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Comment by jaredstenquist | Hacker News Reader

For those with custom domain names... $20/year vs $60/year for Google Apps. Ads or not, thats a compelling savings for my many pet projects where I only need 1 or 2 @projectname.com mailboxes.

It's a shame that Google Apps got rid of the free tier. I've started 2 businesses on the free tier (< 10 accounts) and now pay around $200/month for each company as they have grown.

Now Microsoft will gain some ground in the email arena.

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You can still sign up for Google Apps' free tier, Google is just hiding it deeper and deeper in the interface. Last time I did it was two weeks or so ago, and I had to sign up via the Google App Engine control panel, as detailed here: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-app-mail-for-free/

Definitely good enough for one time @projectname.com mailboxes.

Yikes. If you're paying around $200/month (Not sure if this it total, or for each service, making it $400/month), would it not be feasible to invest in a VPS at linode and run your own mail server? You could even hire a decent system admin to look after it, and still save a few hundred dollars a month.

I've run a mail server for 5 years for a NGO. Running your own mail server is not as easy as running your own LAMP stack. The is SPAM, IMAP, bounces, ... and many more issues with running your own system. My Postfix is only redirecting to gmail accounts. If that works - fine, but that's probably not what a small non-tech-savy business needs.

In my case, we're VC backed, heads down working on product. I love rolling my own for most infrastructure, but when you get into managing groups, aliases, password changes, SPF, DKIM, Webmail etc... for 30+ people, it quickly becomes a major time suck. I strongly believe in spending reasonable money to outsource anything like this.

This of course assumes you aren't worried about Google/M$ reading every email and stealing your trade secrets...

Puts on tinfoil hat

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