Mailwizz sells a Regular License at $89 and an Extended License at $275, both one-time purchases for unlimited everything on a single website (Mailwizz, 2026). Mailblast is a hosted management layer starting at $10 per month after a free tier covering 1,000 contacts. Both turn your own Amazon SES account into a real email marketing platform, and both bill you separately for AWS SES at $0.10 per 1,000 emails (AWS, 2026). The right choice almost never comes down to features - it comes down to who runs the server and who absorbs the operational risk.
This post compares the two with real numbers from current pricing pages, then makes an opinionated recommendation by operator profile rather than feature checklist.
What is Mailwizz, and how does it compare to Mailblast architecturally?
Mailwizz is a self-hosted PHP and MySQL application that you license, install on your own Linux server, and operate yourself. It is explicitly designed to work with multiple delivery backends - the Mailwizz features page says "Create as many delivery servers as you need. Choose between your SMTP servers or any of the big known email providers" (Mailwizz, 2026). Amazon SES is one of the most common backends, but Mailwizz also accepts plain SMTP, Sendgrid, Mailgun, and others. You own the server, the database, the cron jobs, and the upgrade path.
Mailblast is a SaaS management layer purpose-built for Amazon SES. You sign up, paste your AWS access key, and start sending. There is no server to maintain, no PHP to patch, no MySQL to back up. Both products leave AWS in charge of the actual sending and per-email billing; the management layer handles the editor, lists, automation, and reporting. The architectural split is therefore identical in spirit to other BYO-SES comparisons - see Sendy vs Mailblast for the same pattern with a different competitor - but Mailwizz sits at the heavier, more configurable end of the self-hosted spectrum.
Pricing and total cost of ownership
Mailwizz's published list prices are $89 for the Regular License and $275 for the Extended License, both one-time fees that include one month of free support (Mailwizz, 2026). Mailblast's free plan covers 1,000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month with no automation sends; paid plans start at $10 per month for that same 1,000 contacts and add automation. Headline numbers favor Mailwizz, but headline numbers ignore the server and the human running it.
A realistic 12-month total cost of ownership has to include VPS hosting (typically $10-20 per month for a small Mailwizz install), software updates, PHP and MySQL patching, deliverability monitoring, and the operator time to do all of that. The chart below puts numbers on three scenarios - one hour, two hours, and four hours of ops time per month at $50 per hour - alongside Mailblast's $10 per month entry paid plan over the same window.
At one hour per month of operator time, Mailwizz still costs more than 7x Mailblast over a year. At two hours per month - a realistic number once you include AWS console checks, bounce review, and at least one PHP or plugin update - the gap is over 12x. The Extended License at $275 instead of $89 simply shifts every Mailwizz bar up by another $186. The license fee is the smallest line item in self-hosted email; ignoring the rest is the standard mistake.
Features head-to-head
Both products cover the same surface area, but with different defaults. Mailwizz advertises a choice of email editors - "Choose from Basic, GrapesJS, Stripo and many others" (Mailwizz, 2026) - plus landing pages, A/B testing, surveys, and unlimited customer accounts. Mailblast ships a single drag-and-drop editor (BeeFree), automation on every paid plan, and the deliberate omissions of landing pages and A/B testing. The trade is breadth-of-features versus simplicity.
| Capability | Mailwizz | Mailblast |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $89 Regular / $275 Extended, one-time | Free up to 1,000 contacts; from $10/month |
| Hosting | Self-hosted PHP and MySQL | Hosted (no server) |
| Drag-and-drop editor | ✓ Yes (Basic, GrapesJS, Stripo, others) | ✓ Yes (BeeFree) |
| Automation | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes (paid plans only, not Free) |
| List management and segments | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| A/B testing | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Landing pages | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Surveys | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Multi-brand / SaaS resale | ✓ Yes (Extended License) | ✗ No |
| Amazon SES integration | Configure as one delivery server | ✓ Native, primary backend |
| Bounce and complaint handling | Manual SNS / feedback loop setup | ✓ Managed |
| Operational ownership | Your server, your patches, your uptime | Mailblast runs the platform; you bring AWS |
| Platform branding on sent emails | None (your domain) | None on paid plans (free plan has a footer) |
The feature gap that matters most is not A/B testing or landing pages - those are nice but rarely the bottleneck for small senders. It is the SES integration depth. Mailwizz treats Amazon SES as one delivery option among many, which is good for flexibility and bad for tight feedback handling. Mailblast is built around SES specifically, so bounce processing, complaint feedback, and reputation monitoring are wired in by default rather than left as a configuration project.
When Mailwizz is the right call
Mailwizz wins when the operator either wants or needs full ownership. The clearest fit is the multi-brand agency: the Extended License explicitly permits SaaS resale, and the product supports "unlimited separate customer accounts" with customer groups and "very fine grained permissions and limitations" (Mailwizz, 2026). If you are running an agency that bills clients for managed email, Mailwizz with the Extended License is a defensible architecture in a way Mailblast is not.
The second fit is the team that genuinely wants deep customisation - custom delivery routing across multiple SMTP providers, custom subscriber fields wired into a PHP plugin, A/B testing baked into every send, or landing pages and surveys hosted on the same domain as the campaigns. Mailwizz exposes more surface area than most BYO-SES tools, and if you have PHP-fluent engineers who can carry the maintenance, that surface area is valuable.
The third fit is the operator with strict data residency or compliance requirements that rule out SaaS. If the contract says subscriber data must live on infrastructure you control, no hosted product clears the bar. Mailwizz on a VPS in the right jurisdiction does. The flip side is that you also own every patch, every backup, and every uptime incident.
When Mailblast is the right call
Mailblast wins for operators who value hands-off operations, whether that's a single brand or an agency running a few client accounts through sub-accounts. The free plan covering 1,000 contacts and 10,000 emails per month means small senders pay nothing until they grow; paid plans from $10 per month add automation and replace the entire VPS-plus-PHP-plus-ops stack with a single line item. There is no server to keep patched, no MySQL to back up, and no AWS console babysitting between campaigns.
The architectural argument is the same one made for Sendy alternatives running on Amazon SES: for most single-brand operators, the time spent maintaining a self-hosted application is worth more than the license savings. Mailwizz is more capable than Sendy and so a stronger case for self-hosting than Sendy is, but the time math still favors hosted unless you specifically need agency features or deep customisation.
The second fit is the operator who wants AWS SES economics without learning SES. Mailblast is opinionated about SES specifically: bounce and complaint processing is managed, sender reputation is monitored in-product, and the setup flow assumes you are using your own AWS account. You get the $0.10-per-1,000-emails cost structure of SES (AWS, 2026) without having to read the SES monitoring docs end-to-end.
Recommendation
If you are an agency reselling email to clients, or a team with PHP engineers and a hard requirement for landing pages, A/B testing, surveys, or multi-tenant separation, buy the Mailwizz Extended License at $275 and budget for the VPS and the ops time honestly. Mailwizz is the more capable product on paper, and the Extended License is genuinely cheap for what it does.
If you are a single brand sending newsletters, transactional, or lifecycle email through your own AWS SES account, and you do not have a dedicated engineer assigned to email infrastructure, use Mailblast. The hosted model removes a category of work - server maintenance, PHP updates, AWS console monitoring - that almost always costs more than the subscription saves. Start on the free plan, validate the sending, and only upgrade once you cross the 1,000-contact line.
The wrong answer is to buy a Mailwizz license because it looks cheap, then discover six months in that you are spending a weekend a month on it. Self-hosted email is only cheap if your time is free.
FAQ
Is Mailwizz or Mailblast cheaper?
At the software level, Mailwizz's regular license is $89 one-time and Mailblast paid plans start at $10 per month (with a free plan covering 1,000 contacts). Once you add a VPS at $10-20 per month plus operator time on PHP, MySQL, and cron maintenance, the gap narrows quickly. At 12 months and roughly 2 hours per month of ops at $50 per hour, Mailblast is meaningfully cheaper than the Mailwizz regular license stack.
What is the difference between the Mailwizz regular and extended licenses?
Mailwizz sells two one-time licenses. The Regular License at $89 is restricted to personal use and one website, with one month of free support. The Extended License at $275 allows you to operate Mailwizz as a SaaS and resell access to customers, with priority support. Both promise unlimited everything on the application side; AWS SES still bills you per email separately.
Does Mailwizz support multi-brand or agency use cases?
Yes, in different ways. Mailwizz's Extended License explicitly permits SaaS resale - you can operate it as your own hosted product for other businesses. Mailblast doesn't offer resale, but it does support agency use through sub-accounts: an agency creates a separate account per client, each with its own AWS keys, lists, and optional whitelabel branding (custom domain, logo, colors). Mailwizz's Extended License is the closer fit if you specifically want to resell the software itself; Mailblast's sub-accounts work well for agencies managing several client brands without reselling the platform.
Can I migrate from Mailwizz to Mailblast?
Yes. Mailblast accepts CSV imports of subscribers and lists, which Mailwizz can export directly. Campaign templates and automations need to be rebuilt, since Mailwizz stores them in MySQL using its own schema. Verified SES identities, dedicated IPs, and sender reputation stay attached to your AWS account, so switching the management layer does not reset deliverability.
Which has better deliverability: Mailwizz or Mailblast?
Both route real sending through your own Amazon SES account, so the underlying infrastructure is identical. The difference is operational. Mailwizz lets you wire up SES, SNS feedback, bounces, and complaints yourself and expects you to monitor reputation in the AWS console. Mailblast handles bounce processing, complaint feedback, and AWS reputation monitoring as part of the hosted service, which reduces the chance of an avoidable suspension.
Disclosure: this post is published by Mailblast. The Mailwizz pricing, feature claims, and license terms quoted above are taken from the Mailwizz pricing and features pages on the dates listed in the sources. Mailblast plan details reflect current Mailblast pricing.