November 2024 Update on Magic Pages

I have got a few little golden nuggets for you this time, as well as an announcement for 2025. Let me know what you think 😊

📧 Magic Pages goes Mailgun

Well, for two months you heard me blabbering about it. Now, it is done. Magic Pages' email infrastructure is migrating to Mailgun.

Last week, all customers received an email with detailed instructions on how to move from the old Amazon SES email setup to Mailgun.

In case you missed it, here is the migration guide:

Magic Pages goes Mailgun

As you might be aware, Magic Pages has been using Amazon SES for email sending since launch. The main reason was pricing – in the beginning, every cent mattered, so investing time to adapt Ghost to send emails through SES was the right choice compared to Mailgun’s significantly higher running costs.

Magic PagesJannis Fedoruk-Betschki

And here is me talking to a camera about it:

So far, around a fourth of all customers have migrated, which has brought up a few additional bugs in the first couple of days, but overall everything is running smoothly.

The deadline for the migration is 31 January 2025, 23:59 UTC. However, I'd generally say the earlier you do the switch, the better.

Cool side effect: The migration to Mailgun also solved a long-requested feature: Custom MAIL FROM Domains:

Custom MAIL FROM domain

💡With the migration of Magic Pages’ email infrastructure from Amazon SES to Mailgun, custom MAIL FROM domains are implemented. Read more on the migration here: https://www.magicpages.co/blog/mailgun-migration-guide/ When you send an email, it usually has two addresses that indicate its origin. One is displayed to the

Magic PagesJannis Fedoruk-Betschki

💵 New Prices in 2025

Magic Pages has grown significantly this past year. We're talking a jump from just one lonely server to almost 20, complete with redundancy systems and a full-site CDN for an extra performance boost. These upgrades aren't just for show—they cost money, and keeping the lights on with those frills means adjusting Magic Pages' pricing.

When I first put a price tag on the subscriptions around a year ago, it was me, a spreadsheet, and a bunch of educated guesses. Fast forward to today, and I've got actual number that show how much money goes into servers, CDNs, software licenses, and tax advisors (yeah, we're at that point...).

To give you an idea, the current Starter plan brings in a profit of around $1.50 per month per site. Even if 1,000 customers signed up today, it still wouldn’t cut it for making a living (and developing Magic Pages further), keeping in mind that I live in one of the more expensive regions on this planet.

So, here’s what's happening: starting January 1, 2025 , I'm rolling out new prices for future subscribers. Those of you already on board? No worries – you'll keep enjoying your current rates.

Here are the new prices

Starter

• Monthly: $6.00
• Yearly: $60.00
• Lifetime: $200.00

Pro

• Monthly: $15.00
• Yearly: $150.00
• Lifetime: $450.00

And because I believe in total transparency: these prices reflect the nitty-gritty of running Magic Pages. Rest assured, I'm not looking to make this a yearly tradition of jacking up rates. These changes come after serious thought, and they will help ensure I can keep showing up in the live chat, and develop new features for Magic Pages (automatic backup import, anyone? 👀).

➡️ Subdomain redirection

This might be a small thing, but I think it's worth noting. So far, all Magic Pages subdomains (e.g. jannis.mymagic.page) worked parallel to a custom domain you setup on your Ghost site (e.g. www.jannis.io).

I often received support requests asking whether you should log in at jannis.mymagic.page/ghost or www.jannis.io/ghost. And the truth is: it really didn't matter. They both pointed to the exact same Ghost instance. But it was confusing.

I pushed this for quite some time, because I couldn't think of a good way to solve the issue. After all, the subdomains are needed for proper DNS resolving. But hey, I set up a small home lab with my own AI chat last month and just asked.

The solution was quite simple. So simple that I felt really dumb for a second. But who cares. Subdomains now redirect to your custom domain 😂

Subdomains redirect to custom domains now

So far, Magic Pages subdomains (e.g., jannis.mymagic.page) remained active even when a custom domain (e.g., www.jannis.io) was set on a Ghost site hosted on Magic Pages. This often led to confusion among users. As of today, these subdomains will automatically redirect to the custom

Magic PagesJannis Fedoruk-Betschki

🕵️‍♂️ Many small updates in the background

Since the last big update (Mailgun) has been deployed, I am focussing on improving the code base of Magic Pages. Right now, it is a bit of a mess. It works well, but every time I need to change something, I realise how the backend is more like a collection of individual components, rather than a cohesively planned structure.

So, I will be spending the next couple of weeks working through it, cleaning up things I have added piece by piece over the last two years (yeah, that's when I started working on Magic Pages...feels like yesterday). There won't be much to show, since the goal is that everything stays exactly the same. Things will just be a bit faster 🤞

As always, if you have questions or feedback about anything, please let me know. Always happy to chat :)