Help me choose the right newsletter provider
Backstory: I work in comms for a 20-person NGO. Up until 3 months ago, we were sending our general newsletter completely by hand via Outlook... I finally decided enough was enough, did some research, and moved us to Kit - the free version, of course (why pay for something that you can get for free??)
Well, it has been a total failure. The deliverability has been awful, to the point where our own team wasn't even receiving the emails. I ended up looking like one big noob in front of the organization (even though they conveniently forgot we were literally sending them manually before...).
Anyhow, but I now finally have a budget - about to €40/month (though I'm happy if it's less. Also I can increase the number if the price – performance works in my favour). We currently have 1,800 subscribers.
What I've looked into so far: I talked to some colleagues working in similar organizations, and they recommended MailUp. I checked it out, but for what we actually need, the pricing is over €100/month, which is way out of our budget. And whatever preplexity/gemini recommend it not really fit for our needs upon doing a more extensive research into the recommendations.
Must-Haves:
- Budget: Up to around €40 per month.
- Multiple independent lists: We run different projects, and they each have their own newsletters. I need multiple newsletters to "co-exist" independently within one system. Each needs its own subscriber list, unique landing forms, distinct templates, and separate unsubscribe options. (If a system doesn't do this natively but has a solid workaround, I'm open to hearing tips.)
- No fancy features needed: We don't need complex automations or any of that fancy things. Just the basics done well.
- High deliverability & Reliability: This is my top priority after the Kit disaster.
- User-friendly for non-techies: My coworkers will be logging in to send their own project newsletters. I want to be able to set up templates for them and make sure they can't change or adjust the design/layout too much.
Does anyone have recommendations for a provider that fits this description and handles multiple distinct project lists well within this budget? I really do not want to go through KIT thing again...