Should I Build It Should I Build It
10 May 2025
SaaS Email

An app that sends emails to customer when an event on your saas ...

...happens

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Competitive Terrain

While there's clear interest in your idea, the market is saturated with similar offerings. To succeed, your product needs to stand out by offering something unique that competitors aren't providing. The challenge here isn’t whether there’s demand, but how you can capture attention and keep it.

Should You Build It?

Not before thinking deeply about differentiation.

Your are here

Your idea for an app that sends emails based on events in a SaaS platform falls into a competitive category. There are many similar products already available, as indicated by the 14 matching products we found. This suggests that there is a proven need for such a service. User engagement with these similar products is high, with an average of 17 comments per launch, suggesting a good level of interest and feedback. However, to succeed, you'll need to find a way to differentiate your offering and stand out in a crowded market. Given the high number of competitors, it will be very important to find your niche and unique value proposition.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with a deep dive into the existing market. Analyze your competitors like Loops, Peakmails and others from the list and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Focus on understanding what users are saying about these products and where they fall short. For example, Loops received positive feedback for its simplicity but criticism for complexity and lack of user-friendliness.
  2. Identify 2-3 key areas where your app can offer a substantial improvement or differentiation. This could be a unique feature, a superior user experience, better pricing, or integrations with other SaaS tools, CRMs or marketing platforms (like Hubspot, Salesforce, Mailchimp etc.). Consider the criticisms from the similar products' launches - users often ask for integrations, workspace switching and privacy assurances.
  3. Consider focusing on a specific niche within the SaaS ecosystem. Instead of targeting all SaaS platforms, identify an underserved segment with specific needs that aren't being fully addressed. This could be SaaS companies in a particular industry (e.g., e-commerce, healthcare) or those using specific technologies.
  4. Develop a strong brand and marketing message that clearly communicates your app's unique value proposition. Given the intense competition, your branding and marketing efforts must be compelling and resonate with your target users. Consider creating explainer videos and content showcasing specific use cases, as suggested in the analysis of similar product launches.
  5. Prioritize gathering feedback from your early users and iterating quickly. Focus on building a loyal group of early adopters who will champion your product. Offer exceptional support and be responsive to their needs, as this was a key factor in the success of similar products like Loops.
  6. Implement robust analytics to track user engagement and identify areas for improvement. Pay close attention to metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. This data will help you optimize your app and ensure it meets the needs of your users.
  7. Carefully consider your pricing strategy. Given the competition, you may need to offer a competitive price point to attract users. However, avoid simply undercutting your competitors. Instead, focus on offering a superior value proposition that justifies your pricing.

Questions

  1. Given the existing competition, what specific problem are you solving that isn't already adequately addressed by current solutions, and how will you validate this gap exists?
  2. What are the key SaaS platforms you plan to integrate with initially, and what technical challenges do you anticipate in ensuring seamless integration and data synchronization?
  3. How will you ensure your email delivery infrastructure meets the required deliverability standards, and what measures will you take to maintain a high sender reputation to avoid emails being marked as spam?

Your are here

Your idea for an app that sends emails based on events in a SaaS platform falls into a competitive category. There are many similar products already available, as indicated by the 14 matching products we found. This suggests that there is a proven need for such a service. User engagement with these similar products is high, with an average of 17 comments per launch, suggesting a good level of interest and feedback. However, to succeed, you'll need to find a way to differentiate your offering and stand out in a crowded market. Given the high number of competitors, it will be very important to find your niche and unique value proposition.

Recommendations

  1. Begin with a deep dive into the existing market. Analyze your competitors like Loops, Peakmails and others from the list and identify their strengths and weaknesses. Focus on understanding what users are saying about these products and where they fall short. For example, Loops received positive feedback for its simplicity but criticism for complexity and lack of user-friendliness.
  2. Identify 2-3 key areas where your app can offer a substantial improvement or differentiation. This could be a unique feature, a superior user experience, better pricing, or integrations with other SaaS tools, CRMs or marketing platforms (like Hubspot, Salesforce, Mailchimp etc.). Consider the criticisms from the similar products' launches - users often ask for integrations, workspace switching and privacy assurances.
  3. Consider focusing on a specific niche within the SaaS ecosystem. Instead of targeting all SaaS platforms, identify an underserved segment with specific needs that aren't being fully addressed. This could be SaaS companies in a particular industry (e.g., e-commerce, healthcare) or those using specific technologies.
  4. Develop a strong brand and marketing message that clearly communicates your app's unique value proposition. Given the intense competition, your branding and marketing efforts must be compelling and resonate with your target users. Consider creating explainer videos and content showcasing specific use cases, as suggested in the analysis of similar product launches.
  5. Prioritize gathering feedback from your early users and iterating quickly. Focus on building a loyal group of early adopters who will champion your product. Offer exceptional support and be responsive to their needs, as this was a key factor in the success of similar products like Loops.
  6. Implement robust analytics to track user engagement and identify areas for improvement. Pay close attention to metrics such as email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. This data will help you optimize your app and ensure it meets the needs of your users.
  7. Carefully consider your pricing strategy. Given the competition, you may need to offer a competitive price point to attract users. However, avoid simply undercutting your competitors. Instead, focus on offering a superior value proposition that justifies your pricing.

Questions

  1. Given the existing competition, what specific problem are you solving that isn't already adequately addressed by current solutions, and how will you validate this gap exists?
  2. What are the key SaaS platforms you plan to integrate with initially, and what technical challenges do you anticipate in ensuring seamless integration and data synchronization?
  3. How will you ensure your email delivery infrastructure meets the required deliverability standards, and what measures will you take to maintain a high sender reputation to avoid emails being marked as spam?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 14
  • Engagement: High
    • Average number of comments: 17
  • Net use signal: 27.6%
    • Positive use signal: 28.5%
    • Negative use signal: 0.9%
  • Net buy signal: 4.9%
    • Positive buy signal: 5.7%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.9%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Peakmails – Email for SaaS Companies

13 Jul 2024 Email Email Marketing

Hello HN! Introducing Peakmails https://peakmails.com , a platform aimed at helping SaaS businesses increase their email engagement and revenue using email.Setting up email workflows is a time consuming and painful process, which we aim to simplify. We support creating and sending marketing, product, and transactional email. You can send emails manually in the app, via API, or triggered via an integration.We also support sending drip campaigns, and sequences triggered by pre-defined events.To create emails, you can:- use or customize one of our pre-made templates- create your own templates using our drag-and-drop no-code editor- import your own HTML- use markdownOur editor is unique. We have built a series of components specific for usecases for SaaS businesses, such as product usage block, charts, login OTP, and more.We're currently working on improving our documentation, available at https://peakmails.com/docs.Though we support sending promotional emails, we have systems in place to flag potential abuse or spam behavior. We actively monitor to ensure our platform isn't used for spamming end users.We do not charge customers based on the size of their audience/contact list. For now, we are not charging for the number of emails sent as well, although that may change in the future. At the moment, we have one, simple and straightforward pricing plan.We have not launched publicly, but are onboarding customers one by one. Helps understand our customers' businesses better, and what more should the platform have to cover their usecases. :-)If you're interested in trying out our platform, I would love to give you a demo https://peakmails.com/book-demo and get your feedback.I am really interested in any feedback you have, as we build the best possible email platform for SaaS businesses.Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Avatar
2
2
Relevance

Peakmails - Send unlimited transactional emails for free

02 Sep 2024 SaaS Email Email Marketing

PeakMails makes email marketing for modern SaaS businesses easy. Send emails that convert with our powerful email marketing platform. Send transactional emails, broadcast promotional emails, create drip campaigns and more. Easy and free to get started.

Users are interested in this email marketing solution, particularly for both transactional and promotional emails. The platform's templates and customization options are seen as valuable for user engagement.

Avatar
5
3
33.3%
3
5
33.3%
Relevance

I turned my email automation tool into a full-fledged email platform

09 Jun 2023 Email Productivity

Around 10 months ago, I published a tool I made (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32229278).I was scouring the market for an affordable and easy-to-use email automation tool, to no avail. The solution? I decided to just build it myself.Since then, I've added the ability to send transactional and broadcast emails, threw out the subscription pricing and turned it into a usage-based model, etc. In short, turned it into a full-fledged email platform designed for SaaS.With this post, I would like to share my learnings, findings... Ask any question and I'll answer it to the best of my ability.Thanks to the feedback of the HN community, I was able to turn this into something that I am still proud of every single day. A sincere thank you from my side.

Users find Plunk to be a super cool end-to-end SaaS application and suggest CRM/email tool integrations for better onboarding. There's curiosity about the most challenging aspects of building the app and inquiries about handling transactional and broadcast emails. Users also recommend creating blog posts across various categories. One user noted the lack of a use case to test the app but offered feedback.

Users criticized the Show HN product for lacking CRM/email tool integrations, needing more content on use cases, and not providing a use case to test the app.

Avatar
10
6
-16.7%
6
10
Relevance

Loops - Email made easy

06 Sep 2023 Email Email Marketing Developer Tools

Email for modern SaaS. Loops is a better way to send marketing + transactional email.

Loops' Product Hunt launch received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with users praising its simplicity, ease of use, and modern UI/UX as a Mailchimp alternative. Many highlighted the responsive team, excellent support, and quick setup. Several users mentioned using Loops for various applications, including SaaS, newsletters, and transactional emails, often replacing existing tools like Mailchimp and Intercom. Some users raised questions about advanced features, integrations (like Rudderstack and Wordpress), deliverability, pricing, and differentiation from competitors. Overall, users are excited about Loops' potential and its impact on simplifying email marketing.

Users criticize the product's complexity and lack of user-friendliness, desiring more customization and no-code integrations. High pricing and limited service compared to established players like Mailchimp and Sendgrid are concerns. Users request features like multiple unsubscribe lists, improved email design options, detailed analytics (link click tracking), and workspace switching. Privacy assurances regarding tracking methods are also requested. Buggy UI/UX and slow loading times need fixing, also direct integrations with services like Beatstars and Wordpress.

Avatar
1423
186
32.8%
5.9%
186
1423
33.3%
7.0%
Relevance

PolyglotMail – internationalized transactional emails for SaaS

04 May 2023 Email

Dear fellow hackers,Taking a break from AI discussions, I'd like to share something I've been working on.As a solo founder, I've been running a successful SaaS for the last three years (success to me is over $10K MRR). However, the saturated market and high churn rate made me eager to work on something new.One of my main struggles with my current SaaS was internationalization, specifically sending internationalized transactional emails to my users. I ended up building a solution from scratch within my app.After two years of using it, I thought it might be helpful for other developers out there and possibly lead to a low-churn business. I asked ChatGPT for a name, and it suggested "PolyglotMail". The domain was available, and I built a functional MVP that I integrated in my own SaaS.I'm excited to hear your feedback on PolyglotMail and would love to find at least one passionate early adopter who can provide deep, actionable feedback by using the product.Looking forward to your thoughts!Have a great day,Conrad

Announcing GraphAr, an open-source graph data file format.

Avatar
1
1
1
1
Relevance

Mailshouts - Customized insights over email

08 Jun 2023 SaaS Email Business Intelligence

A game-changing SaaS platform that empowers you to effortlessly deliver powerful, customized insights to your team, clients, and stakeholders, directly in their inboxes. No logins, no apps—just email.

The Product Hunt launch received positive feedback, with users congratulating the team and expressing excitement about the platform. Several users specifically mentioned the clean UI and the potential impact of the tool on the industry. Multiple users indicated they would try the product, reinforcing the initial positive impression.

Avatar
78
5
40.0%
5
78
40.0%
Relevance

I made a presentation video for my SaaS API. Here's what's looks like

29 Oct 2024 SaaS

Hi guysI've been working on a new API for sending transactional emails for several weeks now.In preparation for my ProductHunt launch in a few weeks, here is the video I made!Share your feedback!

Users inquired about the software used for the presentation. Some found the presentation too long and felt there was excessive movement.

The main criticism is that the content is too lengthy and has excessive movement.

Avatar
4
2
2
4
Top