Outsourcing Email For An Entire Domain?

CritterNYC writes: "I was wondering if any fellow Slashdotters have experience outsourcing email for an entire domain(s). My web host includes mail hosting, but I'd like to be able to use ORBs or MAPS to filter spam (among other things)... and my host's fees for additional domains on the same account are a bit unreasonable. I'd probably only have a couple accounts with mulitple domains pointing to them, but may grow in the future. Has anyone found a good reasonably-priced company that does email hosting?" Mr. Critter is probably not alone -- charging for services like mail is one way that hosts try to increase their profit margins. Any ideas out there?

Comments

hushmail.

[Zurk]

outsource it to hushmail. they give you strong encryption and web based email with attachments fully encrypted. they'll handle your domain nicely and are really reliable.

Not if you value your time

[blang]

co-location is a good alternative. (and cheaper in the long run)

Absolutely not true. Outsourcing is the very cheapest way to do this for a small company.

If your company is very small, less than 20 people, outsourcing of email, as well as hosting of a web site, can be had for as little as $20 a month. Shop around and find a reliable provider for the right price.

By doing it yourself, you'll be spending a lot more than $20 a month. Assuming that your time is worth $80 per hour to your company, this is what it would cost to do it yourself:

If you have not already set up a mail system before, 2 days to learn how to configure and set up the box and mail software. 16 hours.

2 hours per month for basic maintenance such as backup, software updates, security updates etc.

Cost of server. Can probably use a cheap server, lets say $1000.

Backup media. $50 should cover it.

So how much for DIY: initial cost of $1280+$1000+$50, and recurring monthly cost of $160. In 2 years DIY would have cost you $6170. And that's not counting time and money wasted every time new admins need to be showed the ropes.

For outsourcing I'll assume 8 hours work to find the right provider, and a monthly charge of $20. Total cost over 2 years: $1120

And I am not pulling these numbers out of my ass, The small company I work for pays $19.95 for our mail accounts, including web space. So far we have not had a single problem. It just works, and we never have to think about it. And if the current provider one day bails out, it would be a quick and simple thing to get another provider, update the whois and dns entries, and there you go.