Jul '25 • General 🌎
My full cold email infrastructure (sending 1k+ emails/day)
Most people are getting ripped off with email infrastructure and don't even know it.
Paying $6/month per email address just to land in spam feels like stupidity to me.
It’s definitely not your fault.
Nobody teaches this stuff, and all the "gurus" want you dependent on their overpriced solutions.
You can build your own setup that's actually cost-effective AND performs better.
Here's my exact stack:
1. Domains: Porkbun
Cost: ~$11/year per domain
Why: Prices don't spike when you renew (looking at you, GoDaddy). Stick to .com domains.
Plus their DNS management is clean and simple for setting up all your email records.
I usually grab 3-5 domains to start.
2. Email Hosting: MXRoute.com
Cost: $49/year (that's like $4/month)
Why: This is where you RECEIVE emails, not send them. Set up MX records correctly in your DNS.
You get IMAP access and the $49 plan gives you unlimited emails across unlimited domains.
Insane value.
3. SMTP Sending: SparkPost
Cost: Free for 500 emails/month, $20/month for 50k emails
Why: This is your sending engine.
SparkPost gives you the DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records that you'll copy and paste into your Porkbun DNS settings.
Clean setup, solid deliverability.
4. Email Automation: Smartlead or Instantly
Cost: Under $80/month for 1k+ emails/day
Why: These connect everything together and handle warm-up automatically.
Run the built-in warm-up for 3 weeks before sending real campaigns.
Smartlead's interface is cleaner, Instantly has more features.
Both work great with custom SMTP.
5. List Cleaning: Million Verifier
Cost: $49 for 25k credits
Why: Clean lists = better deliverability.
Run every list through this before sending.
Worth every penny.
6. Warm-up: Built into Smartlead/Instantly
Cost: Included in your subscription
Why: Both platforms have built-in warm-up features.
Run for 3 weeks before sending real campaigns.
No need for separate tools.
Total monthly cost: ~$120-150 to send 30k+ emails/month across multiple domains with solid deliverability.
Compare that to paying $180/month for just 30 email addresses on most platforms (that still land in spam half the time).
Set this up and you're looking at inbox rates that actually matter, not just "delivered" rates that mean nothing.
What do you think?
Anyone running something similar or got improvements to this stack?
Been thinking about adding a dedicated IP through SparkPost for even better control: worth the extra $20/month?
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My full cold email infrastructure (sending 1k+ emails/day)
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