A New Way to Manage Transactional Emails

At Notika, we are re-thinking how builders can send transactional emails. Our goal is to radically simplify the end-to-end process for managing product notifications.

Whether you're a solopreneur or on a large team, everyone's looking for simpler and more efficient ways to get things done.

We are an AI-first company that believes anyone can build nuanced product notification workflows without having to write a single line of code. No cron jobs, no webhooks, no API calls.

Why build Notika?

As builders who've built products big and small, we've seen it all when it comes to sending transactional emails. It's always the same story:

• You pick one of the many email providers who all provide about the same service.
• You litter your codebase with sendEmail functions.
• You write one-off scripts to send that "simple" email.

Sounds straightforward, right?

Over time, the requirements grow in complexity and the code becomes more difficult to maintain. It's spread out all over the place and brittle to change.

Notification emails were both the last thing we wanted to work on, but also one of the most important things to get right.

That's where Notika comes in.

We realized that there was a better way to send transactional emails. A way that is more efficient, more reliable, and more scalable. We saw the patterns that were being repeated over and over again, and we knew we could do better. When we went out to look for a solution that solved it in the way we wanted, we couldn't find one. So we built it.

Before we go any further, let's start with the basics.

What is a transactional email?

A transactional email is an automated message sent to a user in direct response to an action they've taken. Common examples include account sign-up confirmations, password reset emails, and purchase receipts. These emails are essential for user experience and trust.

How are transactional emails different from marketing emails?

Marketing emails are typically sent to users who haven't taken a specific action. They're designed to promote products or services and often target a broad audience. In contrast, transactional emails are triggered by user activity and provide information relevant to that specific action. Unlike marketing emails, transactional emails usually don't require an unsubscribe link.

Who are the major players in the transactional email space?

There are many transactional email service providers. Some of the most popular include:

• SendGrid – The industry standard
• AWS SES – The big cloud provider
• Resend – The new kid on the block
• Loops – Visual workflow editor
• Mailgun – Reliable and developer-friendly

Notika is different. While these providers offer robust APIs and infrastructure, they require you to write custom code, manage integrations, and maintain scripts as your needs evolve. Notika takes a fundamentally different path. It lets your database drive notifications and gives your team a visual workflow editor, so you can focus on your product instead of email plumbing.

What about these other providers I've heard of?

• Mailchimp
• Klaviyo
• Hubspot

These providers are designed for marketing emails. They offer a visual workflow editor, but they are not designed for transactional emails.

Marketing emails are typically sent to users who haven't taken a specific action. They're designed to promote products or services and often target a broad audience. In contrast, transactional emails are triggered by user activity and provide information relevant to that specific action. Unlike marketing emails, transactional emails usually don't require an unsubscribe link.

How are transactional emails typically sent?

Most providers use similar methods for sending transactional emails, which generally fall into two main categories:

Real-time emails (triggered by user actions)

1. A user takes an action.
2. Your backend receives an API request reflecting that action.
3. The backend processes the logic, then calls the transactional email provider's API.
4. The provider sends the email and returns a response.
5. Your backend confirms success to the user.

Scheduled or batch emails

1. A script fetches a list of users from your database.
2. The script filters users based on specific criteria.
3. For each user, the script calls the transactional email provider's API.
4. The provider sends the emails and returns responses.
5. The script logs the results and exits.
6. You schedule this script to run at set times (e.g., via a cron job).

---

At first glance, these approaches seem straightforward. But as your product grows, even a simple notification system can quickly become a source of complexity. Common questions and challenges include:

• "Are my emails actually being sent?"
• "How do I safely test emails without reaching real users?"
• "Can we easily update or tweak the email template?"
• "Why was a particular email sent to this user?"
• "Can we retry sending if delivery fails?"
• "How do we prevent duplicate emails from being sent?"

And the list goes on.

A better way with Notika

Let's be honest: notifications are often the last thing engineers want to work on. Developers want to build product, not spend time formatting emails and tweaking content.

Notika offers a new approach to sending transactional emails, with several key advantages:

1. Database-driven: Notika is database-driven. Your database remains the single source of truth. There's no need to write glue code or one-off scripts to send emails.
2. Visual workflow editor: Notika provides a visual workflow editor that empowers anyone (technical or not) to manage notification flows intuitively.
3. Zero API calls: You can remove all notification code from your application. This separation of concerns means your app focuses on product, not email delivery.

No more cron jobs, no more webhooks, no more API calls! Let Notika handle the plumbing and scaling so you can focus on building what matters.

Empower your entire team to manage notifications. Whether you're sending to internal or external users, Notika has you covered.