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Ask HN: Are there any free email providers in 2023?

7 points by hoofhearted ↗ HN
Hey HN,

I’m working on a little side project, and I’d like to set up basic email service connected to my domain so that users can communicate with me.

The problem is that I bought my domain through GoDaddy as I have been doing since the beginning of time. They have always included a free basic email service with every domain you buy, but apparently they recently stopped including the email service.

It seems I have to now pay GoDaddy a monthly fee to have a simple help email box :(

I’m a little disappointed, and I know that there has to be a better way.

What do you’all recommend for free or cheap email using my domain name in 2023?

Thank you in advance!

Cheers

19 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 52.5 ms ] thread
brianpk
I use fastmail with a custom domain and I'm happy with it. At least, in the sense that it just works and I never have to think about it.
nunobrito
I'm looking at it and there is no free version. Is this correct?
beardyw
I have a domain registered with fasthosts and I get free email redirection, which I use with a Gmail account. It is a simple passthrough.
hoofhearted
I may look at doing just this, and then writing a simple plugin for fasthosts.

I have noticed that a large number of my signups so far are Gmail accounts, so it’s may make sense for them to have a simple integration to their gmail box.

Thank you for your input!

beardyw
Sadly Gmail won't let me send using that email address. Something to consider.
brianpk
Looks that way to me. For email, I'd rather be the customer than the product...
clusmore
It's not free, but you can register multiple domains to a single Fastmail account. So I pay Fastmail for my personal email hosting, and any side projects can reuse this same account at no additional cost.
nhatcher
I use zoho with a custom domain, it's pretty good.
pier25
Zoho has a free plan with custom domain but it forces you to use their email client.

For very cheap email plans with POP/IMAP I use Zoho and Namecheap.

hoofhearted
Does the name have to be registered with Zoho first?

I have a long account history with GoDaddy, so I just jumped on a cheap domain for my latest project without realizing email wasn’t included anymore.

It’s unfortunate because GoDaddy has been a decent domain provider for us for over 10 years. We have domains connected to services across AWS, Google Cloud, and Digital Ocean, and never had any issues before with their domain services. It was always great to buy a domain, and have a free included email out of the box that we could set up as a help/support catch all box.

nhatcher
No, you can use GoDaddy or anything else. Like the poster above, I use Namecheap.
pier25
> Does the name have to be registered with Zoho first?

No, you just need to add some DNS records.

chuckufarlie
I thought postale.io was free -- it must have been when I signed up because I'm not paying for it.

It isn't free anymore so it is not an answer to your question, but it is fairly cheap for the base plan: https://postale.io/pricing

hoofhearted
I wonder why so many providers have stopped giving away free email recently?

It couldn’t cost them that much to provide a single free email box could it?

ipaddr
proton, tutanoda, hushmail, gmxmail
mlhpdx
I use AWS SES for sending and receiving (awkwardly) email for essentially free on several domains. I put together this repo to share how it works, which isn’t for everyone (but I certainly enjoy it). While it isn’t a polished experience it is very, very robust when deployed to multiple regions.

https://github.com/mlhpdx/email-delivery

AgatheB
Hey! You can send up to 12,000 emails for free with mailersend, you just have to use your own domain, and edit its DNS records. They also check if you don't send spam to get you approved and up your sending limit.