Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Running an email business from your own domain

[saj]

Hi Everyone

it kinda crossed my mind about something ((not sure if anyone else is actually doing this but if u are please let me know about it)

Basically im thinking if someone sets up an email business and sells it would it work well??

What i mean by this is this:

say i have domain/server lets take for example

freeemail.com (or whatever or it cud even be yourdomain.com aswell) and u have your own server and say u were to offer people 1gig email storage space and all..and sell them off....

do u think it would work?

similar if webhostingtalk.com started offering emails and give u ur own email accounts like yourname@webhostingtalk.com and started selling em off...


((hope this makes sense))

s

[Project X]

yes it does, im planning on offering the same thing, just trying to figure it out too!

let me know what you come up with

[lifeinkc]

Would selling them emails work, when you have so many places th at offer it for free?

[morehost]

yahoo recently topped its free space upto 100MB.. Google is coming with 1GB Free Mail... Guess, you have a tough competetion guys

Still, you have a market...
Offer highly professional, fast, adfree service targeting to small businesses and home users who are fed up of ads... also you can highlight pop/imap etc.. BTW don't advertise SMTP or you might land in hands of some spammers

[BigGorilla]

There are *many* free and for fee email services available. Free examples: yahoo, hotmail, gmail. Fee based: everyone.net, webmail.us (couple random examples, although I believe both of these allow you to use your own domain, not theirs).

If you want to charge a fee for your mail service, you should focus on reliability, performance, excellent spam handling, user definable filtering, functionality (good webmail interface as well as pop and possibly imap options), etc... Things not necessarily readily availble in free versions. Also, targeting a niche market may help you significantly, like your local area, or maybe certain interest groups.

Also create a rock solid Acceptable Use Policy so you can keep your users under control and keep yourself off block lists.