I Had 128 Fans and a $20 Mailchimp Bill. So I Built a Better Email Marketing Tool for Musicians.

I noticed the charge on a Tuesday. Twenty dollars, same as every month. I opened my Mailchimp account expecting to find some explanation, and I did: ten dollars for a Shopify integration so I could feature my merch in emails. A few other fees I couldn't fully account for. And a fan list with 128 people on it.

One hundred and twenty-eight fans. Twenty dollars a month.

I've Been Doing This Since Berklee

I'm a saxophone player. I've been doing this since my days at Berklee College of Music, where I studied music business management and graduated in 2004. I managed my college band, printed flyers at Kinko's because a friend who worked there would hook us up, and hit the streets to promote shows the old-fashioned way. Six albums later — across multiple genres, and most recently as a bandleader in the jazz world — I still felt like I was doing it the hard way.

The truth is, I'd been behind the ball on modern marketing for most of my career. Social media, running ads, building a direct-to-fan ecosystem — I understood the concepts from my degree, but the tools moved fast and I moved slow on adopting them. I got pulled into Spotify and playlist pitching. I hired a radio promoter. I worked with a PR person. All of that matters. But every cost adds up, and none of it is something you own.

That Tuesday, staring at a $20 bill for a musician newsletter platform I was barely using, something shifted.

I Looked for a Music-Specific Email Marketing Tool. I Couldn't Find One.

I started looking for an email marketing tool built for independent artists — for the way we actually work, talk, and move. Not enterprise software with features designed for retail brands and marketing departments. Not a platform that charges you extra just to connect your merch store.

I couldn't find one. So I built it.

What Dispatch Actually Is

Dispatch is free fan email for independent musicians. It's designed to run from your phone, because that's where most of us actually live between gigs and sessions. The blocks speak musician — show announcements, release emails, tour updates, merch, YouTube videos, social links. The pricing is built around what an independent artist actually has: a free tier with more sends than Mailchimp's current free plan, and paid plans that start at less than five dollars a month.

But the feature I'm most proud of is Voice to Email.

The idea came from how busy independent musicians actually are. You're on the road, in the studio, doing a session, running sound. You don't have time to sit down and design an email. So I figured out a way to let you speak into your phone — describe the email you want, mention your logo, a show flyer, a tour date, a song link, your merch — and have Dispatch build it. Not just write it. Design it.

That's what independent artist email should feel like in 2026. Fast, mobile, built the way we think.

I'm an indie musician who got frustrated with the tools available and decided to build something better. Dispatch is what I would have wanted when I had 128 fans and a bill that made no sense. I hope it's what you've been looking for too.