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Ampout

Quickstart

This walkthrough takes you from signup to a dispatched first batch in five minutes. We’ll use curl throughout — port to your stack of choice. The base URL is https://ampout.fly.dev.

1. Sign up

Section titled “1. Sign up”
Terminal window
curl -X POST https://ampout.fly.dev/signup \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "[email protected]", "name": "Your Name"}'

Response:

{
  "account_id": "...",
  "plan_slug": "free",
  "api_key": {
    "id": "...",
    "prefix": "ak_live_abcd",
    "plaintext": "ak_live_abcd...XYZ"
  }
}

Save the plaintext key. It’s only returned once. Free tier includes 100 sends/month.

For the rest of this guide, set:

Terminal window
export AMPOUT_KEY="ak_live_..."

2. Set up an SMTP credential and a 2-step sequence

Section titled “2. Set up an SMTP credential and a 2-step sequence”

You’ll bring your own SMTP provider. SMTP2GO works well; Postmark, Mailgun, AWS SES, even Gmail App Passwords are all supported. The credential lives on a campaign:

Terminal window
curl -X POST https://ampout.fly.dev/campaigns \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMPOUT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "campaign": {
      "name": "First test",
      "min_wait_seconds": 120,
      "max_wait_seconds": 420,
      "verify_email_mx": true,
      "smtp_credentials": [{
        "label": "Primary",
        "smtp_host": "mail.smtp2go.com",
        "smtp_port": 587,
        "smtp_username": "<your smtp username>",
        "smtp_password": "<your smtp password>",
        "from_name": "Your Name",
        "from_email": "[email protected]",
        "daily_limit": 100
      }],
      "sequence_steps": [
        {
          "position": 1,
          "subject": "Quick question for {{company}}",
          "body_html": "<p>Hi {{first_name}},</p><p>Saw {{company}} is doing X. Curious how you handle Y?</p><p>Best,<br>You</p>",
          "delay_minutes": 0
        },
        {
          "position": 2,
          "subject": "Re: Quick question",
          "body_html": "<p>Hi {{first_name}}, just bumping this in case it got buried.</p>",
          "delay_minutes": 4320
        }
      ]
    }
  }'

min_wait_seconds / max_wait_seconds add randomized jitter between sends within a batch — stays under spam-filter thresholds. verify_email_mx: true does a DNS MX lookup at dispatch time and marks any contact whose domain can’t receive mail as bounced before the SMTP attempt.

Save the returned id as CAMPAIGN_ID.

3. Import contacts

Section titled “3. Import contacts”
Terminal window
curl -X POST https://ampout.fly.dev/contact_imports \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMPOUT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "contact_import": {
      "name": "Test list",
      "contacts": [
        {"email": "[email protected]",  "first_name": "Ada",   "company": "Acme"},
        {"email": "[email protected]",  "first_name": "Babs",  "company": "Acme"},
        {"email": "[email protected]",  "first_name": "Carol", "company": "Beta"}
      ]
    }
  }'

Save the import id as IMPORT_ID.

4. Enroll the import into the campaign

Section titled “4. Enroll the import into the campaign”
Terminal window
curl -X POST "https://ampout.fly.dev/campaigns/$CAMPAIGN_ID/enroll" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMPOUT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"contact_import_id\": \"$IMPORT_ID\", \"batch_size\": 50}"

Response: { "enrolled": 3, "batches": 1, "batch_size": 50, "skipped": [] }

5. Dispatch batch 1

Section titled “5. Dispatch batch 1”
Terminal window
curl -X POST "https://ampout.fly.dev/campaigns/$CAMPAIGN_ID/dispatch" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMPOUT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"batch_number": 1}'

Response: { "batch_number": 1, "enrollment_count": 3, "status": "dispatching" }

Three step-1 emails go out immediately (with jitter); three step-2 emails are scheduled to fire 3 days later.

6. Watch the stats

Section titled “6. Watch the stats”
Terminal window
curl "https://ampout.fly.dev/campaigns/$CAMPAIGN_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMPOUT_KEY" | jq .

You’ll see totals (pending / sent / opened / replied / bounced), rates (bounce / open / reply percentages), per-batch breakdown, recent bounces, credential health, and skip counts.

7. (Optional) Wire up a webhook

Section titled “7. (Optional) Wire up a webhook”
Terminal window
curl -X POST https://ampout.fly.dev/webhooks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMPOUT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"webhook": {"url": "https://your-domain.com/webhooks/ampout", "event_filters": ["enrollment.replied"]}}'

The response includes a secret (only shown once). Use it to verify HMAC signatures on incoming events. See the Webhooks guide.

What’s next

Section titled “What’s next”