I've been selfhosting my email for around 3 decades. Currently hosting for free thanks to Oracle Cloud's generous always free resources. Running Wireguard there, then it routes ports I've designated over Wireguard to my home machine.
Oracle constantly kills my free instance, it's not reliable without frequent manual intervention. It's more like a "try it, see for yourself, we have a real cloud, but no guarantees" freebie toy.
I know they absolutely do cull free instances to make capacity for paying customers.
Afaik they do but only for low system ressource usage.
Anecdotally I had my test free instance culled years ago. But later I deployed a minecraft server (higher baseline ram+cpu use than a web server or small app) and they never culled it (3+ years uptime until a friend reminded me of the server and I updated/restarted it)
You have to upgrade your account to Pay As You Go. I read that and did it from the start. Never shut down. So many people run BOINC and all kinds of nonsense to keep the CPU busy when they don't have to.
I've been using Purelymail¹ for a few years now. It's simple and it just works. The one time I needed support I emailed Scott and he got right back to me.
If you had a server around, considering just setting up https://mailcow.email/ it's super easy and straigforward. Everything is in docker compose. `docker compose up` and you go.
If you want a hosted SMTP for your own single domain, and volume is low, consider just using AWS SES. I run betterdev.link with it, send about 20k email per months and pay around $2
If finally you want some nice and easy UI to use for email forwarding and SMTP, consider my email forwarding app https://mailwip.com It was built for this use case.
I've been running mailcow for a long time to _receive_ mail. Sending was hit and miss. For a long time I could relay through my ISP, but that got me into delivery problems as well.
Now I've been relaying through Mail.baby/Interserver for 18 months or so and it works great. $1/mo base fee + usage. With the <100 mails me and my family send that adds up to $1.01/mo.
I've started self-hosting mailcow (dockerized) on a Hetzner VM ~6 years ago or so. It took about 6 month to clean the rep of my IP address as it unfortunately been in spam lists previously - but after that, it's been a pretty smooth sailing. And all for a measly ~10 euro/mo including daily backups.
Even $10/month for just SMTP seems a bit nuts. Fastmail charges only $60/year for a full email account. You could sign up there, not move over your MX records, and just use their SMTP server.
More than SMTP hosting, but I use a VPS for multiple online services, including SMTP. SMTP in particular is handled by postfix, OpenDKIM, policyd-spf. Its incoming mail part is additionally supported by uacme with knot, nftables, fail2ban, but sounds like you are not in need of that. 1 GB of main memory, 10 GB of disk space, and a bit of CPU is a comfortable (overkill, even) system to run a variety of services with a few users and without particularly bloated software, and I think it normally costs less than $5/month (or even under $1/month with occasional promotional plans), with plenty of hosting providers to choose from.
Edit: my current setup is documented [0], and the older (slightly different) one is linked from it.
Following this, after having SMTP in house for years and years just fine (IIS6) I’m told the server is decommissioned. Sometimes we send 20,000k in a day, but that’s when an announcement goes out. Otherwise it’s a few dozen registration emails per day. I was thinking of installing postfix on a Linux VM on the same IP and letting it ride. So used to paying zilch and having it running on a web server that’s for other things.
Been self-hosting for over 15 years for both personal and professional email, including clients. Currently using docker-mailserver. The claims that deliverability is worse when self-hosting are greatly exaggerated. It's not perfect, but it's certainly no worse than Gmail or Google Workspace for business.
I run https://Mailcast.io which offers email forwarding and SMTP on your domain for a low fee for a single domain and a reasonable fee for more than that.
I happily used Migadu but switched to iCloud. The bus factor for my family is 1 with technical knowledge whereas with domains paid up for 10 years and iCloud family it is higher.
That's probably a reason for the fee increase because $10/month probably doesn't significantly exceed overhead costs at scale.
What I mean is, Rackspace probably has a service standard that exceeds $10/month/customer. Thus $10/month customers would not be worth keeping. Particularly if they are using the services in the way you are (without indications of increasing use to profitable levels).
To double down, customers who will leave for $24/year are always likely to bounce. That's the nature of price sensitive customers.
I've been selfhosting my email for around 3 decades. Currently hosting for free thanks to Oracle Cloud's generous always free resources. Running Wireguard there, then it routes ports I've designated over Wireguard to my home machine.
Can you share your setup? General arch and spam handling
Any issues with Gmail flagging your domain? There have been reports around about that.
and Microsoft is even much worse
Oracle constantly kills my free instance, it's not reliable without frequent manual intervention. It's more like a "try it, see for yourself, we have a real cloud, but no guarantees" freebie toy.
I know they absolutely do cull free instances to make capacity for paying customers.
Afaik they do but only for low system ressource usage. Anecdotally I had my test free instance culled years ago. But later I deployed a minecraft server (higher baseline ram+cpu use than a web server or small app) and they never culled it (3+ years uptime until a friend reminded me of the server and I updated/restarted it)
I congratulate on even being able to get a free instance, i've never been able to verify my account and I try every 6 months or so!
You have to upgrade your account to Pay As You Go. I read that and did it from the start. Never shut down. So many people run BOINC and all kinds of nonsense to keep the CPU busy when they don't have to.
I've been using Purelymail¹ for a few years now. It's simple and it just works. The one time I needed support I emailed Scott and he got right back to me.
1 - https://purelymail.com
I second this! Reliable, bring as many domains as you want, and dirt-cheap.
Amazon SES - been using it for years across all personal emails! $0.10/1000 emails sent with no minimum fees: https://aws.amazon.com/ses/pricing/
If you had a server around, considering just setting up https://mailcow.email/ it's super easy and straigforward. Everything is in docker compose. `docker compose up` and you go.
If you want a hosted SMTP for your own single domain, and volume is low, consider just using AWS SES. I run betterdev.link with it, send about 20k email per months and pay around $2
If finally you want some nice and easy UI to use for email forwarding and SMTP, consider my email forwarding app https://mailwip.com It was built for this use case.
https://eth-services.de
Disclaimer: they sponsor mailcow
I've been using it for a year or so now and haven't had any problems. The support is pretty good, you can email them for reverse dns. €4 per month
Oh wow this is so cheap, too bad the UI is only in german
I've been running mailcow for a long time to _receive_ mail. Sending was hit and miss. For a long time I could relay through my ISP, but that got me into delivery problems as well.
Now I've been relaying through Mail.baby/Interserver for 18 months or so and it works great. $1/mo base fee + usage. With the <100 mails me and my family send that adds up to $1.01/mo.
https://mailcow.email/ https://www.interserver.net/ https://www.interserver.net/r/926156 (affiliate link)
I've started self-hosting mailcow (dockerized) on a Hetzner VM ~6 years ago or so. It took about 6 month to clean the rep of my IP address as it unfortunately been in spam lists previously - but after that, it's been a pretty smooth sailing. And all for a measly ~10 euro/mo including daily backups.
Even $10/month for just SMTP seems a bit nuts. Fastmail charges only $60/year for a full email account. You could sign up there, not move over your MX records, and just use their SMTP server.
More than SMTP hosting, but I use a VPS for multiple online services, including SMTP. SMTP in particular is handled by postfix, OpenDKIM, policyd-spf. Its incoming mail part is additionally supported by uacme with knot, nftables, fail2ban, but sounds like you are not in need of that. 1 GB of main memory, 10 GB of disk space, and a bit of CPU is a comfortable (overkill, even) system to run a variety of services with a few users and without particularly bloated software, and I think it normally costs less than $5/month (or even under $1/month with occasional promotional plans), with plenty of hosting providers to choose from.
Edit: my current setup is documented [0], and the older (slightly different) one is linked from it.
[0] https://steady.mooo.com/~defanor/notes/simpler-server-setup....
Im using MXroute. I got their lifetime deal maybe 4 years ago. Good for basic smtp
Following this, after having SMTP in house for years and years just fine (IIS6) I’m told the server is decommissioned. Sometimes we send 20,000k in a day, but that’s when an announcement goes out. Otherwise it’s a few dozen registration emails per day. I was thinking of installing postfix on a Linux VM on the same IP and letting it ride. So used to paying zilch and having it running on a web server that’s for other things.
Checkout namecrane $10 a year https://namecrane.com/store/email-hosting-deals
Made the switch to self-hosted https://mailu.io (on k8s) 2 years ago when Gandi announced the deprecation of their free plan.
Happy after IP was off most blocklists, but setup was kinda rough - https://mxtoolbox.com is your friend.
I use Sendgrid with this docker container: https://github.com/marius/postfix-sendgrid
It is free for up to 100 emails per day.
https://opensrs.com/email/pricing/
https://proton.me/mail/pricing
https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/us/
https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/pricing/
Been self-hosting for over 15 years for both personal and professional email, including clients. Currently using docker-mailserver. The claims that deliverability is worse when self-hosting are greatly exaggerated. It's not perfect, but it's certainly no worse than Gmail or Google Workspace for business.
I have been using sendgrid for years and years and don't believe I have ever paid anything for it.
I run https://Mailcast.io which offers email forwarding and SMTP on your domain for a low fee for a single domain and a reasonable fee for more than that.
https://mailpace.com fits your needs (cheap, independent, 3rd party etc.)
I happily used Migadu but switched to iCloud. The bus factor for my family is 1 with technical knowledge whereas with domains paid up for 10 years and iCloud family it is higher.
Check out ImprovMX [1]. Main feature is forwarding but they have an SMTP option for $9/mo (6K emails).
[1] https://improvmx.com/
Forward Email is a reasonable option. It's fully open source and only $3/mo for unlimited domains. I also appreciate that it supports CalDAV.
Thanks @skeptrune
The community here is welcome to use coupon code "HN" for 100% off discount for one month via Stripe Checkout (not PayPal).
https://forwardemail.net
migadu.com Their micro plan is $19/month and works really well if you have a handful of domains and stay within their 200 in / 20 out emails per day.
Isn't that per year? I'm on their bigger $90/year plan which is excellent.
Yes, it is per year! Too late to edit now. :(
+1 for Migadu
Postmark. Totally brilliant.
Agree. I think they have best ratio between User and Developer friendlyness.
Gandi’s starts at 6 USD for email plan
This unwanted fee increase has me jumping ship
That's probably a reason for the fee increase because $10/month probably doesn't significantly exceed overhead costs at scale.
What I mean is, Rackspace probably has a service standard that exceeds $10/month/customer. Thus $10/month customers would not be worth keeping. Particularly if they are using the services in the way you are (without indications of increasing use to profitable levels).
To double down, customers who will leave for $24/year are always likely to bounce. That's the nature of price sensitive customers.
Good luck.
Using PostalServer.io since 2020 no problem. Running multiple servers and sending around 40k daily transactions emails.