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Join the Postmark Challenge: Inbox Innovators - $3,000 in Prizes!

We are thrilled to partner with Postmark to bring the community a brand new DEV challenge.

Running through June 8, the Postmark Challenge: Inbox Innovators invites you to play with data by leveraging Postmark's inbound email parsing capabilities.

Email remains one of the most universal and powerful communication tools, and Postmark's developer-focused API makes it easier than ever to incorporate sophisticated email functionality into your applications. This challenge is your opportunity to demonstrate how creative you can get with email-based features while adding an impressive project to your portfolio!

Read on for our prompt.

Our Prompt

For this challenge, your mission is to build an application using Postmark's inbound email parsing feature.

Postmark's inbound email parsing allows you to receive and process emails programmatically, opening up countless possibilities for all sorts of applications -- from practical tooling that solves real-world problems to creative and impactful art pieces.

Judging Criteria and Prizes

Submissions will be judged using the following criteria:

  • Utilization of Postmark features
  • Use Case (creativity, originality, impact)
  • Accessibility
  • Writing Quality (originality, clarity)

We will select three winners who will each receive:

All Participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge on their DEV profile.

How To Participate

In order to participate, you will need to publish a post using the submission template provided. All submissions must use Postmark's inbound email parsing feature.

  • No credit card required! You can process up to 100 emails/month with Postmark's free trial. Inbound email parsing is included with the free plan.
  • For spam/deliverability concerns, emails from public domains (i.e. google, yahoo, etc) cannot create an account with Postmark. If you don't have access to a work email or custom domain, please get in touch with us at [email protected] with the subject line "Postmark Challenge Help".
  • If you need a higher limit, use the code DEVCHALLENGE25 to get a $60.50 credit for the Pro tier plan which includes expanded inbound processing.

Please make testing the app as straightforward as possible by providing testing instructions and/or test credentials for all necessary user personas.

Postmark Challenge Submission Template

Please review our judging criteria, rules, guidelines, and FAQ page before submitting so you understand our participation guidelines and official contest rules such as eligibility requirements.

Helpful Resources

To help you get started with Postmark, here are some useful links:

Ideas for Inspiration

Need some inspiration? Here are a few project ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

  • Email AI Assistant: Create an intelligent assistant that users can interact with entirely through email. You can use Postmark's inbound email parsing to understand user requests, process them using AI capabilities, and respond appropriately.

  • Email-Based CMS: Build a content management system that allows users to create, edit, and publish content entirely through email.

  • Email-to-Task Automation System: Create a task management system that converts emails into actionable tasks with priorities, deadlines, and assignments.

  • Email Data Collection & Visualization Dashboard: Build a system that collects structured data via email and generates real-time visualizations and reports.

  • Email-Driven E-commerce Order Management: Develop a system that allows small businesses to process orders, manage inventory, and handle customer inquiries via email.

  • Email-Based Survey & Feedback System: Create a survey tool that collects and analyzes responses submitted via email, with support for different question types and reporting.

  • Email-to-Social Media Bridge: Build a tool that allows users to post to multiple social media platforms by sending a single email, with support for scheduling and analytics.

Important Dates

  • May 21: Postmark Challenge: Inbox Innovators begins!
  • June 8: Submissions due at 11:59 PM PDT
  • June 19: Winners Announced

We're excited to see how you innovate with email using Postmark's powerful features! Questions about the challenge? Ask them below.

Good luck and happy coding!

Top comments (77)

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Good luck everyone! Email is a great platform to be creative on top of and Postmark is a great service.

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shofol profile image
Anower Jahan Shofol

@ben @jess, Postmark is not letting me open account without work email! Then how can I join the contest?

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

@shofol we have a workaround for this that we can help you get set up. Please check your email, thanks!

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davinceleecode profile image
davinceleecode

can you please include me as well, want to join this too :)

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trevor_rawls_b670c3832b98 profile image
Trevor Rawls

@shofol Postmark doesn't allow gmail or other public email domains to protect deliverability. You'll need to use your own domain to create an account. There's some cheap domains here: tld-list.com/

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davinceleecode profile image
davinceleecode

must have your own domain

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dev_99718084404de profile image
Dev

@jess Hello mam, I'm just a student with no private domain email address. Please help me out, can I even participate in this challenge?

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Hey @dev_99718084404de, just sent you an email that should help.

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dev_99718084404de profile image
Dev

Thank you so much mam πŸ™
I'll definitely work hard to earn the premium badge on my own merit!
Thank you again.

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javanteb23 profile image
Saint Thomas Brown β™Ÿ

I absolutely agree

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trevor_rawls_b670c3832b98 profile image
Trevor Rawls

So many opportunities here... can't wait to see the submissions!

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mohamednizzad profile image
Mohamed Nizzad

I am excited to embark on this new challenge while exploring the potential of Postmark.

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wsoltani profile image
Wassim Soltani

Please.. these challenges are too good... I can't ignore them 😭

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moopet profile image
Ben Sinclair

So postmark is like, postfix-as-a-service?

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Excited to see what everyone comes up with for this one! Good luck to all the participants 🌟

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razielrodrigues profile image
Raziel Rodrigues

WoooW this is perfect I was thinking to add something EXACTLY like this to my app from the previous challenge now I have the opportunity ----------

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nevodavid profile image
Nevo David

this stuff always fires me up to build something, tbh - always more fun when there’s a prize too. you think it’s the rewards or just the challenge that gets people making cool stuff?

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wsoltani profile image
Wassim Soltani

A little bit of both tbh

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razielrodrigues profile image
Raziel Rodrigues

I agree with you!

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javanteb23 profile image
Saint Thomas Brown β™Ÿ

Definitely the challenge, at least I would think. The reward is a nice bonus.

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cloudcraftcurator profile image
Shankar Somasundaram

I was wondering why my post wasn’t appearing under dev.to/t/postmarkchallenge.

It turns out there's a typo in the Postmark Challenge Submission Template β€” it uses #postmarkchallege instead of the correct tag #postmarkchallenge. I changed the tag on my post and now my submission appears on the postmarkchallenge page.

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Thanks for the catch! We have updated the template and also aliased the previous typo so any submissions published under 'postmarkchallege' will now show up as postmarkchallenge.

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mrmemory profile image
Kevin

Good eye!

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jeremysltn profile image
Jeremy

Good catch!

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shravzzv profile image
Sai Shravan Vadla

Can anyone please help me? I'm trying to sign up for Postmark, but it requires a work email. I don't have a work email. What do I do? Is signing up necessary for this challenge?

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Hi @shravzzv, we have a workaround for this that we can help you get set up. Please check your email, thanks!

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iabdsam profile image
Abdul Samad

@jess Please include me as well. I also don't have access to a work email.

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Hey @iabdsam, your DEV++ membership includes 1-year complimentary .tech and/or .fun domain. Once you have your own domain, you'll be able to set up email forwarding to your personal email and participate.

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shravzzv profile image
Sai Shravan Vadla • Edited

I got it. Thanks a lot @jess.

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vivekthedev profile image
Vivek • Edited

@jess can you send me the instructions for workaround?

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Hi @vivekthedev, just emailed you.

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trevor_rawls_b670c3832b98 profile image
Trevor Rawls

@shravzzv Postmark requires a non-public domain to create an account to protect deliverability. You can find a cheap domain here: tld-list.com/ and set up email forwarding to your gmail.

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