How was the paid STMP service you were using? Been trying to find one and most seem to be used for email marketing/spam, so it's hard to know what would work reliably for small scale personal email.
Others recommended fastmail which I also like. Some people have concerns with it because it is based in Australia, which a couple years ago passed some pretty far-reaching data subpoena laws, but they don't seem too concerned about it: https://fastmail.blog/privacy-security/advocating-for-privac...
But yeah, Australia is not... Optimal, privacy wise. Poor data laws and member of the Five Eyes network will probably force me, finally, to switch to a new service (probably Proton mail) at the end of the next yearly renewal :(
Edit: just remembered there's been a couple of incidents with poor security practices, in the past, with fastmail (easy to google) that doesn't look flattering.
And I think (?) there's been some issues with spoofed email going around/originated within fastmail's internal network:
"Fastmail domains have a DMARC policy of none, which means recipient mail servers should report whether the message passes or not, but not change deliverability. This allows users to send mail using our domains from anywhere, for legacy reasons."
From the final section on https://www.fastmail.com/help/technical/senderauthentication.... I think this was abused?
If you really need to talk to someone over email securely, PGP over email is the way to go.
I've never had the need to protect my mail (using PGP for example) as I don't send mails that's sensitive enough for it or are forced to message with tech illiterate people (sorry) that can't use it.
I just want a privacy friendly service that won't give up my data to uninvolved 3rd parties :(
A lot of it comes down to reading over a company's privacy policy (if you can't understand it / its really long, that's a red flag), where they are located, and -- important -- if its free or paid.
Here's the write-up that convinced me to switch: https://drewdevault.com/2020/06/19/Mail-service-provider-rec...
Protonmail is mentioned in the footnotes.
Anecdotal, but my biggest client has said my emails no longer tend to hit his spam folder since I've made the switch.
edoceo, the reason your flippant comment is irrelevant and unhelpful is that running an SMTP service means dealing with often intractable deliverability problems that are only surmountable by having your mail sent by a server that sends a large volume of legitimate email to build reputation as a sender.
It doesn't matter if you use postfix, exim, sendmail, BSD, Linux, or TempleOS, or manually wiggle magnets towards an open socket to send email, the reason the GP wants paid SMTP is so that he can rent access to a server with adequate deliverability to actually use his email.
Do you have good deliverabikity to Google and MS hosted mailboxen?
Could had sworn there were a lot more work/tech required, a couple of years ago.
Also did you have to research your IP/domain that your VPS sits behind? Domain blacklists, and avoiding them, seems pretty straightforward. But I've heard mixed things about VPS ips, some mail services could block whole networks from VPS providers while others don't care as long as you don't spam?