EmailDiscussions.com  

Go Back   EmailDiscussions.com > Email Service Provider-specific Forums > FastMail Forum
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read
Stay in touch wirelessly

FastMail Forum All posts relating to FastMail.FM should go here: suggestions, comments, requests for help, complaints, technical issues etc.

Reply
 
Thread Tools
Old 29 Aug 2016, 04:42 PM   #16
David
Ultimate Contributor
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Canada.
Posts: 10,355
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
I have been paying about $39 US for an enhanced account for the last 13 or 14 years years, so I would think in the near future they will go up in line with inflation.
You can renew for 5 years and get a discount....and you will be locked into that plan.
In the beginning: the only advantage of an enhanced account (over a full account) was increased resources (storage and bandwidth etc) - you could host your own domain name with an enhanced account. That said, you could also host your own domain name with a 'full account' by paying, (I think it was) ten dollars a year extra.

Fastmail however stopped 'full account holders' from registering and using their own domain name only a few years later....

Fastmail started out as place to go for the masses (who wanted a better service at a small increased cost) - now they are escalating everything and becoming a business oriented email provider; not that I blame them for that, but there is now no place for the small everyday user, who is just wanting a basic excellent service.

You have excelled Fastmail (to an excellent degree) but in doing so you have priced yourself out of the market for (you know who) the small guys who were your main supporters and your main strength...... in the beginning days.
David is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29 Aug 2016, 05:06 PM   #17
edu
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 194
In Fastmail I only need the minimum, I don't need more. So, I will renew again with my previous lite account price, but I know that sooner or later it will be impossible to do it in the future. You know, nothing last forever, first we are being told that nothing happens but some time later all is over. I hope not, but we will see. And I understand what FM is doing, it's their business, and so I think there will be no place for users needing the basics.
edu is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29 Aug 2016, 07:57 PM   #18
marshsparks
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: France
Posts: 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by David View Post
Fastmail have always made you pay through the nose (if you want to host your own domain name for email) - now they are making you pay even more; fifty dollars a year, versus forty dollars a year - is a ludicrous amount of money to pay.......
I don't know if this is a serious comment or not, but previously a Family plan + single Lite account allowed own domain name for $15. I agree that that is cheap and could have stood a price increase.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
I have been paying about $39 US for an enhanced account for the last 13 or 14 years years, so I would think in the near future they will go up in line with inflation.
You can renew for 5 years and get a discount....and you will be locked into that plan.
Perhaps the prices should have been increased incrementally over the years, I don't know – maybe we would have been up to the current rates by now.

A Family plan can only be renewed for one year at a time, so no discount (not unreasonable, given the low cost) and no long-term lock-in.

As for the rest of the Fastmail 'added-value' features, I have ownCloud on my shared hosting account, so no need for [Web|Cal|Card]DAV, nor web space and I have 250 GB of file storage. The attraction of Fastmail, for me, was always the notion of 'email, done right' – a single core service, very well done.
marshsparks is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29 Aug 2016, 08:03 PM   #19
marshsparks
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: France
Posts: 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by edu View Post
In Fastmail I only need the minimum, I don't need more. So, I will renew again with my previous lite account price, but I know that sooner or later it will be impossible to do it in the future.
...
and so I think there will be no place for users needing the basics.
I think you're right. The constant upsell is an inevitable business strategy, but usually at a cost of compromise (which is why I don't use my webhost email) or duplication of established services (which is why I don't want/need Fastmail's DAV or more space).
marshsparks is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29 Aug 2016, 08:12 PM   #20
FredOnline
The "e" in e-mail
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Manchester UK
Posts: 2,616
Quote:
Originally Posted by marshsparks View Post
previously a Family plan + single Lite account allowed own domain name for $15
Yes, this was available (I have had this myself), but it wasn't really advertised all that much, you had to work it out for yourself.
FredOnline is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29 Aug 2016, 10:05 PM   #21
BritTim
The "e" in e-mail
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: mostly in Thailand
Posts: 3,084
Quote:
Originally Posted by marshsparks View Post
As for the rest of the Fastmail 'added-value' features, I have ownCloud on my shared hosting account, so no need for [Web|Cal|Card]DAV, nor web space and I have 250 GB of file storage. The attraction of Fastmail, for me, was always the notion of 'email, done right' – a single core service, very well done.
I have a lot of sympathy for this viewpoint. However, a viable contact sync capability was a crying need for a long time before it became available. CardDAV, or similar, was always a key component of "email done right".
BritTim is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 03:01 AM   #22
marshsparks
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: France
Posts: 6
Quote:
Originally Posted by FredOnline View Post
Yes, this was available (I have had this myself), but it wasn't really advertised all that much, you had to work it out for yourself.
It may not have been explicitly advertised (have any FM accounts been advertised outside of editorial copy?), but it certainly wasn't hidden – right there on the plan comparison page and the plan selection page at point of order. At least, that's how I found it.

But then, I never found the old plan selection confusing. Even some of the free email offerings are less clear ...
marshsparks is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 03:36 AM   #23
placebo
Cornerstone of the Community
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 740
Quote:
Originally Posted by marshsparks View Post
I don't know if this is a serious comment or not, but previously a Family plan + single Lite account allowed own domain name for $15. I agree that that is cheap and could have stood a price increase.
As far as domain hosting with FastMail goes, the family plan pricing was an anomaly. When only individual accounts were offered, you had to sign up for the most expensive account if you wanted to use your own domain. I was pleasantly surprised when I converted my Full account to a family account and discovered that I could now use my own domain. The new pricing scheme, however, returns to the notion that domain hosting is a premium-level feature.

For individual users, I think the new pricing is fine. When I compared FastMail's pricing to other providers' for individual accounts, it didn't strike me as being out of line with the market. When you compare $30 or $50 a year to what you pay for other things, like cell phone service, etc, e-mail service seems relatively inexpensive.

My criticism of the new pricing is that it greatly increases the marginal cost of additional accounts if you use your own domain. I can see paying the $20 difference between a basic and standard account for the first account in a domain, but paying an extra $20 for each additional account quickly adds up for users like me for which even the basic account is overkill.
placebo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 04:04 AM   #24
Jacinto
Essential Contributor
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 395
Was looking at the "UPGRADE/DOWNGRADE" options while logged in to Fastmail and noticed that the new plans do not offer POP3 capability?

I still pop mail several times a day from one of my two legacy Enhanced accounts.

Not that I'm seriously thinking of "upgrading" to a new plan, but the absence of capability to pop other directories in addition to the Inbox, would be a show-stopper for me.

--
Jacinto
Jacinto is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 07:40 AM   #25
Mugwhamp
Cornerstone of the Community
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Manila
Posts: 509
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
I have been paying about $39 US for an enhanced account for the last 13 or 14 years years, so I would think in the near future they will go up in line with inflation.
You can renew for 5 years and get a discount....and you will be locked into that plan.
I realize that not everyone is in the same boat as I, but after having paid $39 forever, a price increase does not bother me, and I don't have to pay it anyway--I'll stick with the legacy account--as I'm at 32% of my 15GB storage after 12 years of high usage as a former teacher and current school administrator. I'm guessing the vast majority of users are in my category, though, of course, I can't be sure. I continue to be content with the service and pricing.
Mugwhamp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 08:34 AM   #26
pjwalsh
Essential Contributor
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 312
File storage with WebDAV access is a much under-appreciated bonus of the FastMail service IMO. With SSL mandatory for the connection, app-specific passwords and 2FA, I've secure access to my FM stored files from any device, with just about any file manager, using the WebDAV open standard. Very few cloud storage providers (none?) allow WebDAV access anymore, they'd rather lock you into their ecosystem. Backup options via WebDAV are uncomplicated and plentiful, the 5GB with enhanced is more than enough for all files I might need ready access to away from the desktop. Really, 5 or 10 GB is enough for everything except media libraries and VM images, and there are cheap enough options for those. Simple website, file serving and URL redirect options come in handy!

$50 per year for the FastMail feature-laden email service, full-fledged domain/DNS hosting and WebDAV file storage is good value in my books (as an individual user). With a 2-yr enrollment less than $4/mo for 3 core services.

Last edited by pjwalsh : 30 Aug 2016 at 01:58 PM.
pjwalsh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 09:24 AM   #27
robn
Master of the @
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 1,007

Representative of:
Fastmail.fm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacinto View Post
Was looking at the "UPGRADE/DOWNGRADE" options while logged in to Fastmail and noticed that the new plans do not offer POP3 capability?
All protocols are available on all the new plans.
robn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 12:45 PM   #28
dgcom
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: US, New Jersey
Posts: 22
I have Full subscription on family account with own domain - that's $25/year currently.
New plans double that - to $50. For that money I can either host myself or by same services from a number of providers (Google apps for single user cost $50).

I'll probably change email provider if I am forced to switch to new plans..
dgcom is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 03:38 PM   #29
Terry
The "e" in e-mail
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: VK4
Posts: 2,995
Quote:
Originally Posted by dgcom View Post
I have Full subscription on family account with own domain - that's $25/year currently.
New plans double that - to $50. For that money I can either host myself or by same services from a number of providers (Google apps for single user cost $50).
But really it would only be $1 a week and look what you get for your money, to start with not many email providers do sieve script, fastmail have lots of nice aliases and it's easy for people to understand and write down, I use my own domain but I now prefer to use a fastmail.com alias, plus fastmail sounds much nicer than an average gmail or an outlook address and try getting a nice 2 letter alias from them.
Terry is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 30 Aug 2016, 04:03 PM   #30
dgcom
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: US, New Jersey
Posts: 22
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry View Post
But really it would only be $1 a week and look what you get for your money, to start with not many email providers do sieve script, fastmail have lots of nice aliases and it's easy for people to understand and write down, I use my own domain but I now prefer to use a fastmail.com alias, plus fastmail sounds much nicer than an average gmail or an outlook address and try getting a nice 2 letter alias from them.
That really sounds like an advertisement, but look - I already had all of this for $25, why should I pay $50 all of a sudden?
I do not need Fastmail aliases (but I have one since trial), I can get by without sieve, but I really value good anti-spam protection - that would be my primary parameter for searching for new provider (if I have to).
dgcom is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT +9. The time now is 02:38 PM.

 

Copyright EmailDiscussions.com 1998-2022. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy