port - Can send email but not receive it

Realize there a lot of bulk email services, but what I'm trying to do doesn't feel like bulk email; though maybe I'm just thinking about it the wrong way. Case in point, I attempted to create an account on MailChimp and it wants a subscriber list.

I'm send one, and only one email per address; for example, replying to job postings on Craigslist. I'm not sending follow-up emails, and basically the first email I send is the last to an address unless I get a reply.

Sometimes the email I send is based on a template, other times they've asked for something, and I customize the email. I've automated creating resumes and sending emails in the past, but currently the fastest way just seems to manually do it; meaning I can't imagine sending more than 500 emails in a single day.

As far as I'm able to tell if Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Lycos, AOL, etc. - do not offer the service of paying per email over the send limit, since I'd be willing to pay for the service and be done with this, as it's taking up a huge amount of time and overhead to deal with.

Currently, although I've seen sites giving higher numbers, most of the providers appear to limit emails sent to 20-40 a day; possible I'm doing something wrong, but if I am, I don't understand why these limits are not easy to see within an account, so I'm either able to stay within the limits, or see the service is not a good fit for my needs; currently I just get random error-messages, locked-out, etc.

(If needed, and the setup doesn't take more an a few hours, I'm more than willing to deal with configuring scripts, CSV files, templates, etc. on my computer - as long as they're well documented and the end result addresses the issue; meaning that if I have to send a one-off email, I just copy the template, make the changes, and point to the email. The system must also support attachments, since every email has at least one attachment; best solution would be if I'm able to load an attachment once to the system, then alias it in the local script.)

Are you limited to online email providers? You say you are willing to pay for a service...

A basic web hosting account (or email only account?) would enable you to set up any number of mailboxes and/or forwarders and would enable to you use any desktop email client, such as Mozilla Thunderbird which has a plethora of extensions available which might assist you in your job hunting quest.

A typical (shared) web host would have an email limit of 200-500 per hour - although this would naturally be something to check before signing up as they don't usually advertise this.

Update

Mozilla Thunderbird literally has 1000's of third party add-ons, from templates to mail merge, so if there is a feature that is lacking you might be able to find a suitable add-on. TBH, I've not had the need to use many, although I do find Send Later useful, that as its name suggests, allows you to send the email at a later time or at a specific time. Rather than sending it in the middle of the night, when you might have written it, you can get it to send it first thing in the morning when people are awake.

The problem with sending a lot of emails is you will inevitably end up being false positived by spam filters on the recipient's end.

If you want to send a lot of emails, and have a high percentage of those emails actually reach the destination, then you need to be an expert on spam or outsource the email sending process to someone who is an expert.

It sounds like you've tried MailChimp. It has an API. Their competitors also have API - I've had good experience with campaign monitor in the past, and I've heard MailRoute is very good (I would probably look into MailRoute first).

Use their API to add the email to the system, send the email, and then perhaps remove the customer right away. It shouldn't be too much work to create such a script, if you've got some experience with any scripting language.