5 ms·

Ask HN: What's the best mail hoster for a startup?

11 points by footstock 7y ago

Currently we use gsuit, but there is too much in there we don't use and > 5€ per user is too much. We need a stable hoster, privacy and no gimmicks.. any suggestions ?

noja 7y ago
How about Mailbox? https://mailbox.org/en/ https://mailbox.org/en/ (they support calendar sync) or Zoho https://www.zoho.com/ https://www.zoho.com/
z3t4 7y ago
If your own time is worth very little I suggest self hosting. It takes a few hours to setup.
- brianmurphy 7y ago
  Plus a few hours every week to chase down reports of emails not being delivered, spam, etc. As someone with many servers and a previous career managing an email service for a university, I would never run my email through anything except G Suite or Office 365. The benefits of those services being "too big to block" is immeasurable.
mtmail 7y ago
It's hard to run a service below 3 Euro/month with good (human) support, those who do often charge annual. We use https://runbox.com/price-plans/ https://runbox.com/price-plans/ and are very happy. There was a discount for pre-paying two years and in our monthly cost spreadsheet with 30+ SaaS it's the service costing us the least. There's several previous 'alternatives to gmail' discussions, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448108
bozho 7y ago
Even 10 euro a month per user is nothing - their salary + insurance + taxes is probably 3-4 thousand euro at least, these 10 euro are a statistical error. We use Office365, because we need Office anyway. We initially used a hosting provider email server, but it's not trivial to get the email DNS configuration right, and you risk going in spam. Even after we got our configuration right, we still had occasional "spam" issues.
- buboard 7y ago
  Set the spf fields in DNS and you should be fine. It's not really that hard unless you do send out spammy mails.
cerberusss 7y ago
What's nice about GSuite is contacts and calendar syncing on Android and iPhone. Do realize that Android only supports GSuite. In other words, by default it doesn't support CalDAV and CardDAV. There are apps for that, but I found those to be a hassle.
pcmaffey 7y ago
Pretty happy so far with Migadu.
- trpapp 7y ago
  Agreed! Migadu is great considering they essentially give you a single mailbox for free and the upgrades aren't per user. The different tiers just have sending limits with the top tier being basically unlimited (at their discretion - they're just worried about spam, rightfully so). https://www.migadu.com/en/pricing.html https://www.migadu.com/en/pricing.html
- sharmi 7y ago
  One more happy user of migadu. Painless. Unlimited mailboxes. Only restriction is on the number of emails you send
- dbm44 7y ago
  Yes Migadu works well. Been using it more than 9 months now with only one minor problem, which was quickly sorted
factorialboy 7y ago
I recently setup tutanota for my startups email needs. It's terrific. No frills, just works, secure and encrypted email. Can't be happier. Edit: obligatory link tutanota.com
- caseyscottmckay 7y ago
  Plus one for tutanota. I've been using tutanota for years and love it. And the recent calendar feature is great.

11 points by footstock 7y ago

Currently we use gsuit, but there is too much in there we don't use and > 5€ per user is too much. We need a stable hoster, privacy and no gimmicks.. any suggestions ?

noja 7y ago

How about Mailbox? https://mailbox.org/en/ https://mailbox.org/en/ (they support calendar sync) or Zoho https://www.zoho.com/ https://www.zoho.com/

z3t4 7y ago

If your own time is worth very little I suggest self hosting. It takes a few hours to setup.

brianmurphy 7y ago
Plus a few hours every week to chase down reports of emails not being delivered, spam, etc. As someone with many servers and a previous career managing an email service for a university, I would never run my email through anything except G Suite or Office 365. The benefits of those services being "too big to block" is immeasurable.

mtmail 7y ago

It's hard to run a service below 3 Euro/month with good (human) support, those who do often charge annual. We use https://runbox.com/price-plans/ https://runbox.com/price-plans/ and are very happy. There was a discount for pre-paying two years and in our monthly cost spreadsheet with 30+ SaaS it's the service costing us the least. There's several previous 'alternatives to gmail' discussions, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17448108

bozho 7y ago

Even 10 euro a month per user is nothing - their salary + insurance + taxes is probably 3-4 thousand euro at least, these 10 euro are a statistical error. We use Office365, because we need Office anyway. We initially used a hosting provider email server, but it's not trivial to get the email DNS configuration right, and you risk going in spam. Even after we got our configuration right, we still had occasional "spam" issues.

buboard 7y ago
Set the spf fields in DNS and you should be fine. It's not really that hard unless you do send out spammy mails.

cerberusss 7y ago

What's nice about GSuite is contacts and calendar syncing on Android and iPhone. Do realize that Android only supports GSuite. In other words, by default it doesn't support CalDAV and CardDAV. There are apps for that, but I found those to be a hassle.

pcmaffey 7y ago

Pretty happy so far with Migadu.

trpapp 7y ago
Agreed! Migadu is great considering they essentially give you a single mailbox for free and the upgrades aren't per user. The different tiers just have sending limits with the top tier being basically unlimited (at their discretion - they're just worried about spam, rightfully so). https://www.migadu.com/en/pricing.html https://www.migadu.com/en/pricing.html
sharmi 7y ago
One more happy user of migadu. Painless. Unlimited mailboxes. Only restriction is on the number of emails you send
dbm44 7y ago
Yes Migadu works well. Been using it more than 9 months now with only one minor problem, which was quickly sorted

factorialboy 7y ago

I recently setup tutanota for my startups email needs. It's terrific. No frills, just works, secure and encrypted email. Can't be happier. Edit: obligatory link tutanota.com

caseyscottmckay 7y ago
Plus one for tutanota. I've been using tutanota for years and love it. And the recent calendar feature is great.