When you think about email marketing, you probably picture drag-and-drop builders, A/B tests, and growth hacks shared by marketing influencers. Not code. Not APIs. Not dev tools.
But here’s the thing: email marketing is very much a developer’s playground. If you’re building apps, launching products, or even tinkering with side projects, email is often the most powerful, flexible, and technical tool you have for reaching users.
And to make it easier for folks like us, I put together this repo:
👉 Awesome Email Marketing – A curated GitHub list of tools, templates, APIs, and learning resources to help developers dive into email marketing without having to wade through fluff.
Email: Still the Most Reliable Channel
We spend so much time optimizing for SEO, tweeting our way into timelines, and experimenting with social reach—but email remains one of the few channels you truly own.
It doesn’t depend on an algorithm. It lands directly in a person’s inbox. And unlike a tweet, it doesn’t vanish in 30 minutes.
But here's the real kicker: most email marketing platforms come with APIs, webhooks, SDKs, and other dev-friendly ways to integrate. Want to trigger onboarding emails when a user finishes a tutorial? You can code that. Want to personalize content for 10k users? That's just a script away.
Where Dev Meets Marketing
Email marketing is also where developers and marketers actually collaborate. You write the backend that sends transactional emails. You set up the event triggers. You make sure SPF/DKIM/DMARC are configured correctly so your messages don’t land in spam.
But you might not always want to go it alone.
I recently discovered Marketinguys, a smart directory for finding marketing talent. If you’re a solo builder or part of a small team, you can plug in a vetted marketer to help shape campaigns while you handle the tech. Think of it like Upwork, but focused, higher signal, and actually useful for startups.
And if you like staying sharp with ideas, The Marketing Newsletter is surprisingly solid. It’s short, curated, and written with a builder mindset—no fluff, no buzzwords. I’ve started skimming it weekly alongside engineering newsletters, and it actually balances the feed.
Tools, Templates & Tinkering
Most developers (including me) hate dealing with HTML email. It’s archaic. It breaks easily. There’s no flexbox, no grid, and Outlook will ruin your day.
But tools like MJML and Maizzle—both listed in the Awesome Email Marketing repo—abstract away a lot of the pain. You write modern markup, and they spit out robust, responsive email HTML.
There’s also Marketing Tools List, a massive directory where you’ll find lesser-known gems for email automation, testing, deliverability, and analytics. I ended up discovering a free tool there to preview emails across clients, which saved me hours of testing.
You’ll find many of these in the GitHub repo I mentioned, but what makes the tools list special is that it includes non-email tools too—so it’s great if you want to zoom out and optimize your full marketing stack.
Just Start Somewhere
The hardest part of email marketing as a dev isn’t the code—it’s knowing where to begin.
Do you use Mailchimp or Resend? Do you build custom flows or integrate Zapier? What even is a good open rate?
That’s why I created Awesome Email Marketing. Not because I have all the answers—but because I was tired of hunting them down every time I built something new.
It’s full of tools I use (or admire), guides I trust, and platforms worth knowing. And it's open for contributions—if you've got a go-to library, ESP, or template set, I'd love a pull request.
TL;DR
Email marketing is more technical than most devs realize—and more powerful too.
- It’s not just Mailchimp and marketing teams.
- It’s automation, APIs, templates, logic, and real-time messaging.
- And it’s one of the few channels you own as a builder.
Whether you’re sending your first onboarding sequence or scaling up a full email system, start with tools built for developers. Then pair up with marketers when you need to, stay inspired with curated newsletters, and keep building smarter workflows.
Start here 👉 github.com/alisongbs/awesome-email-marketing
there are so many beautiful products that are struggling to see the spotlight because devs are ignoring or simply not aware of marketing tactics. email marketing still very much alive. same as seo. same as ads. despite of ai and other things out there - a good old marketing efforts get the needle moving. thanks for a depository of marketing tools - really nice collection!