Thumela

How Thumela works

A small REST API for transactional email, sending through Amazon SES in Cape Town, with recipient data kept in South Africa.

One endpoint, one job

Thumela sends the emails your product must send: sign-in links, receipts, password resets, alerts. You call a REST API; we hand the message to Amazon SES in af-south-1 (Cape Town) and track what happens to it.

  • REST API, Resend-shaped. POST /emails with from, to, subject and html and/or text. If you have used Resend or a similar API, the request body will look familiar.
  • HTML and plain text. Send either or both; we never rewrite your content, inject tracking pixels or rewrite links.
  • Idempotency keys so a retried request never sends twice.
  • Domain verification. Add your domain, publish the DKIM, MAIL FROM and DMARC records we give you, and send from any address on it.

Transactional only

Thumela is not a marketing platform. There are no lists, campaigns, open tracking or click tracking, and every message must be one the recipient expects because of something they did. Bulk or promotional sends are declined.

Bounces, complaints, suppression

Every message is sent with a configuration set that reports deliveries, bounces and complaints back to us. A hard bounce or a complaint puts that address on a suppression list for your account: later sends to it are recorded as suppressed rather than attempted, so your sending reputation stays intact.

What we store, and for how long

  • Recipient addresses are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM) before they reach the database. Lookups use a keyed hash, so the plain address is never indexed.
  • Message bodies are held only as long as needed to send and retry.
  • Retention is 90 days. Message records and their events are purged after 90 days. Suppression entries are kept, because that is what protects your reputation.
  • Logs never contain addresses or bodies. The API redacts anything email-shaped before a log line is written.

Where it runs

The API and its database run on xneelo in Johannesburg. Sending goes through Amazon SES in af-south-1, the AWS region in Cape Town, which we disclose as our sending sub-processor. Read the full data residency statement.

Status

Thumela is in private preview. Join the launch list to be told when it opens.