What is SendPortal?

Updated

SendPortal is an open-source, self-hosted email marketing and newsletter platform built on Laravel. You install and run it on your own server, which means your subscriber data and campaign history stay under your control rather than sitting in a vendor's cloud. It fits teams that want the core features of a hosted email tool — lists, segments, campaigns, and tracking — without paying per-subscriber pricing or handing over their data.

What SendPortal actually does

The platform covers the standard email marketing workflow:

  • Subscriber & list management — import or update contacts through the REST API or a CSV upload, then split them into custom-defined segments.
  • Campaign management — send to your full list or a specific segment, and build your own templates.
  • Message tracking — sending, opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes are tracked automatically per campaign.
  • Multiple workspaces — run several teams or brands from one interface.
  • REST API — integrate SendPortal with other systems programmatically.

The project describes itself as "unlimited everything": unlimited users, subscribers, segments, and messages. That claim is a consequence of self-hosting — there is no vendor metering your usage.

How it differs from MailChimp and Campaign Monitor

The fundamental difference is who runs the software and holds the data.

Dimension SendPortal Hosted tools (MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, etc.)
Hosting Self-hosted on your own infrastructure Vendor-hosted SaaS
Data ownership You control it Held by the vendor
Cost model Open source; you cover your own hosting and sending Typically scales with list size or volume
Setup effort You install and maintain it Sign up and start sending
Extensibility Open source, Laravel-based, REST API Varies by plan and vendor

SendPortal positions itself explicitly against these tools on cost and control. The trade-off is real: self-hosting means you are responsible for installation, upgrades, server uptime, and deliverability setup.

Who it's for

SendPortal makes sense if you:

  • Want your subscriber list to stay on infrastructure you control.
  • Have (or can get) someone comfortable deploying and maintaining a Laravel application.
  • Send at a volume where per-subscriber SaaS pricing has become a significant cost.
  • Need API access and don't want it gated behind a higher pricing tier.

It's a weaker fit if you have no technical capacity to run a server, or if you need a fully managed sending reputation and support contract out of the box.

Getting started

SendPortal is distributed as open source, with documentation and a GitHub repository linked from the project site. Version 2 introduced the ability to install it as a package, which simplifies deployment compared to a full manual setup. From there, the typical path is: connect your sending method, import subscribers via CSV or API, define segments, build a template, and launch a campaign — then watch opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes in the tracking view.

Because it is self-hosted, the practical prerequisites are a server environment capable of running a Laravel application and a plan for how email will actually be delivered. Those are the two areas to sort out before you commit, since they determine both your real cost and your deliverability.