Plunk Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy Plunk on xCloud and get Plunk hosting for a transactional email platform on your own server, with your own Amazon SES account doing the sending. xCloud runs the pinned Plunk image with private PostgreSQL and Redis, generates the admin password, mounts persistent volumes and publishes the dashboard, API, landing site and documentation over HTTPS on four domains, ready for you to verify a sending domain.

Deploy your Plunk

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Plunk?

Plunk is an open-source email platform that brings transactional emails, marketing campaigns and workflow automation into one place. Upstream describes it as a self-hosted alternative to tools such as SendGrid, Resend or Mailgun, and a self-hosted Plunk adds templates, segments, contact management, analytics, custom domains with DKIM and SPF, an SMTP relay and inbound emails. It is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence.

On xCloud the install runs Plunk 0.16.0 with private PostgreSQL 16 and Redis 7, all pinned by digest, and a one-shot seed that creates your first account. Plunk sends only through your own Amazon SES account, so the install form asks for your SES region and an IAM access key. The postgres_data and redis_data volumes hold contacts, templates, campaigns and job queues.

From Sign-Up to a Working Email Platform In Just 3 Easy Steps

A Plunk stack normally means an app container, PostgreSQL, Redis, a first-account seed, four web addresses and certificates before the first email. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick Plunk from the OneClick catalog. Choose your domain, then enter the admin email, your AWS SES region, and the access key ID and secret of an IAM user allowed to use SES.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the official Plunk image, pinned by immutable digest, with private PostgreSQL and Redis kept off the public internet and a one-shot seed that creates your first account, mount the postgres_data and redis_data volumes, generate the admin password, and publish the dashboard, API, landing site and documentation over HTTPS.
Step 03
Verify A Domain And Send
Save the admin password from the protected installation credentials and open the HTTPS dashboard — the first boot runs migrations and takes about two minutes. Sign in, add and verify your sending domain, then create a contact, a template and a campaign.

Everything Plunk Does, On Your Own Server

Plunk runs in full here: transactional email, campaigns and workflows from your own dashboard, backed by a database you own.

Transactional Email Over The API
Send emails straight from your own API calls, with template support and variable substitution.
Campaigns To Your Contacts
Send newsletters and product updates to large audiences as campaigns.
Workflows And Segments
Build automations with triggers, delays and conditional logic, and organise contacts with dynamic filtering.
Your Domains, Your Sending Reputation
Verify and send from your own domains with DKIM and SPF support, through your own Amazon SES account.
Opens, Clicks And Bounces
Track opens, clicks, bounces and engagement metrics from the dashboard.
Optional SMTP Relay
Plunk can act as an SMTP relay for existing tools; ports 465 and 587 are published on the server and stay closed until you open them in your own firewall.

Everything You Need To Run Your Email Platform 24/7

Managed hosting for Plunk, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

Plunk 0.16.0 deployed instantly
Official image pinned by digest
Admin password generated for you
Signup closed after install
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Plunk

Send receipts and sign-in links from your app
Call the API to send transactional emails with templates and variable substitution, so receipts and notifications leave from your own domain.
Send newsletters to your contacts
Run campaigns to large audiences and segment contacts with dynamic filters, without a contact limit set by the platform.
Automate follow-up emails
Build workflows with triggers, delays and conditional logic, so a signup or event starts a sequence without anyone sending by hand.
Keep sending reputation under your control
Verify your own domains with DKIM and SPF and send through your own Amazon SES account, so reputation and sending limits stay yours.

Plunk Screenshots

Plunk vs Alternatives

SendGrid: SendGrid is a hosted email service. Upstream positions Plunk as a self-hosted alternative to it, which runs on your own server and sends through your own Amazon SES account.
Resend: Resend is a hosted email API. Upstream lists it among the tools Plunk is a self-hosted alternative to; Plunk runs on your own server with transactional email, campaigns and workflows in one dashboard.
Listmonk: In a Plunk vs Listmonk comparison, Listmonk has its own OneClick page. Its catalogue entry describes a newsletter and mailing list manager; Plunk covers transactional email, campaigns and workflows, sending through your own Amazon SES account.
Keila: Keila has its own OneClick page. Its catalogue entry describes a newsletter and campaign manager with contacts, signup forms and segmentation, sending through your own provider.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Plunk hosting. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom if Plunk sits alongside other apps on the same server.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. Plunk itself is licensed by Plunk's maintainers under AGPL-3.0; Amazon SES sending is billed separately by AWS.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Plunk on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

Start your journey without cost.

$0forever

1 server
10 sites

Start free

Starter

Professional

The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

$4per server / month

6–10 servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

Get started

Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

11+ servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

Get started

Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Email Platform?

Plunk on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

Hear what people are saying about us

See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Can you self-host Plunk with Docker?

Yes, and this template is Plunk Docker hosting without the setup. Upstream ships a plunk Docker image; here xCloud runs it pinned by digest with private PostgreSQL and Redis containers and a one-time seed step, none with a host port, plus two volumes and four HTTPS domains.

How much RAM does Plunk need?

QA measured about 322 MiB idle against a template minimum of 512 MB of RAM, one CPU core and 10 GB of disk. The 6 GB plan is the entry rung, with room for queues and larger campaigns.

Do I need an Amazon SES account to run Plunk?

Yes. Plunk does not start without AWS credentials, so the install form asks for your SES region and an IAM access key. The account needs production access, a verified domain and a configuration set named plunk-configuration-set. Real SES delivery was not tested in QA.

How do I sign in to Plunk?

Use the admin email you entered at install and the generated admin password from the protected credentials card, then change it in the dashboard. Signup is closed, so nobody else can register and send through your SES account. First boot takes about two minutes.

Why does Plunk need four web addresses?

The dashboard, API, landing site and documentation each get their own xCloud HTTPS domain. Keep all four under one parent domain so sign-in works, and choose the API and dashboard domains before sending, because links in sent emails point to them.

Can I use Plunk as an SMTP relay?

Upstream lists an SMTP relay, and ports 465 and 587 are published on the server's IP address, but nothing opens them for you. Open them in your own firewall and set SMTP_DOMAIN to use the relay. Port 587 requires authentication, and no certificate is mounted for 465.

What should I back up on a Plunk server?

Back up postgres_data, which holds accounts, contacts, templates and campaigns, and redis_data, which holds job queues, plus the stable values in the Environment editor. JWT_SECRET signs sessions and DB_PASSWORD matches the database, so keep both safe.

Backups in xCloud

How do I upgrade Plunk?

Plunk 0.16.0 stays pinned until you move to a newer template version. Copy both volumes first, then read the release notes. Plunk will not move to a new build by itself, and a redeploy keeps the volumes and the database.

Is Plunk free?

Yes. Plunk is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence, so the code is free to run. You pay for the dedicated Cloud VPS and for sending through your own Amazon SES account, which xCloud does not bill.

Is Plunk an alternative to SendGrid?

Upstream describes it that way: an open-source, self-hosted alternative to SendGrid, Resend or Mailgun. The difference is that contacts and campaigns live in your own PostgreSQL, while delivery goes through your own SES account, so you manage SES limits and reputation.

Is there a Plunk cloud service?

Upstream runs its own hosted Plunk, which is a different offering. On xCloud your own Plunk instead runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, keeping contacts and campaigns on volumes you own, while delivery goes through your own SES account.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.