4 ms·

I'm in the market for one of these services, but Earth Class Mail seems rather pricey. If you don't mind me asking, why did you pick Earth Class Mail over chea

I'm in the market for one of these services, but Earth Class Mail seems rather pricey. If you don't mind me asking, why did you pick Earth Class Mail over cheaper providers like Mailbox Forwarding (mailboxforwarding.com)?

saurik 13y ago
Primarily, Mailbox Forwarding did not exist when I was first looking into this kind of service; and when I got serious and finally decided to move to such a service, Mailbox Forwarding had only just launched, so I probably would not have considered them (the last thing I need is to switch to a service just to have them go out of business a year later). That said, I decided to take the time just now to evaluate this service vs ECM. To start with, ECM feels like a more "established" option, having existed for just over twice as long; it also has many more locations, and the fact that it is more expensive is reassuring to me: they have managed to operate this business at a higher margin shows solidity. On features, I use ECM for both my personal mail and for my business; with business mail I have multiple recipients (as mail might come to one of my business partners at the company's address), and we all have separate logins to view mail. (In practice, though, we don't really ever use these features, and I'm the only person who checks the mail.) ECM is definitely more expensive than Mailbox Forwarding, though: to get the exact service I want (which involves a street address in Los Angeles) I'd need to pay $30/mo with Mailbox Forwarding and $50/mo with ECM. But frankly, $20/mo is not the kind of difference I am going to spend time optimizing: that's like one day of one server on Amazon EC2. I then have to wonder "is there some difference in how they run their business that helps account for the price difference", and in fact Earth Class Mail offers tech support with live people, both over the phone and in person. If you have an issue with Mailbox Forwarding you must use an online ticket system, and then get an answer a couple days later. https://www.earthclassmail.com/Contact https://www.earthclassmail.com/Contact http://www.mailboxforwarding.com/support/knowledgebase.php?article=11 http://www.mailboxforwarding.com/support/knowledgebase.php?a... FWIW, I am really not trying to say to anyone "ECM is the best competitor in this space", just "ECM is a much better option than Outbox ever seemed to be". When I first saw Outbox I was surprised anyone paid any attention to it at all: it wasn't a drastically new idea, and there were tons of competitors that seemed to be working off a better model. Even now I'm somewhat surprised: people are responding to this article here on HN talking about how they are confused as to why Outbox didn't just offer an address to which people could deliver, and expect that there must be some reason they didn't do that as otherwise it seems obvious... well, that's what other companies were doing for a long time before? ;P
BrentOzar 13y ago
I use ECM because they will automatically deposit received checks into your bank account. For consultants/contractors/freelancers, this is heaven. We can be away from home for weeks on end, and we don't have to worry about when client checks come in.

saurik 13y ago

Primarily, Mailbox Forwarding did not exist when I was first looking into this kind of service; and when I got serious and finally decided to move to such a service, Mailbox Forwarding had only just launched, so I probably would not have considered them (the last thing I need is to switch to a service just to have them go out of business a year later). That said, I decided to take the time just now to evaluate this service vs ECM. To start with, ECM feels like a more "established" option, having existed for just over twice as long; it also has many more locations, and the fact that it is more expensive is reassuring to me: they have managed to operate this business at a higher margin shows solidity. On features, I use ECM for both my personal mail and for my business; with business mail I have multiple recipients (as mail might come to one of my business partners at the company's address), and we all have separate logins to view mail. (In practice, though, we don't really ever use these features, and I'm the only person who checks the mail.) ECM is definitely more expensive than Mailbox Forwarding, though: to get the exact service I want (which involves a street address in Los Angeles) I'd need to pay $30/mo with Mailbox Forwarding and $50/mo with ECM. But frankly, $20/mo is not the kind of difference I am going to spend time optimizing: that's like one day of one server on Amazon EC2. I then have to wonder "is there some difference in how they run their business that helps account for the price difference", and in fact Earth Class Mail offers tech support with live people, both over the phone and in person. If you have an issue with Mailbox Forwarding you must use an online ticket system, and then get an answer a couple days later. https://www.earthclassmail.com/Contact https://www.earthclassmail.com/Contact http://www.mailboxforwarding.com/support/knowledgebase.php?article=11 http://www.mailboxforwarding.com/support/knowledgebase.php?a... FWIW, I am really not trying to say to anyone "ECM is the best competitor in this space", just "ECM is a much better option than Outbox ever seemed to be". When I first saw Outbox I was surprised anyone paid any attention to it at all: it wasn't a drastically new idea, and there were tons of competitors that seemed to be working off a better model. Even now I'm somewhat surprised: people are responding to this article here on HN talking about how they are confused as to why Outbox didn't just offer an address to which people could deliver, and expect that there must be some reason they didn't do that as otherwise it seems obvious... well, that's what other companies were doing for a long time before? ;P

BrentOzar 13y ago

I use ECM because they will automatically deposit received checks into your bank account. For consultants/contractors/freelancers, this is heaven. We can be away from home for weeks on end, and we don't have to worry about when client checks come in.