Safest way to send opt-in newsletter

[Giles Palmer]

Our company is putting together a bid to manage the website and email newsletter of an organisation.

The newsletter is strictly opt-in and goes weekly to about 40,000 subscribers.

Should we try to send this email from our own servers or should we employ the services of a third party to do this? I have heard that it can be difficult to keep your IP off a black list if you send large quantities of mail. It would be a disaster to end up on the black list.

If a third party is the best option can anybody recommend (via a sticky) companies they have used.

[hannamyluv]

I'd reccomend third party, due to the fact that they maintain relationships with the ISPs. If they get on the wrong list, you can bet they are calling everyone they can to fix it. Technically, you could do that yourself, but it would be time consuming.

Several have added features that make it worth it to, like spam check and forward to a friend.