WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.161 Hey. So here's a question I've gotten. Can I just replace my email program with 00:00:04.161 --> 00:00:05.015 AI? For cheaper? 00:00:05.015 --> 00:00:08.612 The answer is yes... But that word "cheaper" is doing a lot of work in that 00:00:08.612 --> 00:00:12.063 question. Because what you save in dollars, you sort of pick up in other 00:00:12.063 --> 00:00:12.306 ways. 00:00:12.306 --> 00:00:16.406 This is "AI, Honestly."... I'm Drew. I take real AI-related questions from 00:00:16.406 --> 00:00:20.900 founders and business owners... and tell you what's real, what's not, and what it 00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:23.034 would take to build. No HYPE. No DOOM. 00:00:29.034 --> 00:00:29.034 00:00:29.034 --> 00:00:32.865 So whoever's asking this... it's somebody with an email list. They send marketing 00:00:32.865 --> 00:00:36.648 emails, maybe some announcements now and then. It's not the core of the business 00:00:36.648 --> 00:00:40.431 or anything. But every month there's this bill. And some of these email programs 00:00:40.431 --> 00:00:42.873 get really expensive, especially as your list grows. 00:00:42.873 --> 00:00:47.446 And I think that's the part that bugs people. Because of how a lot of these 00:00:47.446 --> 00:00:52.389 services price you. They charge you more as your list gets bigger. So you're sort 00:00:52.389 --> 00:00:57.147 of paying rent to store email addresses. The more successful you get, the more 00:00:57.147 --> 00:01:02.090 people you've collected... the more you pay. To store them. It's a spreadsheet of 00:01:02.090 --> 00:01:05.118 emails, more or less, and the bill keeps climbing. 00:01:05.118 --> 00:01:08.306 So yeah, I get the question. You look at that bill, you look at what AI can do 00:01:08.306 --> 00:01:10.087 now, and you go, wait. Why am I paying this? 00:01:10.087 --> 00:01:14.113 Yes. You can replace it. But the real answer kind of splits into three 00:01:14.113 --> 00:01:14.638 versions. 00:01:14.638 --> 00:01:18.871 So... version one is the basics. Sending emails to your list, handling 00:01:18.871 --> 00:01:23.289 unsubscribes, basic templates. All of that is very doable with AI. Pretty 00:01:23.289 --> 00:01:27.890 easily, even. And that's where most people are gonna save the most money, so 00:01:27.890 --> 00:01:29.731 that's the good spot to be in. 00:01:29.731 --> 00:01:33.642 Version two is the bonus stuff. Stuff that's actually more capable than your 00:01:33.642 --> 00:01:37.344 off-the-shelf program. Custom logic that's specific to how your business 00:01:37.344 --> 00:01:41.516 works. I've got an example of that one, 'cause it's kind of the fun part, so hold 00:01:41.516 --> 00:01:42.037 onto that. 00:01:42.037 --> 00:01:46.362 And then version three is the top end. If you've got somebody designing fancy 00:01:46.362 --> 00:01:50.686 custom templates in a drag-and-drop visual editor, with automation wired into 00:01:50.686 --> 00:01:55.011 Shopify and a couple other systems... that's where I'd kind of say, eh, maybe 00:01:55.011 --> 00:01:59.620 don't. And it's not that AI can't do it. It's that rebuilding all of that yourself 00:01:59.620 --> 00:02:03.888 would be a huge job, and the program you're already paying for just does it. 00:02:03.888 --> 00:02:06.278 At that end, the math kind of flips on you. 00:02:06.278 --> 00:02:12.427 But most of you listening, you're in version one or two. So... that's the good 00:02:12.427 --> 00:02:12.826 news. 00:02:12.826 --> 00:02:17.172 Now, here's the one thing you can't really get around. You do have to pay 00:02:17.172 --> 00:02:21.638 something. Because you need a reputable sender. You need to be sending from 00:02:21.638 --> 00:02:26.044 somewhere that follows the spam laws, where the sender's verified, so your 00:02:26.044 --> 00:02:30.148 emails actually land in the inbox and don't just go straight to spam. 00:02:30.148 --> 00:02:33.910 And that, right there, is what these email programs are really selling you. 00:02:33.910 --> 00:02:37.622 Take away the templates and the list management and the dashboards and all 00:02:37.622 --> 00:02:41.588 that... and the thing of real value is delivery. The fact that your email shows 00:02:41.588 --> 00:02:45.147 up where it's supposed to. That reliability. That's the actual product. 00:02:45.147 --> 00:02:47.933 So you still need that piece. And here's where you get it cheap. 00:02:47.933 --> 00:02:51.514 The tool is called Re-send. It's a sending service, and it handles exactly 00:02:51.514 --> 00:02:54.899 that piece. The reliable, verified, won't-get-dumped-in-spam delivery. 00:02:54.899 --> 00:02:59.100 The free tier gets you up to 100 emails a day, or 3,000 a month. So if you're just 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:02.887 testing an idea, getting something off the ground, free works for a while. 00:03:02.887 --> 00:03:06.639 Once you grow past that, the first paid tier is twenty bucks a month. And that 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:10.489 gets you a lot. It takes the daily cap off entirely. So whatever your email bill 00:03:10.489 --> 00:03:13.754 is right now, kind of picture it as twenty dollars. That's the move. 00:03:13.754 --> 00:03:18.174 Now here's the trick. The reason this ends up so cheap. You don't store your 00:03:18.174 --> 00:03:22.652 list in Re-send. Storing the list is the thing that runs up the bill on those 00:03:22.652 --> 00:03:27.248 other services, right, that's the whole rent thing I mentioned. So instead, you 00:03:27.248 --> 00:03:31.727 store your emails in a database you control. In my case I often use Supabase. 00:03:31.727 --> 00:03:35.762 And this is the part that makes it close to free. If you're already running a 00:03:35.762 --> 00:03:39.904 website or a product on Supabase, or any database, you just add a table. You're 00:03:39.904 --> 00:03:43.992 site is already running on Supabase, so you add a table for the email signups, 00:03:43.992 --> 00:03:48.186 one for sending logs, and... that's kind of it. Storage is basically free 'cause 00:03:48.186 --> 00:03:50.257 you're reusing what you've already got. 00:03:50.257 --> 00:03:54.905 So then the system itself. An agentic system that gets run through command line 00:03:54.905 --> 00:03:59.494 prompts, or eventually a UI. There's a folder with your email templates in it, 00:03:59.494 --> 00:04:04.083 written in markdown. You run a command, an agent grabs a template, checks your 00:04:04.083 --> 00:04:07.301 list in the database, and sends it out through Re-send. 00:04:07.301 --> 00:04:10.919 And unsubscribes, you build those right in. In my setup it's a Supabase edge 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:14.682 function. Every email goes out with an unsubscribe link in the footer. Somebody 00:04:14.682 --> 00:04:18.541 clicks it, it updates a table that marks them unsubscribed, and the next time you 00:04:18.541 --> 00:04:22.111 send, it just skips them. It's pretty easy. The AI walks you through making 00:04:22.111 --> 00:04:23.462 sure that part's done right. 00:04:23.462 --> 00:04:26.666 Okay, so now the bonus layer. The fun part. Version two. 00:04:26.666 --> 00:04:30.749 I had a site with purchases on it. Separate system, but it shared the same 00:04:30.749 --> 00:04:34.608 database. And we wanted to send a custom-but-templated thank-you email 00:04:34.608 --> 00:04:38.802 whenever somebody bought something. But only their first time. So we set the 00:04:38.802 --> 00:04:43.164 agent up to scan the purchases table, craft the message based on recipient, and 00:04:43.164 --> 00:04:47.527 every time it sent a thank-you, it logged it to a separate "sent" table. So the 00:04:47.527 --> 00:04:51.721 next time, it could check. Has this person already gotten this one? No? Send 00:04:51.721 --> 00:04:52.672 it. Yes? Skip it. 00:04:52.672 --> 00:04:55.706 And that was built on top of the email system, because it existed and I 00:04:55.706 --> 00:04:56.573 controlled it fully. 00:04:56.573 --> 00:05:00.945 And that's the thing. Once you own the whole system, you can do stuff like that. 00:05:00.945 --> 00:05:05.207 Stuff that's custom to your business. In some ways it's more flexible than the 00:05:05.207 --> 00:05:09.746 out-of-the-box product, 'cause you're not stuck inside whatever their software lets 00:05:09.746 --> 00:05:10.133 you do. 00:05:10.133 --> 00:05:14.760 Now, one more piece. Because everything I just described runs from a command line. 00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:19.329 You're editing a file, running a command. And for most business owners, that's... 00:05:19.329 --> 00:05:21.557 yeah, that's not gonna work day to day. 00:05:21.557 --> 00:05:25.714 So you put a light little interface on top. And this part's simple. It's just a 00:05:25.714 --> 00:05:29.711 skin over the thing. A box to type your email, a button to send. You hit the 00:05:29.711 --> 00:05:33.868 button, it runs the command behind the scenes. Stick it on a domain, hand it to 00:05:33.868 --> 00:05:37.439 your team, and now anybody can use it. Nobody's touching a terminal. 00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:40.710 And look, even if none of that command-line stuff landed for you just 00:05:40.710 --> 00:05:44.414 now, that's fine. I just wanted you to hear what's under the hood. But you can 00:05:44.414 --> 00:05:48.117 hire somebody to set this up without too much trouble. You don't need an email 00:05:48.117 --> 00:05:51.869 expert who knows everything. You just need somebody who can hook up Re-send and 00:05:51.869 --> 00:05:55.717 then listen to the AI when it tells them, hey, you gotta add an unsubscribe link. 00:05:55.717 --> 00:05:57.593 You listen, you add it. That's the job. 00:05:57.593 --> 00:05:58.986 So here's what that pitch leaves out. 00:05:58.986 --> 00:06:03.749 First one. You're building this. Which means you own the edge cases now. When 00:06:03.749 --> 00:06:08.261 something breaks — a send fails, an unsubscribe doesn't fire — there's no 00:06:08.261 --> 00:06:12.711 support line to call. It's you, or whoever you hired. With the expensive 00:06:12.711 --> 00:06:17.098 program, that headache was kind of baked into what you were paying for. 00:06:17.098 --> 00:06:21.500 Second. The top-end stuff I mentioned. If you've got advanced automations wired 00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:25.619 into Shopify and a bunch of other systems, you'd have to rebuild every one 00:06:25.619 --> 00:06:30.134 of those in AI. It's possible. If you're a big enough business with custom enough 00:06:30.134 --> 00:06:34.536 workflows, you can absolutely automate that part too. But possible and worth-it 00:06:34.536 --> 00:06:38.937 are not the same thing. So be honest with yourself about how much you're really 00:06:38.937 --> 00:06:40.179 signing up to rebuild. 00:06:40.179 --> 00:06:43.990 And third, deliverability is the whole game here. You'll still always want to 00:06:43.990 --> 00:06:47.700 pay for that, but that's the one thing we're still paying for... Re-send or 00:06:47.700 --> 00:06:48.352 someone else. 00:06:48.352 --> 00:06:52.541 So... can AI save you money on your email sending? Yeah. Real money, especially as 00:06:52.541 --> 00:06:56.679 your list gets big. It's not free. Figure twenty bucks a month most likely, maybe 00:06:56.679 --> 00:07:00.299 free if you're small. And it's gonna pretty much always beat what those 00:07:00.299 --> 00:07:02.006 third-party providers charge you. 00:07:02.006 --> 00:07:05.665 It really just comes down to which version you want. The basics? Easy win, 00:07:05.665 --> 00:07:09.524 go do it. The custom bonus stuff? Even better, and sometimes hard to buy off a 00:07:09.524 --> 00:07:13.332 shelf. The full enterprise automation rebuild? ... yeah, maybe leave that one 00:07:13.332 --> 00:07:14.034 alone for now. 00:07:14.034 --> 00:07:15.288 That's it for this episode.