send regular newsletters, as well as smaller batches, to a 10k strong mailing list, programmatically.</p>
  
  <p>We're currently exporting our list and then using Campaign Monitor's web interface to create and send the newsletters. Campaign Monitor is great, but it is simply too expensive. Sending just one email to the entire list costs us $105, sending smaller batches is even more expensive as they charge 'per campaign'.</p>
  
  <p>I have two requirements:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>I don't want to worry about bouncing, domain keys, black lists, ISPs, or any of that bs.</li>
  <li>I want a solution that is as cheap as possible.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>My best bet seems to be using SendGrid (or something else?). It seems that they give you an SMTP server and they worry about all the crap in requirement 1. How does one actually use that to send email programmatically? Loop through the list and mail()? Seems like thats not very efficient. If you have experience with SendGrid, please share. This still isn't terribly cheap -- $80/mo -- but better than CM.</p>
  
  <p>Alternatively, should I start looking at 'the cloud' as a solution. It would be cheaper it seems -- at least I'd be paying for what I'm using, but is it the same as rolling your own? Would I have to worry about the crap in requirement 1?</p>
  
  <p>Or am I totally missing some other simpler solution? I really need help visualizing my options.</p>