Newsletter services

Requirements

1. As an admin I need a newsletter service such that I am able to send bimonthly updates to around 2000 email addresses (increasing):
   1. newsletter email count: ~ 4000/month (? needs clarification)
   2. Ability to create email: Do we need any authoring tool for these emails?
2. As a webuser I need a newsletter such that I can subscribe to PARI's newsletter receive regular updates and bimonthly digest
3. As a webuser I need a differentiated dialogue so I can receive only selected types of notifications -- article, face, album, resource, translation (in one or all language(s)
4. As an admin I need a newsletter service such that there are certain automated notifications that go out to selected group of emails based on events such as New Article Uploaded, New Face Uploaded, New Album uploaded, New Resource, New Translation uploaded.

Design ideas:

1. For each notification, we can create a "distribution list" - DL. So, when a web user subscribes for PARI's newsletter, they get added to a DL - say "newsletter-subscribers". When a web user subscribes for receiving notifications for "articles" only, they get added to a different DL - "articles-subscribers", etc.
2. We maintain these DLs on our end in some DB table.
3. For some of the notifications, we will need to store templates. For example, we may have a template for email that gets sent to "articles-subscribers" when a new article is published. This template may have some placeholder variables which will get substituted with appropriate values when the event happens. So, we may have following different templates:
   1. new-article-uploaded-template : will be used to send email for "New article uploaded event".
   2. new-article-published-template: will be used to send email to end-users when a new article is published.
   3. new-album-published-template: will be used to send email to end-users when a new album is published. etc.

Off-the-shelf systems:

Feature	MailChimp	SendGrid	ConstantContact
url	https://mailchimp.com	https://sendgrid.com	https://www.constantcontact.com
Programmable
Cost	Free for limited use, more features - 10$/month
Email count limit	2000 subscribers, 12000 emails/month for free.
Ability to group subscribers in different DLs
Ability to create different templates for emails
Ability to substitute template placeholder values on demand
Report feature	Present
Ease of use