I would be curious to know how many of their free tier users will be converted to paying customers. Is the bulk of their free tier users over the 625 mark or below?
Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
81–90 of 272 posts
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're both right, but you're solving different problems. Just because your message got past your spam filter doesn't mean it would get past all spam filters.
It is absolutely not. Even if you are not considering the whole spam thing. They specified that it wasn't even if you could ignore the spam issue. I said that it was if you ignored the spam issue. The first post in this thread was "We've made sending electronic mail way too complicated under the guise of fighting spam." I'm aware that it won't get past every spam filter, but it gets past both Gmail's and my own provi…
> My claim was that sending electronic mail is a solved problem, because it is.
Agreed. I mean, I can _probably_ remember enough to be able to send mail using just telnet without even needing to look anything up. (And that mail, without any mime parts or urls - it very very likely to not fall into any of the spam filtering on my inbound email accounts...)
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can still do that. However, I, as a receiver of email, get thousands of spam messages a day. So, I use services that block them before they even reach my view, or get sent directly to the spam folder. If you want to send me an email, that's solved. If you want to send it to ten thousand people on your mailing list, and not have it end up in the spam folder, you may have more work.
Please explain the difference to me. Mailgun is sending tons and tons of spam email; what is so special about them that they aren't ending up in people's spam/junk folders?
Mail providers like Mailgun live or die based on their reputation. If they as a sender get marked as spam by "The Algorithms", then their product is useless. They almost certainly respond to abuse reports quickly and have enough reputation, and enough legitimate clients, that they have "leeway". But that leeway isn't unlimited.
There was a big fit thrown on this website a year or two ago when one transactional mail provider (MailChimp?) said they were banning crypto companies with ICOs from their service. They literally put "ICOs are not welcome" in their Terms of Service. Why? Because first off, ICOs are scams. And that means they buy email lists, and then spam the shit out of people with "buy into our ICO!" emails, which get immediately shitcanned into the spam folder by 99.99% of users -- they're no different than Nigerian Princes, as far as most people care. That behavior tanks the reputation of the sender, and you cannot reason with The Algorithm once it "recognizes" you as spam. That kind of problem is not a minor inconvenience to companies like Mailgun, it's an existential threat.
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is having clients who expect free...or rather delivering free to clients who expect free. Your job isn't to save the client money on your services. If having your credit card on file provides value to the client, then charge the client. If it doesn't, charge them anyway because it has value to you.
We started with Mailgun when the free tier seemed established and permanent. No card required. Our CMS taps into their API. Then they required a unique phone number for each account and even that was a time sink getting clients to comprehend what was going on. I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are.
I don't underestimate how bad clients can be. I don't over-estimate how hard it is for some self-employed people to ask for more money. It's ok to be fired by people who aren't paying you. It's even better to fire clients who aren't.
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#85Any chance they are A/B testing this? I'm a MG user and haven't received that email and their page is showing me 5K/month free tier.
Are you looking at the part that says, "Get 5,000 free emails per month for 3 months?" I would interpret that as an introductory quota for new accounts; after three months the monthly quota will be reduced.
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
We started with Mailgun when the free tier seemed established and permanent. No card required. Our CMS taps into their API. Then they required a unique phone number for each account and even that was a time sink getting clients to comprehend what was going on. I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are.
> I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are. Those aren't "clients", they're "moochers". If they're prepared to walk away because it costs them $35/month to send to their mailing list, you probably owe it to yourself/your business to spend your time seeking new better clients rather than talking them thru how to get stuff/service for less than $…
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Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#87Losing the inbound routes functionality completes wrecks my use-case for mailgun. I've been using it as a way to have business emails come through a custom domain and then routed to personal email addresses. It actually works well enough as with personal email you can respond "as" the custom domain. I have a tiny startup with a few users that I use the routing to move incoming email to also their own personal addresses. Sure it's simple, but it's far cheaper than getting GSuite. If anyone has any advice for my situation, I could love to hear it.
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#88I would be curious to know how many of their free tier users will be converted to paying customers. Is the bulk of their free tier users over the 625 mark or below?
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Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
We started with Mailgun when the free tier seemed established and permanent. No card required. Our CMS taps into their API. Then they required a unique phone number for each account and even that was a time sink getting clients to comprehend what was going on. I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are.
> I think some people underestimate how cost-sensitive some clients are. And how time poor some small businesses are. Those aren't "clients", they're "moochers". If they're prepared to walk away because it costs them $35/month to send to their mailing list, you probably owe it to yourself/your business to spend your time seeking new better clients rather than talking them thru how to get stuff/service for less than $…
A lot of my clients fit this. What I’ve done to “solve” it for us, is to stop charging for hosting and “services” each month and realistically price it in to the initial contract. A lot of our projects are between £5k and £20k. I don’t want to be raising invoices for £20 or £30 per month. Their corporate finance department doesn't want to be processing small amounts each month either. All these projects have limited lifespan - 1 year or 2 or most. It makes sense for all involved to just price it in early. They like it, I like it. Sometimes projects run longer, sometimes they run short, on aggregate, it seems to work for us and them. Yes, if something goes nuts and costs thousands a month, that’s a conversation you want to have quickly, but in that scenario, the traffic they are getting is leading a different conversation anyway. YMMV.
Re: Tell HN: Mailgun lowers free-tier API from 10k to 625 emails per month
#90I think 10000 was probably too generous, but 625 also seems a bit too little as well for hobbyists.
I run a gitlab for around 30 users and that’s around what I use on AWS to send my emails. It’s a bunch. Rarely do I send emails on weekends so it’s like 20 days a month I send emails just for merge requests and stuff.