Intermediate5 min readShare

Email & Notifications for AI Coders

Send transactional emails, marketing campaigns, and push notifications from your app.

Types of Email

Transactional Emails

Triggered by user actions. Sent immediately to one person.

Welcome emailPassword resetOrder confirmationInvoice / ReceiptAccount verificationTwo-factor code

Marketing Emails

Sent to groups for promotion. Requires unsubscribe link.

NewsletterProduct updatesPromotional offersRe-engagementEvent invitationsOnboarding drip

Email Service Providers

Resend

Modern email API built for developers. Beautiful DX, React Email support. By the creator of Vercel's email.

Recommended

SendGrid

By Twilio. Reliable, high-volume email delivery. Good for both transactional and marketing.

Popular

Postmark

Fast transactional email delivery. Known for excellent deliverability rates.

Transactional

Mailgun

Developer-friendly email API. Good for high volume. Pay as you go.

Scalable

AWS SES

Amazon's email service. Very cheap at scale. More setup required.

Cheap at Scale

Mailchimp / ConvertKit

Marketing-focused. Email campaigns, audiences, automations. Less developer-oriented.

Marketing

Building Email Templates

React Email

Build emails using React components. Preview in browser. Works with Resend, SendGrid, etc.

Modern

MJML

Markup language for responsive emails. Compiles to HTML that works everywhere.

Reliable

HTML Email (raw)

Write email HTML directly. Challenging because email clients have limited CSS support.

Manual

Email Builder (no-code)

Drag-and-drop email builders in services like Mailchimp or SendGrid.

No-Code

Other Notification Types

Push Notifications

Browser or mobile push. Use Web Push API or services like OneSignal.

In-App Notifications

Bell icon with notification dropdown. Real-time updates inside your app.

SMS

Text messages via Twilio, Vonage, or AWS SNS. Good for 2FA codes.

Webhooks

Send HTTP requests to other services when events happen. Slack, Discord, etc.

Prompt This

Copy-paste these prompts into your AI tool to apply what you just learned.

SET UP TRANSACTIONAL EMAIL

"Set up transactional email for my app using Resend. I need to send [welcome emails / password resets / notifications] with a clean HTML template."

CREATE AN EMAIL TEMPLATE

"Create an email template for [type of email]. It should include my logo, a greeting, the main message, and a call-to-action button."

Notification Infrastructure

Services that handle multiple notification channels in one place.

Novu

Open-source notification infrastructure. Email, SMS, push, in-app — unified API.

Open Source

Knock

Notification workflow engine. Build complex notification flows without code.

Workflows

OneSignal

Push notification service. Web and mobile. Free tier available.

Push Focus

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the easiest way to send emails from my app?+

Resend is the simplest option — it has a clean API, React email templates, and a generous free tier (100 emails/day). Set up an API route, install the Resend package, and you can send emails in about 5 minutes with your AI tool.

How do I avoid my emails going to spam?+

Three things: verify your domain with your email provider (SPF, DKIM, DMARC records), send from a real domain (not gmail.com), and don't use spammy subject lines. Most email services walk you through domain verification — your AI tool can help set up the DNS records.

Should I use a service or my own email server?+

Always use a service (Resend, SendGrid, AWS SES). Running your own email server is one of the hardest things in infrastructure — deliverability, spam filtering, IP reputation. Services handle all of this for you and have free tiers that cover most needs.

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