NEWS: Changes to Fastmail service levels (and 60-day trials!)

[sflorack]

Read the official blog update here.

FM is becoming a "premium brand" and will no longer be offering free Guest accounts. (New, free users will instead need to open an account at @myopera.com.)

They are also offering a new service level called Premier -- 60 GB mail storage, 30 GB file storage and 400 SMS for $119.95/year.

IMHO, that seems like a big jump in price from Enhanced with not a whole lot of added benefit. (I also don't use file storage or SMS, so this is just my preference.)

They're also offering free 60-day trials on all account levels.

[William9]

Well, I hope that the level of support that goes with the new premium brand account is better than the priority support with the Enhanced accounts. This price range is getting very close to LuxSci which has awesome support, which I never experienced as a Fastmail customer with Enhanced accounts.

[petergh]

I concur with William9. My last interaction with FM support as an Enhanced account holder was less than satisfying, and of all the paid service providers I've trialled, FM took the longest to respond: 24 hours on average (over the course of almost a week). Let's hope Premier accounts come with Premier support, at least, because like sflorack, there's nothing offered in Premier accounts that would entice me to shell out $120/yr. You can get a LuxSci account for $108/year, albeit with only half the storage space. I wonder how many people actually need 60 GB storage space for email, but I guess some do, since FM has decided to offer this new account level.

[Terry]

Originally Posted by sflorack

Read the official blog update here.

FM is becoming a "premium brand" and will no longer be offering free Guest accounts. (New, free users will instead need to open an account at @myopera.com.)

Good move it will get rid of the spammers.

[BritTim]

Although only of interest to a few clients, I would like to know what "400 SMS" included means exactly. Is this 400 free SMS a month, a year, sign up bonus or what? Anyone know?

[hobbes]

Originally Posted by Terry

Good move it will get rid of the spammers.

Perhaps. If FM uses different outbound IP's to MyOpera then this is indeed good news. If they share the same outbound IP's then MyOpera spammers will still potentially impact FM users wrt IP blacklists.

[hobbes]

The features of Enhanced have not changed in any way.

The only way FM can continue to justify $40 a year for the Enhanced account is by improving the woeful support that currently exists.

edit: to put a positive spin on it, FM is one of the more reliable services I've experienced, so the need for support is not great. But...

[sflorack]

Originally Posted by hobbes

The only way FM can continue to justify $40 a year for the Enhanced account is by improving the woeful support that currently exists

I'm pretty content with a 24 hour response (reported by petergh), with my (personal) account. However, I can imagine how others may want something quicker for business communications.

I can easily justify the $40 (which was really $25/year for my multi-year account) because of the privacy, feature set, and reliability. I have a lot harder time justifying $120/yr for essentially additional storage, especially when FM even provides the tools to download archived emails.

[horatio8]

I've been very happy with the customer support response time, which has been only a few hours. I'm not sure if my experience is typical, or not, or whether the Australia time zone difference has worked in my favor. As far as the premier account, I'm only using 6gb now, and I could pay $4.95 per gb for every gb > than my current limit of 10gb until I'm using 26gb, when it would then pay to get the premier account (I don't use SMS, so that has no value to me). I would guess that premier accounts will only be attractive to corporate users. My hope is that the changes improve Fastmail's profitability, which ensures this great service stays as healthy as possible.

[squiggle]

I'm also a bit disappointed to see that there is no medium between the $40/yr enhanced and the $120/yr premium. I may be interested in additional mail space, but certainly not SMS or storage.

[sflorack]

Originally Posted by squiggle

I'm also a bit disappointed to see that there is no medium between the $40/yr enhanced and the $120/yr premium. I may be interested in additional mail space, but certainly not SMS or storage.

You can add mail storage space (and also SMS and file storage) as an add-on, so you're free to create your own service level in a sense.

[andrearp]

Originally Posted by squiggle

I'm also a bit disappointed to see that there is no medium between the $40/yr enhanced and the $120/yr premium. I may be interested in additional mail space, but certainly not SMS or storage.

What's more, it seems Business pricing has been COMPLETELY forgotten.

I checked right now, I just have 2 options for user.

An expensive 15Gb account for 60$, or a 150 Gb account for 300$, choose one.

On top of that, of course, is the "global" business account renewal fee.

I'd like to see an intermediate service level, or at least a discount on the 150Gb account.

[squiggle]

Originally Posted by sflorack

You can add mail storage space (and also SMS and file storage) as an add-on, so you're free to create your own service level in a sense.

Sure, but the pricing is a bit ridiculous for a la carte disk space at $5/yr for 1GB.

It just seems odd that the user levels are $5/yr for ad-free, $20/yr for full, $40/yr for enhanced, and then the huge jump to $120/yr for premier. Where's the middle ground for 30 GB of space for $60/yr or something?

[andrearp]

Originally Posted by squiggle

Sure, but the pricing is a bit ridiculous for a la carte disk space at $5/yr for 1GB.

It just seems odd that the user levels are $5/yr for ad-free, $20/yr for full, $40/yr for enhanced, and then the huge jump to $120/yr for premier. Where's the middle ground for 30 GB of space for $60/yr or something?

and 30Gb for Business users...

[InfamousGrouse]

This new pricing structure does seem odd. I would imagine -- although I could be wrong -- that most potential SMS users will fall into one of two broad categories:

1. Those who would use it very infrequently for rare or emergency messaging, for whom an ad-hoc SMS bundle would probably be cheaper, and
   
2. Those who would like to have notifications for almost everything, but who would therefore burn through 400 messages in next to no time.

Some sort of pricing bundle offering unlimited SMS would have been ideal, but I suppose with the often insane cost of international text messaging that wasn't really feasible.