[na85]

A few months ago I wrote a comment on HN about algorithmic trading and someone emailed me about it. I sent him a reply from my self-hosted email domain, and I have no idea if he got it. I'm on a clean IP and clean domain, with a reputable hoster. I have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up correctly. Just last week I sent my gmail account a test email and sure enough it went to spam. There appears to be no rhyme or reason about it.

I believe the difference between people who say "email self-hosting is dead" and people who say "email self-hosting is trivial" is probably the volume of mail sent from their domain(s).

At my busiest, I was sending dozens of emails per day, but they were all from my work account. My personal account is pretty close to recv-only and probably averages an outgoing message count in the single digits per week. How can I reasonably keep an IP/domain reputation score fresh/warm if I send such a low volume? The answer is I realistically can't.

Self-hosted email remains an extremely difficult and time-consuming endeavor unless you happen to have some good luck, it seems.

[hardwaresofton]

I'm going to update the article with this but one thing from the original HN discussion that was recommended is:

https://improvmx.com/

Run your own email servers, but relay through there for better delivery?

Maybe this is what we need more of -- A class of mail system participants who exclusively maintain trusted IPs and do the legwork of trying to get through the gnarly systems set up by the other large email providers.

[EDIT] - "forward" -> "relay" for clarity

I don't know the solution but I know it needs to be discussed.

[navigate8310]

I don't understand using email alias in professional environments. At the time of replying to a forwarded email, will make you look very informal, as you would have to use your gmail address now. I wonder will it break the threading as the recipient now receives the email from gmail while at the time of sending used your personal domain.

[shswkna]

You should put this in its own comment so it can be upvoted to the top.

[walrus01]

Almost certainly a large part of your problem is that your individual IP address is in a shared net block that has other neighbors that have historically been a source of spam.

Unless you can get hosting at an ISP that does not sell low budget, commercial virtual private server, virtual machine or dedicated hosting to random people with $20 and a credit card, this will be an ongoing problem.

[na85]

As far as I can tell the host (Joe's Data center) has a clean ASN.

I'm open to recommendations for clean IPs/providers.