need third party email and webmail hosting specialists

December 29, 2004 9:46 AM

Email hosting redux! Looking for 3rd-party email-hosting specialists. Require: own-domain, I manage DNS, no incremented billing per mailbox/user. Web-based control panel. Under $50/year, I hope. Anyone got a lead?
posted by mwhybark to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

You're probably better off making friends with someone who has their own dedicated box or something and negotiating from there. Otherwise, I think domain registrars like godaddy offer those individual services like that. Could be wrong, of course.
posted by angry modem at 9:50 AM on December 29, 2004

Response by poster: Previous email and hosting discussions tend to emphasize web-presence hosting providers: I am interested in finding an email-only provider.

This recent discussion is similar, but not quite what I need.

In another hosting thread, someone mentioned Lux Scientae, which is close, but offers confusing, incremented pricing.

I was hoping to find pobox.com offerring what I wanted and surprised to not see it.
posted by mwhybark at 9:51 AM on December 29, 2004

check it:

24hostingnow.com

i've been using them for the last year, very happy. Right now, if you pay annually, it's $5/mo -- that's $60 ($10 more than you wanted, but you're getting all sorts of extras) and you'll have unlimited emails.

Sadly, it doesn't look like they're doing the unlimited domain thing like they used to (you can get unlimited domains, but it's $2 extra a month). Right now i'm hosting something like 6 or 7 domains on my account and i just paid the $60 annual price, i think (i've got a reseller account, too, so i can offer people control panels).

I've never noticed any significant downtime (ie, i've never once not been able to hit my pages).
posted by fishfucker at 10:31 AM on December 29, 2004

hmm. however, spurred by this question, i just had a chat with them, and they said when my billing cycle is up i may have to go for "the revised structure", which is a little shady. I don't like being offered a plan that's supposedly renewable, and then being told a year later that they are no longer able to offer such a deal (i do have to say that every time i've used the live chat i've never had to wait more than a minute to get an op on, which is pretty awesome).
posted by fishfucker at 10:43 AM on December 29, 2004

I also have to say, ff, that the annoying noises 24hostingnow.com's website makes puts it a bit low on my list of potential companies. Seriously, little blippy noises every freaking time I mouse over a menu option? Annoying.
posted by delfuego at 11:37 AM on December 29, 2004

oh sorry. i should've mentioned that for folks at work.

24hostingnow has a stupid flash menu.

it gets me every time too.
posted by fishfucker at 11:53 AM on December 29, 2004

I use 1&1 (1and1.com). They have a plan that includes some hosting, but is $4.99 a month, which is a bit more than you want to spend. However, I get 200 e-mail addresses, and I think each has a gig of quota. (I'm using a whole four of them.)
posted by oaf at 6:44 PM on December 29, 2004