# Regulated transactional mail

Reviewed August 2026. This is the public product thesis — not a dated roadmap and not legal advice.

Werkmail is for **European practices and other regulated senders** who need appointment, recall, and transactional mail to land, with evidence a DPO can read — plus a **modest** newsletter that cannot steal that reputation.

We are not trying to become Brevo, ActiveCampaign, or a generic send API with a prettier dashboard.

## The moat (what we will keep sharpening)

The hard thing to copy is not another REST `POST /emails`. It is **enforced** behaviour in a European, vertical context:

| Primitive | Why it is a moat |
| --- | --- |
| One sending tenant per workspace | A neighbour’s complaints are not your problem |
| `outgoing` ≠ `broadcast` | Marketing cannot hitch a ride on Termin |
| Consent ledger | Wording, IP, time, channel — not a checkbox screenshot |
| Message kinds | `termin` / `recall` / `doi` change tracking, footers, and checks |
| Inbox-risk gate | The same hard block on GUI, batch, and API |
| Reputation pause | Bounce ≥5% / complaint ≥0.1% (min 20) can stop the tenant |
| Audit + DSAR | Who changed what; export and erase for a real request |

Those get **more** valuable as fines, patient sensitivity, and procurement questionnaires get stricter. Feature parity with a cheap sending API gets less valuable.

## Who this is for

- Practices, clinic groups, and vendors who send **Termin / Recall / DOI** and maybe a newsletter
- EU operators who must show isolation and consent, not only “we have a DPA”
- Developers wiring a PVS or n8n flow who will accept a slightly stricter API in exchange for the same gate the GUI uses

## Who should pick something else

- Pure transactional SaaS that wants SMTP, official SDKs, and PAYG cents — see [EU transactional APIs](/compare/eu-transactional), [AhaSend](/compare/ahasend), [EUSend](/compare/eusend)
- Marketers who live in pop-ups, SMS, and a visual automation canvas — see [MailerLite](/compare/mailerlite), [Brevo](/compare/brevo)
- Teams that will staff their own mail platform — see [raw outbound API](/compare/outbound-api)

## What we will build (in this order)

1. **Sharper regulated primitives** — kinds, compliance checks, audit CSV, retention, legal-basis hints. Make the existing isolation louder in the product, not hide it.
2. **Developer experience that is good enough to leave small-practice-only** — idempotency, scoped project tokens, OpenAPI, inbound send hooks, batch/bulk, stable error codes. Official SDKs only when they wrap the same gate, not a second send path.
3. **Volume plans that match the job** — Termin (5k, transactional only), Praxis (20k, broadcast allowed, marketing pauses at cap), Gruppe (100k, custom caps). Transactional must keep moving when a newsletter hits the ceiling.
4. **Marketing automation that stays “good enough”** — block editor, subject A/B, segments, linear journeys (Termin → Recall). No SMS, no chat, no 40-step visual canvas.

## What we will not build

- Feature parity with generic outbound sending APIs (dedicated IP markets, partner SMTP resale, global regions)
- A marketing cloud: landing-page builders, ecommerce pop-ups, omnichannel
- Relaxing gates for “just this send” — that would dissolve the moat

## Volume and DX (so we are not stuck at 200-message tenants)

Test (200) and Supporter (€5 / 1,000) exist so operators can evaluate the **full** product. They are not the destination for a clinic group.

| Plan | Cap | Broadcast | At 100% of cap |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Test | 200 | yes | All sends pause |
| Supporter | 1,000 | yes | All sends pause |
| Termin | 5,000 | no | Transactional continues (broadcast already blocked) |
| Praxis | 20,000 | yes | Marketing pauses; transactional continues |
| Gruppe | 100,000 | yes | Marketing pauses; transactional continues; custom caps by agreement |

API path for volume: [Send](/api/send) (single, batch 500, bulk), [webhooks](/webhooks), [inbound send hook](/inbound). `Idempotency-Key` on writes. Project tokens (`wm_proj_…`) cannot administer the workspace.

## Campaigns: good enough on purpose

See [Campaigns](/campaigns) and [Journeys](/journeys). If you need a full automation cloud, stay on that cloud and send Werkmail only for regulated transactional — or do not switch.

Start sending from [https://werkmail.eu/login](https://werkmail.eu/login). Honest vendor notes: [Compare](/compare).