Business-level Email Service Providers

felipe1982 on 23/07/2014 - 12:44
Last edited 24/07/2014 - 11:45

I'm the network/system administrator for my company with around ~17 employees. Our current email provider has been nothing but a nightmare for several years, and we're looking to switch.

We use mostly Outlook 2007, 2010, and a few 2013. As Outlook's IMAP support is "temperamental", we use primarily POP3, to download all messages to our disks.

For synchronised calendars we use a tool called 'gSyncit' to sync Google Calendar and Outlook.

We are open to utilising something else, if it proves to be "better" than gSyncit (better here meaning improved ease-of-use or improved functionality, etc.)

Therefore, here are the main requirements.

  1. POP3 + IMAP
  2. doesn't have to be large storage (per address) as we POP all messages to hard disks
  3. large amount of forwarding rules (to forward all mail directed at support@example to [email protected] and [email protected])
  4. regex filtering based on (e.g.) subject, from, to, etc.
  5. less than $5/per user/per month (should be cheaper than Google)
  6. good reliability (i'm guessing 99% up-time? I can do with less to keep costs down a little bit)
  7. good support (< 24h email turn around)
  8. calendaring (if better than gSyncit + Google Calendar solution described above)
  9. use our own domain name (1 at the moment, unlikely to be more in the future (you never know))
  10. auto-responders for vacation/holidays
  11. webmail (very seldom used - not a big requirement)
  12. iPhone + Android (mobile) access
  13. EDIT: unlimited (or 100+) inboxes. As these are "virtual" we do not require more hard disk storage.

What are your thoughts on the following providers?

  1. fastmail
  2. zoho
  3. rackspace
  4. atmail
Internet

Comments

  • scotty on 23/07/2014 - 13:12
    +1

    OneDrive/Outlook.com for Business? From USD$2.50/User/Month with annual commitment. Sorry I have no experience but it looks quite comparable to Google Apps for enterprise if you are relying on Microsoft stack (i.e. Outlook).

  • timmypete on 23/07/2014 - 14:15

    I'm a very happy Fastmail user after coming across from gApps (and I have experience in Telstra-resold Microsoft Online too). It does all you stipulate above and I can attest to their reliability and customer service (More comments I've made on them in these forums here).

    I currently have an account with a wildcard alias that accepts mail from a ton of inbound addresses from a few domain names. Their rules process has a useful web interface as well as the ability to use regexps, blobs or a full custom SIEVE script (More info here) and I've found this really useful. You could try forwarding like you describe at this level (their rules allow transparent redirects as an option) or there are other options on the domain control panel or through distribution lists. While you can't buy domain names off them, their domain hosting tool is better than anything the many registrars I've used have offered.

    The only caveats on this discussion I can add are that I haven't used POP with Fastmail, and I've only used their relatively new calendar in a non-group context. I used to use their IMAP service, which was solid and reliable, but their webmail is good enough that I haven't seen the need to configure a client on my new phone or home desktop.

    Finally, my only real gripe is that their baysian spam filtering takes a little while to train, though it wasn't an issue as I brought over a couple of rules from my old setup that help quarantine my most-spammed addresses into a training folder. This might be an issue if you're using POP as I'm not sure whether the training and reporting systems will work if you delete the messages on download (which it sounds like you might be doing).

  • suti on 23/07/2014 - 15:19

    Office 365 is just $5.60/month/user without their office plan (but it includes outlook). Including office, its 13.50/month/user and its great for our small business. we don't have to worry about servers or any of that cr@p.

    http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/compare-office-365-for-bus…

  • felipe1982 on 24/07/2014 - 11:45

    Thanks for the replies. Another requirement I would add is unlimited (or many) inboxes. As these are "virtual" we do not require more hard disk storage.

    • timmypete on 24/07/2014 - 12:33

      unlimited (or many) inboxes

      What exactly do you mean by this? I have two separate accounts, one for personal matters and one for everything else. The second account has one username and password but is set to accept any email that is not addressed to a user account (so addresses like [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and about 300 other emails) get delivered. I then use address based rules to filter into other folders, forward or deliver to a generic inbox. Fastmail's webmail is configured to reply from whatever address the email was delivered to (or select another by pulldown box or freetext field) and I believe you can configure SMTP to send emails as an alias instead.

      So if you mean the ability to receive and send at many more email addresses on your domain than you have users, Fastmail will work for you. If you mean many individual accounts with their own username and password, you would need to pay for each account.

      • felipe1982 on 24/07/2014 - 14:53

        If you mean many individual accounts with their own username and password, you would need to pay for each account.

        Each account with their own user/pw is what I need. I believe FastMail charges for each one.

        • timmypete on 24/07/2014 - 17:28

          Sounds like you'd be out of luck then. In terms of pricing context you name $5 p/m as an acceptable account fee.

          Fastmail charges annually with $30 for a standard account ($2.50 p/m, 2GB, calendars) and $15 for a basic account ($1.50 p/m, 500MB, no calendars). If you could ditch the calendar requirement on these additional mailboxes this might be another way of trimming down on cost.

          On a more serious note though, would you consider setting up one mail account with a wildcard address and an individual folder for each "virtual" email's inbox? I have no idea how your workflow operates, but it seems like a fairly easy change to make in order to cut hosting costs.

        • felipe1982 on 24/07/2014 - 18:15

          @tplen1: Thanks for the reply. There is a lot of backend-software which is relying on individual email inboxes (username/pw). They all operate via POP and poll for messages and download them according to the login name (etc.).

          How does Zoho compare with FastMail or other providers?

        • timmypete on 24/07/2014 - 21:32

          @felipe1982:

          How does Zoho compare with FastMail or other providers?

          You'll have to ask others sorry :)

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