paid email services

[peteboy48]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build a website to sell email addresses. Do you think I can make money with that kind of website? Is it better to sell email or to let them free an sell ads? How much money should I need to build a professionnal website to sell email? Where can I found stats about email market? Where is the best place to host( biggest space at the lowest price)? Is it better to buy server or rent one? What is the best company for email software? What else should I think about to make it successful? Thanks all!

 

[urlurl]

Chicago.com does a good job selling email's

 

[katherine]

I don't think there is a really big market for paid E-mail, unless you are google and target professional users.
Many people use a free gmail address or another crap E-mail that is free.

Chicago.com is an exception. But if you have a really great domain like Chicago.com, using it for mail only is under-utilization. And unless you have a really great vanity domain, there is no incentive for people to sign up with your service iether. They already have at least one mediocre address

The other approach is to simply provide mail hosting for existing domains, that's what google apps is all about. But you are also competing with a gazillion cloud hosting companies.

To sum up:

• paid service: tough to sell. Customers want value for money.
• free service (ad-supported): inevitably you will have to deal with spammers and unscrupulous people abusing the privilege. Unless you are extremely vigilant (and tough) on spam your network will be blacklisted in no time - hence the ability to exchange E-mail with the outside world will be severely limited... End result: the whole service is degraded for all users, then they ditch you. It's normal, if everything they send is marked as spam or doesn't reach the recipient because of your poor IP reputation - your service is useless.

The technical aspect is the easy thing here. The technology is available and everything can be outsourced.
The trick is to actually make it work (commercially) and maintain quality of service.

Perhaps you should consider using some white label service.