# MailCheap

Aiolum story: https://aiolum.com/story/mailcheap/ · added 2026-11-08 · updated 2026-11-08

**In short.** MailCheap (Newsletter platform priced by emails sent, Singapore): US$2.6K a month MRR, November 2026. Evidence grade A: disclosed by a company or a filing, or verified by a payment processor. Team: 1 founder, Marc Lou; his site says "0 employees, 0 investors" (read 8 November 2026). Launched 12 October 2026; still running, revenue growing.

Newsletter platform priced by emails sent · Singapore · AI-leveraged · solo founder · still running, revenue growing · group: Marketing and social content

- Outcome: US$2.6K a month MRR, November 2026 (evidence grade of the headline number: A; headline in US dollars: 30780)
- Launch: 12 October 2026; months from launch to the outcome: 1
- Team: 1 founder, Marc Lou; his site says "0 employees, 0 investors" (read 8 November 2026)
- Outside funding: None
- Main factor: Distribution
- Meters, 1 to 4: evidence strength 3, copyable pattern 2, capital needed 1
- Tags: AI-leveraged, Solo founder, Bootstrapped, Running, B2B, Email marketing

Links:

- Visit mailcheap.ai: https://mailcheap.ai/
- Verified revenue on TrustMRR: https://trustmrr.com/startup/mailcheap

**The product.** A newsletter service that charges for the emails you send, not for the subscribers you store: an editor, scheduling, a web page for each issue, signup forms, imports from beehiiv, Substack and Mailchimp, statistics, and sending rules that protect deliverability. AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor can run every action through its MCP server and API. The code is open source; the hosted service starts at US$19 a month.

**Why it worked.** A founder with about 423,000 followers on X and a newsletter of more than 50,000 readers built it for his own use after two years of paying beehiiv, then opened it to the people who asked for it. The price comparison with beehiiv is the pitch; the open code and the AI-agent interface give technical writers two more reasons to move their list.

Evidence grades: A = disclosed by a public company, a filing or a payment processor, or verified by one; B = two or more independent reports agree, or a journalist confirmed it; C = a founder claim that no one else verified; D = reported, not verified: one founder claim or a third-party estimate with no second source; E = no revenue figure found, so the headline is a non-money fact and the other facts carry their own grades; calc = computed on this page from graded facts.

## Summary

MailCheap is a newsletter platform, a web service in which a writer keeps a list of subscribers, writes issues in an editor, sends them by email and publishes each one as a web page. Most such services charge by the number of subscribers; MailCheap charges by the number of emails sent, from US$19 a month for 20,000 emails, and its pages compare that price with beehiiv, Mailchimp and Ghost. Everything in the dashboard also works through an MCP server, a standard interface through which an AI agent (a program that uses a language model to act for a person, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor) can write drafts, schedule issues and read reports. The code is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license: anyone may read, run and change it, and the paid service runs the same code.

Marc Lou, whose site says "I was fired everywhere, so I built 43 startups" and "All solo since 2021: 0 employees, 0 investors", made it after paying beehiiv for two years for his own newsletter. TrustMRR gives 12 October 2026 as the founded date, and the first payment arrived on 15 October. On 31 October the profile showed MRR (monthly recurring revenue, the subscription income of one month) of US$2,031. On 8 November 2026 it showed US$2,565 of MRR from 89 active subscriptions, and US$3,257 of revenue in the last 30 days. That is a run rate, the MRR times 12, of about US$30,780 a year, less than four weeks after launch.

The headline is grade A: TrustMRR reads the figures from the company's Stripe account through an API key, a password that lets one program read another program's data. TrustMRR is also one of the founder's own products, which the "watch" list below explains. AI is not a model inside the product. It is in how the product is built and used: the public repository carries instructions for AI coding agents and a folder of Cursor rules, and the founder wrote in September 2026 that he built TrustMRR by asking Cursor to write it. The page also shows four earlier email and writer-platform companies that died, and what is different now.

## Pricing

MailCheap prices on 8 November 2026, from the company's pricing page (grade C); the yearly prices are read from the plan data in the page source

| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 15.83 | 19 | 20,000 emails a month, up to 10,000 subscribers |
| Growth | 32.50 | 39 | 75,000 emails a month, up to 40,000 subscribers |
| Pro | 65.83 | 79 | 200,000 emails a month, up to 100,000 subscribers |
| Scale | 124.17 | 149 | 500,000 emails a month, up to 250,000 subscribers |
| Max | 290.83 | 349 | 2,000,000 emails a month, up to 1,000,000 subscribers |
| Ultra | 665.83 | 799 | 5,000,000 emails a month, up to 2,500,000 subscribers |
| Self-hosted | 0 | 0 | open-source code; the email provider's price, US$0.10 to US$0.16 per 1,000 emails on Amazon SES |

Every plan includes every feature: campaigns, scheduling, the website, your own domain, signup forms, welcome emails, imports, stats, AI agents and API, and chat support. Paying yearly gives two months free. There is no free trial: since 7 November 2026 a new account's card is charged only after its first issue's emails are out and their bounce and complaint numbers look right. When a month's emails run out, new sends wait until an upgrade or the next month. The self-hosted edition is the same code, without support; its sending cost is what the email provider charges, which the README gives for Amazon SES.

## How much revenue does MailCheap make? The numbers, graded

US$2,565 of monthly recurring revenue and 89 active subscriptions on 8 November 2026, verified from the company's Stripe account, 27 days after the founded date

| Fact | Value | Grade | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly recurring revenue, 8 November 2026 | US$2,565 | A | TrustMRR "Current MRR" snapshot; revenue last synced 8 November 2026 at 12:27 UTC from Stripe through an API key. | [1] |
| Run rate from the 8 November 2026 MRR | about US$30,780 a year | calc | Calculated: US$2,565 times 12. This is the headline figure in US dollars. | [1] |
| Active subscriptions, 8 November 2026 | 89 | A | TrustMRR "Current active subscriptions" snapshot. | [1] |
| Average MRR per active subscription | about US$28.82 a month | calc | Calculated: US$2,565 divided by 89. The cheapest plan is US$19 a month. | [1, 4] |
| Revenue in the last 30 days, to 8 November 2026 | US$3,257, which is also the all-time total | A | TrustMRR revenue table. The founder's own site shows the same "$3,257 /mo in the last 30 days". The profile does not explain why this is higher than the MRR. | [1, 11] |
| Revenue by month | October 2026: US$2,070; 1 to 8 November 2026: US$1,187 | A | TrustMRR monthly revenue timeline, synced 8 November 2026. Daily totals use UTC dates; 8 November was partial at US$0. | [1] |
| First verified revenue | US$77 on 15 October 2026 | A | TrustMRR daily revenue table: US$0 on every day from 10 to 14 October 2026. | [1] |
| Monthly recurring revenue, 31 October 2026 | US$2,031 | A | Copy of the same TrustMRR profile downloaded on 31 October 2026, revenue last synced 31 October 2026 at 00:39 UTC. | [2] |
| Change in MRR, 31 October to 8 November 2026 | +26.3% | calc | Calculated: (US$2,565 minus US$2,031) divided by US$2,031. | [1, 2] |
| Founded date | 12 October 2026 | C | Founder-written field of the TrustMRR profile. The public changelog's oldest entry is dated 16 October 2026. | [1, 8] |
| Time from the founded date to the headline figure | 27 days, counted as 1 month | calc | Calculated: 12 October 2026 to 8 November 2026. | [1] |
| Operating company | JustShipIt Pte. Ltd., Singapore; incorporated 7 December 2023 | B | The terms say "MailCheap is run by JustShipIt Pte. Ltd." and that Singapore law governs them. Singapore's company register (ACRA open data on data.gov.sg) lists JUSTSHIPIT PTE. LTD., UEN 202348109R, "Exempt Private Company Limited by Shares", status "Live Company", incorporated on 2023-12-07, with no former names. | [3, 14, 16] |
| Team and funding | the founder alone; no investors | C | The founder's site: "All solo since 2021: 0 employees, 0 investors, 90% margins." The TrustMRR profile text says "Funding: Bootstrapped". The home page says "Marc Lou built it". | [11, 1, 3] |
| Price range | US$19 a month for 20,000 emails to US$799 a month for 5,000,000 emails | C | Pricing page, 8 November 2026: six plans with every feature on each; yearly billing gives two months free. | [4] |
| Price comparison on the pricing page | US$19 on MailCheap Starter against US$109 on beehiiv Lite | C | The company's example: 4,000 subscribers and one email a week, "Prices checked October 2026". Calculated from these two prices: 82.6% cheaper, which the page rounds to 83%. Not checked against beehiiv's own page. | [4] |
| Emails delivered in the 30 days to 8 November 2026 | 423,671, with a delivery rate of 99.4% and a spam complaint rate of 0.013% | C | The company's deliverability page. It counts customers' emails and the founder's own newsletters, Just Ship It and Unicorne. | [7] |
| Bad addresses left out at import | 15,072 | C | Deliverability page: 395 typos, 14,605 dead domains, 72 throwaway inboxes. | [7] |
| The founder's own newsletters on MailCheap | more than 50,000 subscribers, and more than 15,000 for Unicorne, TrustMRR's newsletter | C | Home page. The founder's site says "Join 51,318 people reading my newsletter". | [3, 11] |
| Founder's audience on X | 423,085 followers | C | TrustMRR profile field; the founder's site shows "423K followers". | [1, 11] |
| Public repository | 1.7k stars, 223 commits, AGPL-3.0 license | B | GitHub page of marclou/mailcheap, read 8 November 2026. The README says MailCheap Cloud "runs this same code" and that the marketing site is not part of the open source. | [9] |
| Code written with AI coding agents | an AGENTS.md file and a .cursor/rules folder in the repository | B | AGENTS.md says "Read this before working on MailCheap" and describes the code for an agent. .cursor/rules is where the Cursor editor keeps project rules for its AI. | [9, 10] |
| Payment processor | Stripe, connected by API key; not a merchant of record | A | TrustMRR "Verification Sources" section. | [1] |

How to read this table: a grade A value is read from the company's Stripe account by TrustMRR through an API key. A grade B value is visible in the public code on GitHub. A grade C value is a statement of the company or the founder on their own pages. An X value was computed on this page from the rows it names.

## When did MailCheap launch, and how did it grow? Timeline

From a tool for the founder's own newsletter to US$2,565 of monthly recurring revenue in 27 days. Each entry carries its grade.

- **2021** (grade C [11]): Marc Lou's site dates his solo work from this year: "All solo since 2021: 0 employees, 0 investors".
- **30 October 2025** (grade C [12]): He launches TrustMRR, a site where founders verify their revenue with a read-only Stripe key. He writes that he built it by opening Cursor and asking it to build the site.
- **Before October 2026** (grade C [3]): After two years of paying beehiiv for his newsletter, he builds his own sending tool. People ask him for the same thing, so he turns it into MailCheap.
- **12 October 2026** (grade C [1]): Founded date on the TrustMRR profile.
- **15 October 2026** (grade A [1]): First verified revenue: US$77.
- **16 October 2026** (grade C [8]): Oldest entry in the public changelog; dozens of entries follow in the next three weeks.
- **31 October 2026** (grade A [2]): MRR of US$2,031.
- **4 November 2026** (grade C [5, 14]): The terms and the acceptable use policy are updated. The policy forbids bought, rented or scraped lists and cold email to people who never signed up.
- **7 November 2026** (grade C [8]): Two changes: a new account pays only after its first issue goes out with good numbers, and each sending domain gets its own pace with Gmail.
- **8 November 2026** (grade A [1]): MRR of US$2,565 from 89 active subscriptions; US$3,257 of revenue in the last 30 days.

## Why did MailCheap work?

### Charge for emails sent, not subscribers stored

The company's argument is that sending costs money and storing a subscriber costs almost nothing, so per-subscriber pricing makes writers pay for readers who stopped opening. MailCheap prices plans by emails a month, and readers who ignore issues for months get one last email and then no more issues. For the company's example of 4,000 subscribers and one email a week, that is US$19 against US$109 on beehiiv Lite, as checked by the company in October 2026.

### The founder's audience and his own newsletters as the first customer

The founder has about 423,000 followers on X and sends two newsletters of his own through MailCheap, one with more than 50,000 subscribers. The home page links his post on X about building the tool, and quotes customers who moved from beehiiv. TrustMRR lists X, word of mouth, Reddit and SEO as the marketing channels.

### Deliverability rules built into the product

On a shared sending service, one customer's spam hurts every customer's delivery. MailCheap sends a first issue to new contacts in steps (1,000 first, then 30% more, then the rest) while bounces stay low, paces each domain's Gmail readers, leaves typos, spam traps and dead domains out of imports, pauses a send above 2.5% bounces or 0.08% spam complaints, and blocks the account above 5% or 0.3%. Its acceptable use policy forbids cold email and bought or scraped lists. It publishes the resulting delivery rates on a public page.

### An interface for AI agents, and open code

Every dashboard action is also an MCP tool and a REST API call, so a writer can ask ChatGPT, Claude or Grok Bot to draft, schedule and report, with sending confirmed by the person. The code is public under the AGPL-3.0 license, and anyone can run it on their own server with Amazon SES or PostShiba. The founder writes that "All my tools have to work with AI agents".

## How it was built

These details come from the public repository (grade B), the company's pages and the founder-written part of the TrustMRR profile (grade C).

- Next.js App Router in JavaScript, Tailwind CSS with shadcn/ui, MongoDB through Mongoose, and Better Auth for sign-in, as AGENTS.md describes the code.
- Sending goes through Amazon SES or PostShiba, and Upstash QStash runs background sending and scheduling. The self-hosting guide adds Resend (optional) for sign-in codes and alerts, and Vercel or any Node.js 22+ host.
- MailCheap Cloud is the same repository with one setting turned on, which adds open sign-up, plans and Stripe billing.
- The repository carries an AGENTS.md file that tells AI coding agents how the code is organized, and a .cursor/rules folder for Cursor.
- Every customer action is defined once and runs from the dashboard, the REST API and the MCP server with the same checks.
- TrustMRR's founder-entered stack also lists Render, React and Node.js.

Sources: [9, 10, 1]

## Who tried this before MailCheap, and why did they fail?

Four companies in our database of failed startups sold email marketing tools, or a place where writers reach readers directly, and died. The values below are from that database and are not independently verified.

The failed startups come from our database of dead startups, retold here in our own words; Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so they carry no evidence grade.

### Userfox (2011 to 2014; funding US$700K; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Simple automated email marketing with analytics for online shops.
- Why it died: Mailchimp and Constant Contact already held the market, newer rivals bundled email with customer-relationship tools, and it lacked the money to keep up.
- Record: 

### Marketfox (2017 to 2020; funding US$2M; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Marketing automation for online shops: email, push notifications and customer segments.
- Why it died: Mailchimp, HubSpot and Klaviyo had more integrations and support. It could not raise enough to compete, and its small, price-sensitive customers rarely switch platforms.
- Record: 

### NewsTilt (2010; funding US$50K; cause: Competition)

- Promise: A platform where journalists build their own brand and earn directly from readers.
- Why it died: It did not attract enough journalists and readers, technical problems slowed it, and better-focused platforms overtook it.
- Record: 

### Curious Fictions (2018 to 2021; funding US$120K; cause: Competition)

- Promise: Authors publish short fiction and earn directly from readers' subscriptions and tips.
- Why it died: Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and Wattpad had the readers; it could not bring in enough well-known authors, and subscription and tip income stayed too small.
- Record: 

## What changed

Userfox and Marketfox tried to take email marketing customers from Mailchimp and similar companies and ran out of money first. NewsTilt and Curious Fictions tried to be the place where writers meet readers, and needed both sides at once. MailCheap faces the same incumbents, and its pitch names beehiiv, Mailchimp and Ghost directly.

Three things differ. First, the cost of building: one founder, working with AI coding agents as the repository's AGENTS.md and Cursor rules show, built the product and shipped dozens of changelog entries in three weeks, with no funding to raise and no sales team to pay. Second, it needs no audience of readers. Writers bring their own lists through imports from beehiiv, Substack and Mailchimp, and the founder brought his own audience of about 423,000 followers on X. Third, sending is now a commodity bought from providers: the README gives Amazon SES at US$0.10 to US$0.16 per 1,000 emails, while the Starter plan works out at US$0.95 per 1,000. The sources do not say which provider the hosted service uses or what it pays.

## Can one person copy MailCheap now?

**Verdict: The product, yes. The first month, only with an audience.**

The method is visible: an open-source newsletter app on a commodity sending service, priced by emails, with an MCP server so AI agents can use it. Anyone can read the code. The revenue in the first four weeks, though, came to a founder with about 423,000 followers on X, two large newsletters of his own and a revenue-verification site that he owns. A copy without that audience would compete with MailCheap itself, which is open source.

1. Pick a product you pay for every month and whose price grows with something that costs the vendor little, such as stored subscribers.
2. Build the replacement for your own use first, with an AI coding agent, and move your own account to it.
3. Price it by the thing that really costs money, and publish a comparison with one named competitor at one stated size.
4. Build the abuse rules before you open sign-up: staged first sends, bounce and complaint limits, and a written ban on bought lists and cold email.
5. Expose every action through an API and an MCP server, so AI assistants can operate it.

**What is still open.** Other software priced by stored records rather than by use: form builders priced by responses kept, link-in-bio pages priced by subscribers, and customer-support inboxes priced by contacts.

## What could go wrong for MailCheap?

- **The verifier belongs to the founder.** The headline comes from TrustMRR, which reads Stripe data through an API key. TrustMRR is itself one of Marc Lou's products: his site lists it first under "My startups", and his September 2026 post tells how he built it. The data come from Stripe, but the platform that publishes them and the business it describes have the same owner. No second, independent source for the revenue was found.
- **Less than four weeks of revenue.** The first payment arrived on 15 October 2026 and the headline is from 8 November 2026. MRR rose 26.3% between 31 October and 8 November, but nothing yet shows how many customers stay after their first month. The billing rule changed on 7 November 2026, when new accounts began to pay only after their first issue.
- **Company start date.** MailCheap is run by JustShipIt Pte. Ltd. of Singapore. Singapore's company register (ACRA open data on data.gov.sg, read 8 November 2026) gives its incorporation date as 7 December 2023 and lists no former names. The founder's site says he has worked alone since 2021, and the sources do not say whether this company also runs his other products. The register counts 4 officers; the founder's site says he has 0 employees. MailCheap's own first revenue is dated 15 October 2026.
- **Competition and the price comparison.** The pitch names beehiiv, Mailchimp and Ghost, and the 83% figure is the company's own example at 4,000 subscribers and one email a week, with prices it checked in October 2026; this page did not check beehiiv's prices, and the founder's site writes 82%. On this site, Robotomail and AgentMail also sell email, but as infrastructure for AI agents rather than newsletters for writers.
- **Dependence on AI assistants and on email providers.** None of these sources says that MailCheap runs an AI model of its own. Its AI features are connections that run inside ChatGPT, Claude, Grok Bot, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor, so their makers' rules apply: the help page says OpenAI lets apps make changes in ChatGPT only on its Business, Enterprise and Edu plans. Sending depends on an email provider, and the acceptable use policy says that if the provider stops a customer's sending, MailCheap blocks the account too.
- **How AI made it possible, and who works on it.** No downloaded source quotes the founder saying that AI made MailCheap possible. The evidence is the AGENTS.md file and the Cursor rules in the repository, the founder's account of building TrustMRR with Cursor, and his statement that he has 0 employees. The deliverability page still mentions accounts "the MailCheap team" tests with, and the policy says "a person at MailCheap" reviews flagged issues.
- **Shared sending can be misused.** Any bulk email service can be used for spam. MailCheap's acceptable use policy bans bought, rented and scraped lists and cold email to people who never signed up, every import requires the sender to confirm consent, and an automated check reads each issue before it goes out. The home page quotes four customers by name, two of them with links to their posts on X, which this page could not open (x.com needs a login).

## Sources

1. TrustMRR profile of MailCheap, Stripe-verified metrics, revenue last synced 8 November 2026 — https://trustmrr.com/startup/mailcheap.md (grade A). Read the markdown profile, downloaded 8 November 2026. The revenue, MRR and subscription figures are read by TrustMRR from Stripe through an API key; the profile text (founded date, funding, stack, channels, X followers) is founder-written and graded C.
2. TrustMRR profile of MailCheap, copy downloaded by the pipeline on 31 October 2026, revenue last synced 31 October 2026 — https://trustmrr.com/startup/mailcheap.md (grade A). Read the markdown copy saved on 31 October 2026 in the pipeline's research folder (harvest-income-reports-20261031/57/profile.md). Source for the 31 October MRR.
3. MailCheap home page, read 8 November 2026 — https://mailcheap.ai/ (grade C). Read in full. Source for the founder's account of why he built it, his newsletters, the features, the deliverability rules, the AI-agent interface, the testimonials and the operating company.
4. MailCheap pricing page, read 8 November 2026 — https://mailcheap.ai/pricing (grade C). Read in full; the yearly prices are read from the plan data in the page source. Source for the six plans, the beehiiv comparison and the billing rules.
5. MailCheap acceptable use policy, last updated 4 November 2026 — https://mailcheap.ai/acceptable-use (grade C). Read in full. Source for the consent rule, the banned lists and cold email, the content check and the bounce and complaint limits.
6. MailCheap help: Sending pace — https://mailcheap.ai/help/warm-up (grade C). Read in full. Source for the staged first sends and the Gmail pace per domain.
7. MailCheap deliverability page: live delivery, bounce and spam rates, to 8 November 2026 — https://mailcheap.ai/open (grade C). Read in full. Source for the emails delivered, the delivery and complaint rates, the addresses left out at import and the mention of the MailCheap team.
8. MailCheap changelog, read 8 November 2026 — https://mailcheap.ai/changelog (grade C). Read in full. Source for the oldest entry date and the changes of 7 November 2026.
9. GitHub repository marclou/mailcheap, read 8 November 2026 — https://github.com/marclou/mailcheap (grade B). Read the repository page and README. Source for the stars, commits, license, file list (AGENTS.md, .cursor/rules), the self-hosting stack and the Cloud setting.
10. GitHub, marclou/mailcheap: AGENTS.md — https://github.com/marclou/mailcheap/blob/main/AGENTS.md (grade B). Read in full. Instructions for AI coding agents; source for the framework, database and sign-in stack.
11. Marc Lou's home page, read 8 November 2026 — https://marclou.com/ (grade C). Read the introduction and the list of startups. Source for "All solo since 2021: 0 employees, 0 investors", the 43 startups, the newsletter count, TrustMRR as his startup and MailCheap's 30-day revenue line.
12. Marc Lou, 1 September 2026: I vibe-coded $330K in 9 months — https://marclou.com/p/i-vibe-coded-330k-in-9-months (grade C). Read the opening chapters. Source for building TrustMRR with Cursor and its launch on 30 October 2025.
13. MailCheap help: API and AI assistants — https://mailcheap.ai/help/api-and-ai (grade C). Read in full. Source for the assistants that connect and the OpenAI plan restriction.
14. MailCheap terms of service, last updated 4 November 2026 — https://mailcheap.ai/terms (grade C). Read the sections on who runs MailCheap and governing law.
15. Database of failed startups, local export — /method/#dead (grade C). Local export. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
16. ACRA Information on Corporate Entities ('J') on data.gov.sg: JUSTSHIPIT PTE. LTD., UEN 202348109R — https://data.gov.sg/api/action/datastore_search?resource_id=d_478f45a9c541cbe679ca55d1cd2b970b&q=JUSTSHIPIT (grade B). Read the register record returned by the data.gov.sg API on 8 November 2026 (dataset updated 14 October 2026). Source for the incorporation date, the company type, the status, the officer count and the absence of former names.

Contact: aiolum@livyden.com. Run MailCheap? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com (subject: Correction: MailCheap).