Email Marketing for Rebels: How to Grow Without Paying for Fluff

There was a time I thought the email platform was the key. I used Soundest (now Omnisend), convinced that if I just plugged into the “right” system, sales would follow. And at first, it felt like it was working. The numbers looked good. We were hitting the right notes, sending to tens of thousands of people. But deep down, I thought the tool was doing the heavy lifting—not me. I’d forgotten the basics: offer, audience, and message.

Fast forward: 50,000 people on the list. I had no idea where most of them came from. We had no segmentation, no meaningful interaction, no surveys, no behavioral tracking. We weren’t even collecting intel—just hoarding emails like gold. That was the first sign of trouble.

Then the shills came knocking. Klaviyo reps whispered sweet nothings to my partners. “Automations!” “Cart recovery!” “Birthday flows!” All designed to make you feel like you’re falling behind if you’re not running 12 triggered sequences and paying $200 a month to do it. But I knew better. I could see through it. It was bloat disguised as brilliance. That’s not strategy—that’s addiction with a UI.

We considered Mailchimp, but it was no better. Holding a list that size would’ve run us over $500/month—and that’s without even pressing “send.” That’s when we landed on Brevo. It seemed affordable at first. But it was the same wolf in a different outfit. We still didn’t know our list. We never verified it. We kept sending emails to people who hadn’t opened a message in three years. It was dumb.

Then Brevo shut us down.

They blocked our sending. Forced us to prove double opt-in. That was the moment. I was staring at a list of real customers—people who had paid us money—and we were being told we couldn’t even speak to them. That wasn’t protection. That was control. I was literally paying them to gatekeep my own audience.

And that’s when I realized: this industry isn’t built to help us. It’s built to drain us.

The System Is Broken

Klaviyo charges more as you grow. Mailchimp punishes you for adding contacts. Brevo makes you pay to risk your reputation on their IP addresses. ESPs pretend to be CRMs. They hide their deliverability data. They offer flashy dashboards to distract you from the fact that you’re not building relationships—you’re just running flows.

But that’s not email marketing. Not the real kind. Real email marketing is relationship-driven. It’s about trust, repetition, timing, and clarity. It’s about knowing who you’re talking to, what they care about, and why your message matters. That can’t be automated. That can’t be “templated.” And it sure as hell can’t be priced by the number of contacts you’re holding onto out of fear.

The Hard Truth: The Problem Was Me

It took getting shut down to realize the problem wasn’t Brevo. It was me. I didn’t know my list. I didn’t verify my list. I didn’t even have an offer. I was just sending. Hoping. Guessing. Thinking the software would make the difference. But software doesn’t create connection. People do.

I found that 10% of my list was garbage. Catchalls. Misspellings. Dead addresses. Another two-thirds hadn’t even opened in years. But I kept paying to store them—like it gave me leverage. Like it meant I was doing something right. It was nonsense.

You can’t close people who don’t know you. You can’t sell to people who never asked. And you damn sure can’t build a business sending meaningless messages to inboxes you don’t understand.

The Real Strategy

You know what works? Knowing your list. Verifying it. Talking to your people often. With confidence. With intent. Making offers that actually matter. Letting the wrong people go early. Letting them opt out freely. Respecting the relationship.

It’s not about abandoned carts. Not about fancy HTML. Not about A/B testing or midnight automations with seven variants. That stuff is cute—for Nike. For Coke. For McDonald’s. They have billions of impressions to play with.

But for us? For real small businesses, rebels, and builders? It’s about hitting hard and hitting clean.

This Is Why I Built MailBullet

MailBullet was born out of frustration—but raised in clarity. I didn’t want another fancy tool. I didn’t want to stack feature sets or use buzzwords like “journeys” or “flows.” I just wanted to email my people. On my terms. Without paying a ransom every month. Without getting blocked. Without being forced into compliance by people who don’t even know my brand.

MailBullet is $15/month. You get 10,000 emails a day. Unlimited contacts. List verification at cost. Hands-on support. Templates if you want them. Plain text if you don’t. Automations powered by logic, not lock-in. And most importantly: you own the relationship.

This is not a product for marketers. This is a weapon for builders. For senders. For rebels.

Email Marketing for the People

Email isn’t dead. It’s just been hijacked. It’s been turned into a pricing scheme. A club for insiders. A tool for platforms to extract from the very people who make it valuable.

But not anymore.

I took the pain. I took the loss. And I turned it into a platform. Not just for me – for anyone who wants to take back control. If you’ve ever felt trapped, overbilled, blocked, or belittled by your ESP, then MailBullet is for you.

You don’t need to pay for fluff. You don’t need permission to send. You just need to know your list, verify your names, speak clearly, and sell like hell.

Welcome to the rebellion.

Fire off the fees. Forge your empire. Own your inbox.

Welcome to MailBullet.