Pricing details released - Page 7

Jeremy Howard · 8 Feb 2002, 11:57 AM

That's better. I've put that in.

I'd previously been scared of changing row colors--this is one of the few pages that we write by hand, rather than create programmatically. Changing the row colors every time was really annoying. Anyway, I've did a one-liner in Perl to create alternating row colors now, so I'm happy!

perl -pe 'next unless /tr bgcolor/; $a = !$a; $b= $a ? "EEEEFF" : "FFFFEE"; s/bgcolor="#(
\w*)"/bgcolor="#$b"/'

***Edwin*** · 8 Feb 2002, 12:43 PM

One more suggestion... I think the "Feature Descriptions" page could be a lot stronger if you rephrased each comment as a factual statement rather than a question.

e.g. "Is web interface access included" becomes "You can access your email via the Fastmail.fm web interface"

***Edwin*** · 9 Feb 2002, 01:01 AM

Something suddenly struck me!

You ought to have TWO versions of the pricing table. One that you show to existing users, the second to new users once you pass the cutoff date for "grandfathering"

The version for existing users ought to show the CURRENT Fastmail account settings, for comparison purposes, so that people can figure out at a glance what they'd have to pay to get the current functionality back, function by function, depending on what they use.

Done right, I bet this would substantially increase both the takeup of the paid service and the number of people opting for the higher-level plans.... after all, remember that your best-ever shot at marketing to the early user-base is when you first announce the official pricing table and the start of payments, plus grandfathering system.

**circuit** · 9 Feb 2002, 12:05 PM

Yes! I hope this suggestion is implemented. It's quite confusing trying to work out how the table relates to the account as it stands. I find myself reading the table over and over thinking 'What would I lose with this cheap plan? What would I get back with the more expensive one?' - an at-a-glance reference is an excellent idea.

Jeremy Howard · 9 Feb 2002, 01:15 PM

Will do.

frapper · 11 Feb 2002, 11:42 AM

Jeremy,

FM looks very good. My question concerns payment. If I choose the basic "Member" plan for 10 bucks ($9.60), and choose to simply have my account locked should I exceed any limits for that month, is it possible to simply pay by bank check? Thanks.

Jeremy Howard · 11 Feb 2002, 12:11 PM

Only if it is absolutely positively the last option. Please try and borrow and friend/family member's credit card or PayPal account. The problem is that we are in Australia, so there are foreign transaction costs. We would have to pass that on to you. Also, frankly, Rob and I are programmers not accountants so managing the receipt of paper-based payments is something that we can't do on a large scale, whereas automating on-line payment systems is right up our alley...

There's no hurry--you've got 2 months after Feb 18 to upgrade. If during that time you can't find someone's card/paypal to borrow, email us and we'll give you the details for a cheque or bank transfer.

spruce · 13 Feb 2002, 04:52 AM

As an addendum to the two higher priced levels, tucked away in a subpage somewhere, you should add the ability to purchase additional Personalities in, say groups of 20, if, indeed, asking for an "Unlimited Personalities" option is unreasonable.

Some way to purchase larger address books might be nice as well.

Some users may want to overutilize this feature to keep track of who is doing what to each given email address, in a 1 Personality per Address book entry type scheme, with each Personality actually receiving a sparse amount of email per month, on average.

I am of course assuming fastmail.fm retains the right to cancel the entire account if any Personality in the account is abused in any way.

robmueller · 13 Feb 2002, 07:35 AM

I don't think this is exactly how personalities will be designed to work. I can't imagine wanting to send out a different address to every person I every correspond with. OK, maybe I can see some people doing that, but really, do you have to?

It always amazes me discovering how different people use systems. You'd think 'email', there's just one way of using it. But instead absolutely everyone uses it slightly differently...

Rob

**JeffK** · 13 Feb 2002, 07:16 PM

If one buys say a full account and another two aliases making a total of five can one or more of the aliases be readily cancelled and/or others obtained in their place?

Regards, Jeff Kogler

spruce · 14 Feb 2002, 01:43 AM

Well, I don't *have* to use an infinite amount of Personalities. Then again, I don't *have* to use Fastmail IMAP, either. I can pay for the POP and continue to use my Eudora personalities or Mulberry identities (which, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe are the analagous features in these email clients.)

And I know I can't actually go to infinity - I'm limited by namespace (64 characters, is it? Or is that increasing?) disk space (which fastmail has an upgrade option for) and maybe folder space (which I don't see any limitations to.) So I'll change it to a Very Large amount of Personalities.

I'm just saying, if fastmail allows an Very Large namespace in the form of plus addresses and folders (which I see no limit to on the pricing chart) and another Very Large namespace in the form of a subdomain and aliases (which fastmail allows the purchase of more of,) and another Very Large namespace in the form of MX directed domains (which fastmail allows the purchase of more of,) then I can easily see someone eventually running over the upper limit of 20 Personalities.

I just don't see why that particular pricing option would make fastmail squeamish. (Then again I still don't see why POP is not preferable to IMAP from the server's perspective, since POP email usually gets downloaded immediately, so I'm no expert.)

If it's just complexity of the pricing chart, and webmaster can make special arrangements via email if one wants more Personalities, I thought I'd bring the question up, in case the forum readers wanted to know that.

robmueller · 14 Feb 2002, 07:52 AM

spruce: I think the best thing is to use whatever you're comfortable with and makes the most sense for you. I set the limit at 20 pretty arbitrarily, because I thought 'no-one will need more than 20, so 20 is basically *infinite*'. I guess I was wrong. I'm sure we can have exceptions.

jeff: Yes, aliases can be changed and cancelled.

elvey · 15 Feb 2002, 12:40 AM

minor bug: The clarification around autoget has made the two pages inconsistent.
It says
Auto-get POP link on login
on one and
Auto-get POP on IMAP
on the other.

I guess you decided that web login won't trigger this.

Jeremy Howard · 15 Feb 2002, 03:19 AM

Thanks for pointing that out.

Correct that web doesn't do this--through the web you can always just click the 'retrieve' button after all.

elvey · 11 Apr 2002, 09:20 AM

$0.25/address/domain needs clarification - it appears to be a one-time charge.

Also - Anyone have an early copy of pricingtbl.html for the history books?

13 Feb 2002, 04:52 AM	#98
spruce Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Boston Posts: 38	Personalities As an addendum to the two higher priced levels, tucked away in a subpage somewhere, you should add the ability to purchase additional Personalities in, say groups of 20, if, indeed, asking for an "Unlimited Personalities" option is unreasonable. Some way to purchase larger address books might be nice as well. Some users may want to overutilize this feature to keep track of who is doing what to each given email address, in a 1 Personality per Address book entry type scheme, with each Personality actually receiving a sparse amount of email per month, on average. I am of course assuming fastmail.fm retains the right to cancel the entire account if any Personality in the account is abused in any way. Last edited by spruce : 13 Feb 2002 at 06:11 AM.

14 Feb 2002, 01:43 AM	#101
spruce Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Boston Posts: 38	Re: Personalities Well, I don't have to use an infinite amount of Personalities. Then again, I don't have to use Fastmail IMAP, either. I can pay for the POP and continue to use my Eudora personalities or Mulberry identities (which, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe are the analagous features in these email clients.) And I know I can't actually go to infinity - I'm limited by namespace (64 characters, is it? Or is that increasing?) disk space (which fastmail has an upgrade option for) and maybe folder space (which I don't see any limitations to.) So I'll change it to a Very Large amount of Personalities. I'm just saying, if fastmail allows an Very Large namespace in the form of plus addresses and folders (which I see no limit to on the pricing chart) and another Very Large namespace in the form of a subdomain and aliases (which fastmail allows the purchase of more of,) and another Very Large namespace in the form of MX directed domains (which fastmail allows the purchase of more of,) then I can easily see someone eventually running over the upper limit of 20 Personalities. I just don't see why that particular pricing option would make fastmail squeamish. (Then again I still don't see why POP is not preferable to IMAP from the server's perspective, since POP email usually gets downloaded immediately, so I'm no expert.) If it's just complexity of the pricing chart, and webmaster can make special arrangements via email if one wants more Personalities, I thought I'd bring the question up, in case the forum readers wanted to know that.

8 Feb 2002, 11:57 AM	#91
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	That's better. I've put that in. I'd previously been scared of changing row colors--this is one of the few pages that we write by hand, rather than create programmatically. Changing the row colors every time was really annoying. Anyway, I've did a one-liner in Perl to create alternating row colors now, so I'm happy! perl -pe 'next unless /tr bgcolor/; $a = !$a; $b= $a ? "EEEEFF" : "FFFFEE"; s/bgcolor="#( \w*)"/bgcolor="#$b"/'

8 Feb 2002, 12:43 PM	#92
*Edwin* Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: UK Posts: 3,118	One more suggestion... I think the "Feature Descriptions" page could be a lot stronger if you rephrased each comment as a factual statement rather than a question. e.g. "Is web interface access included" becomes "You can access your email via the Fastmail.fm web interface"

9 Feb 2002, 01:01 AM	#93
*Edwin* Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: UK Posts: 3,118	Something suddenly struck me! You ought to have TWO versions of the pricing table. One that you show to existing users, the second to new users once you pass the cutoff date for "grandfathering" The version for existing users ought to show the CURRENT Fastmail account settings, for comparison purposes, so that people can figure out at a glance what they'd have to pay to get the current functionality back, function by function, depending on what they use. Done right, I bet this would substantially increase both the takeup of the paid service and the number of people opting for the higher-level plans.... after all, remember that your best-ever shot at marketing to the early user-base is when you first announce the official pricing table and the start of payments, plus grandfathering system.

9 Feb 2002, 12:05 PM	#94
circuit Moderator Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: UK Posts: 343	Yes! I hope this suggestion is implemented. It's quite confusing trying to work out how the table relates to the account as it stands. I find myself reading the table over and over thinking 'What would I lose with this cheap plan? What would I get back with the more expensive one?' - an at-a-glance reference is an excellent idea.

9 Feb 2002, 01:15 PM	#95
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Will do.

11 Feb 2002, 11:42 AM	#96
frapper Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: USA Posts: 3	Jeremy, FM looks very good. My question concerns payment. If I choose the basic "Member" plan for 10 bucks ($9.60), and choose to simply have my account locked should I exceed any limits for that month, is it possible to simply pay by bank check? Thanks.

11 Feb 2002, 12:11 PM	#97
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Only if it is absolutely positively the last option. Please try and borrow and friend/family member's credit card or PayPal account. The problem is that we are in Australia, so there are foreign transaction costs. We would have to pass that on to you. Also, frankly, Rob and I are programmers not accountants so managing the receipt of paper-based payments is something that we can't do on a large scale, whereas automating on-line payment systems is right up our alley... There's no hurry--you've got 2 months after Feb 18 to upgrade. If during that time you can't find someone's card/paypal to borrow, email us and we'll give you the details for a cheque or bank transfer.

13 Feb 2002, 07:35 AM	#99
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	I don't think this is exactly how personalities will be designed to work. I can't imagine wanting to send out a different address to every person I every correspond with. OK, maybe I can see some people doing that, but really, do you have to? It always amazes me discovering how different people use systems. You'd think 'email', there's just one way of using it. But instead absolutely everyone uses it slightly differently... Rob

13 Feb 2002, 07:16 PM	#100
JeffK Moderator Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Kingaroy, AU Posts: 3,177	If one buys say a full account and another two aliases making a total of five can one or more of the aliases be readily cancelled and/or others obtained in their place? Regards, Jeff Kogler

14 Feb 2002, 07:52 AM	#102
robmueller Intergalactic Postmaster Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 6,102 Representative of: Fastmail.FM	spruce: I think the best thing is to use whatever you're comfortable with and makes the most sense for you. I set the limit at 20 pretty arbitrarily, because I thought 'no-one will need more than 20, so 20 is basically infinite'. I guess I was wrong. I'm sure we can have exceptions. jeff: Yes, aliases can be changed and cancelled.

15 Feb 2002, 12:40 AM	#103
elvey The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: San Francisco Posts: 2,458	minor bug: The clarification around autoget has made the two pages inconsistent. It says Auto-get POP link on login on one and Auto-get POP on IMAP on the other. I guess you decided that web login won't trigger this.

15 Feb 2002, 03:19 AM	#104
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Thanks for pointing that out. Correct that web doesn't do this--through the web you can always just click the 'retrieve' button after all.

11 Apr 2002, 09:20 AM	#105
elvey The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: San Francisco Posts: 2,458	$0.25/address/domain needs clarification - it appears to be a one-time charge. Also - Anyone have an early copy of pricingtbl.html for the history books?