Selling Vanity Email Service - Set-up and Profit?

[80-20]

Are you familiar with vanity email set-up (script) and profit potential?

HOVER.com is the best example of the service I want to emulate.
With a significant twist, however:
They say: "Your domain deserves a great email address" and offer emails addresses to their registrants.

In my case, I own some family names in .com and would like to offer a service to those who want to have their own "vanity email."
Eg. If you're Donna Smith, and I've smith.com, you can buy a yearly plan for setting up your vanity email: [email protected].
If you're Jack Smith, you can buy [email protected] and so on...

It certainly has been done before (apart from Hover) and my questions are:
1. Where to get the script that runs it,
2. What's your opinion re. the demand?
3. Would you pay, say $50/year to have your own vanity email?
4. What's your info, anectodal or otherwise, re. the profitability?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kate]

There was one example: chicago.com, but the domain name has been acquired...

Look at this: Industry Heavyweights Find New Domain Monetization Gold in Old Vein: Email Addresses
I think it's a difficult business model, and very few domain names will work for that purpose.
My impression is that the business is now even less popular than it used to be.

For private use, almost everybody uses free E-mail like Gmail. For business, unless it's a small operation, they use a corporate domain name. That leaves little room in between.

As for the software:

• ability to add new users: this can be done with a control panel like or ControlPanel or Directadmin or something else
• for the webmail interface: Roundcube, Zimbra or something else
• of course everything can be scripted

It depends on the number of users. If you have a lot of users, you'll need something more scalable. Basically, it depends on the features and the level of sophistication you want to provide. But setting up E-mail is like web hosting, it is very easy.

Personally I wouldn't pay for E-mail because:

• I prefer to use domain names that I control
• I want strong privacy, so I will host my mail
• I want control, like the ability to set up my own rules, whitelisting etc

Also, many people are using ISP addresses, often for a long time. It can actually be a hindrance to switching ISP when you've used the same address for over a decade.

Another problem: many services including Gmail now allow you to host your own domain name to use with their E-mail platform. So you can use their service while being in control of the domain name.

If you own smith.com, I guess it could work and you could sign up enough people to make it worthwhile.
But the domain is going to be tied up and will remain underutilized imo.
If you have ten users, it's not worth the hassle.

 

[80-20]

Thank you, Kate!
Your post is not only very comprehensive, but also "cold headed."
Coming from an experienced domainer, makes it very helpful.

There was one example: chicago.com, but the domain name has been acquired...

Look at this: Industry Heavyweights Find New Domain Monetization Gold in Old Vein: Email Addresses
I think it's a difficult business model, and very few domain names will work for that purpose.
My impression is that the business is now even less popular than it used to be.

For private use, almost everybody uses free E-mail like Gmail. For business, unless it's a small operation, they use a corporate domain name. That leaves little room in between.

As for the software:

• ability to add new users: this can be done with a control panel like or ControlPanel or Directadmin or something else
• for the webmail interface: Roundcube, Zimbra or something else
• of course everything can be scripted

It depends on the number of users. If you have a lot of users, you'll need something more scalable. Basically, it depends on the features and the level of sophistication you want to provide. But setting up E-mail is like web hosting, it is very easy.

Personally I wouldn't pay for E-mail because:

• I prefer to use domain names that I control
• I want strong privacy, so I will host my mail
• I want control, like the ability to set up my own rules, whitelisting etc

Also, many people are using ISP addresses, often for a long time. It can actually be a hindrance to switching ISP when you've used the same address for over a decade.

Another problem: many services including Gmail now allow you to host your own domain name to use with their E-mail platform. So you can use their service while being in control of the domain name.

If you own smith.com, I guess it could work and you could sign up enough people to make it worthwhile.
But the domain is going to be tied up and will remain underutilized imo.
If you have ten users, it's not worth the hassle.

 

[Asfas1000]

My 2c :

If you manage to get 1,000 clients , you can make 50,000 / year.

Taking out say, 25,000 for customer acquisition, running the business, taxes etc you are left with 25,000 per year.

That's not too much for a domain like smith.com

The worst part is , if you want to sell the domain, how do you explain to your customers that their email is discontinued.

 

[usernamex]

Interesting concept, I've looked into this before just for family and friends and thought I could get it to pay for itself to share with more users

https://runbox.com/price-plans/account-features-quotas/main-sub-accounts/
http://www.neomailbox.com/services/multi-packs
https://www.hushmail.com/business/s...ce=website&tag=page_business_stm,btn_features

There is another service that offered this I cannot locate at the moment, it was similar to these, yet less expensive per user.

 

[Kate]

The worst part is , if you want to sell the domain, how do you explain to your customers that their email is discontinued.

• you write customer-adverse T&C
  
• you take inspiration from Centralnic

 

[Ben Price]

Are you familiar with vanity email set-up (script) and profit potential?

Hmm, i'm surmising that the Chicago.com @Identity offering didn't really take off, and that's the only similar service that I can remember.

Frankly, I don't think anyone will pay just for vanity email, but if you offered a sub domain too then it starts to become something much more interesting...

e.g. for $99 p.a. you get:

e: [email protected]
w: you.domain.com

I don't think locating a suitable script will be a problem, but you would need to spend a lot of time on the agreement that you would get participants/users to sign (!).

 

[D Haynes]

Tocows RealNames offers this service with their surname domains although I don't know what they charge. Haynes.net is an example.

 

[TRY]

Hmm, i'm surmising that the Chicago.com @Identity offering didn't really take off, and that's the only similar service that I can remember.

Frankly, I don't think anyone will pay just for vanity email, but if you offered a sub domain too then it starts to become something much more interesting...

e.g. for $99 p.a. you get:

e: [email protected]
w: you.domain.com

I don't think locating a suitable script will be a problem, but you would need to spend a lot of time on the agreement that you would get participants/users to sign (!).

Don't know where you got your info but their was little interest in Chicago com until they started selling email addresses , soon after they were bought. As for interest well users became attached and we're willing to pay big money to keep their emails.

Hmm, i'm surmising that the Chicago.com @Identity offering didn't really take off, and that's the only similar service that I can remember.

Frankly, I don't think anyone will pay just for vanity email, but if you offered a sub domain too then it starts to become something much more interesting...

e.g. for $99 p.a. you get:

e: [email protected]
w: you.domain.com

I don't think locating a suitable script will be a problem, but you would need to spend a lot of time on the agreement that you would get participants/users to sign (!).

I agree subdomains should be included.
Aliases imo is more appropriate because people want to keep their existing email boxes. I believe their is a way you can set it up where they not only receive emails forwarded to their existing gmail account, but can also send emails with the vanity address from their Gmail.

 

[SuperDudePro]

Don't know where you got your info but their was little interest in Chicago com until they started selling email addresses , soon after they were bought. As for interest well users became attached and we're willing to pay big money to keep their emails.


I agree subdomains should be included.
Aliases imo is more appropriate because people want to keep their existing email boxes. I believe their is a way you can set it up where they not only receive emails forwarded to their existing gmail account, but can also send emails with the vanity address from their Gmail.

There is that ability within gmail.

But if you are even slightly capable, you can set up email and Google Apps with any domain that you own. It's only about $10/month for not only the email, but 'unlimited' cloud storage. That seems like a better idea. For free with GoDaddy, you can set the catch all address for a domain to forward to your main address. Setting that up for people under a Google reseller account seems more in line with what's going on today than renting just the email.

I guess if someone is desperate for their own name email, they may buy. But I think most people would rather have [email protected] than their last name. There was a time when it was more 'impressive' to have custom email addresses, but it's pretty common now. I think that you'd mostly be chasing an aging demographic.

 

[MapleDots]

www.savy.net does it

I own www.savy.ca

Run by tucows for 35 bucks yearly, 10 bucks for extra email address

 

[Ategy]

With my very large music community at turn of millennium I offered free email (via every1.net I think). By the end of the experience there was a couple thousand user .. but vast majority were a mix of people who used it as a burner email to register for one or two things anonymously, or people who thought they were actually signing up for the forum. Certainly not more than 50 serious users .. and probably not even half of that.

My big problem with it was that my master database was so big I couldn't load it anymore so I couldn't really clean out garbage accounts etc

Every1.net stopped offering the free (ad supported service with option of paying a bit extra for ad free and extra features) but kept it going for existing users ... I put up a notice at some point, but I kept the mx records pointing there for years until just a couple years ago.

All that to say if you do it, it could hurt your ability to sell .. I have a couple email accounts on that domain .. but the catch all is a disaster even all this time later. A huge potential pain in the arse to a future company in terms of email management.

On the other side it was cool. Helped with branding my community. At least a couple of users paid for the upgrade.

Most people are stupid/ignorant when it comes to email. They don't realise that free email is free only because the data-mining and/or advertising is worth more to them than if they actually charged for the service. Also as @Kate mentioned, if you use your ISP's email you are effectively tied to them for as long as that email address is important to you (which equals forever for some people who uses email a lot).

 

[80-20]

As stated in my original post:
"Eg. If you're Donna Smith, and I've smith.com..."

Meaning, an example only - I don't own smith.com

 

[GoKaizen]

http://www.domainsherpa.com/john-lyotier-third-level-domains/

http://www.domainsherpa.com/ian-clark-wpvanityemail-interview/

 

[wwwweb]

I actually own a category killer last name, and I get people all the time asking me if they can get an email address. One guy even offered me $200 a year.

There was a script created a few years back by some on another forum, it was like $30.

 

[Webguy007]

I've been searching and searching for the same answer and still can't find it.
The question isn't whether someone believes if it's a good idea, the question is where does specific software exist to allow (DOMAIN.COM) to be used by customers to setup and be charged.
The only solution I seemed to have found is using WHMCS with an addon module for Rackspace email. Though, I'm still not sure how that would work, since Rackspace charges $2 per email.
I have some unique domain names that I believe people would want to use as an email address.
I currently have a VPS and want to know my options in trying to figure out how to offer personalized email address accounts and charge them.

Thanks!

 

[Dan0928]

HOVER.com is the best example of the service I want to emulate.
With a significant twist, however:
They say: "Your domain deserves a great email address" and offer emails addresses to their registrants.

I'm thinking of doing the same thing as Hover but with a significant difference. I've registered domain names within the .email gTLD. It's much easier to find quality, vanity domain names in that gTLD vs .com or .net.

My thinking is that when it comes to vanity email addresses, particularly for individuals and micro-businesses, the email address is what's most important, not the website behind it. That's why they call them "vanity" email addresses. Most of the potential vanity email address users probably don't even have (or want) a website.

I completely agree that a .com is best for a website if you can find a good one but I don't think that rule holds true for vanity email addresses. There, I think the .email gTLD might be even better than the .com. It fits perfectly! The problem might be getting customers to think outside the ".com box".

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks!!

 

[FPForum]

Are you wanting the process to be completely automated or do you mind creating the email address manually? This type of thing could be done pretty easy if your hosting account offers unlimited emails. Install wordpress along with a checkout script like Wocommerce. Add a custom field asking for their preferred username (maybe 1 or 2 extras as fall back options) and when the order comes through you go into the hosting panel, setup the email address, and send them a little email with their login information, a link to the webmail, and maybe to an article where you explain how to "set it up in Outlook"..

If you want to do it automatically I found an old thread on another forum that said AtMail will do what you want. But, he also said in the same response that hosting your email service may be more costly than you think..