I self host an email server at home with a 1€/month domain from strato.de, and I just use their SMTP server as relay. No issues so far, and they also include a backup mx for when my home server goes offline.
That's a pretty good setup. I used to use Amazon SES same way, but they dropped free SES tier. Still reasonably cheap, but more than 1€/mo.
I have to say though, having someone else take care of all updates, backups, etc is worth it for $10/year. You can also bring your own domain. Their servers are not the fastest, but that's my only real complaint with purelymail.com.
Well I have some hardware colocated at a DC so I can't speaktoo much about cost plus IP reputation. I can also only rely on individual IP blacklist checking. If MS has decided on their own to blacklist an entire subnet there isn't much to be done about that.
That's what I mean. You cannot host in Hetzner, for example, unless you use an outside service like SES for outgoing mail. Their IPs are globally shit listed.
I can't think of another provider that even comes close in pricing for colo services.
My main point is that it is seemingly impossible to tell what Microsoft has and has not shit listed because may operate their own internal list which isn't published.
I'm somewhat of the opinion though that more people should self host email and try to be a thorn in the side of these corps implementing arbitrary rules. If more people aren't receiving email more reports about I will be generated and that will hopefully result in more people like us getting our email successfully delivered.
Couldn't agree more, but these policies exist because spammers host their own servers. Without a network of trust, you'd have to dig through a thousand of emails every day to find the one from your friend.
Well my IP isn't on any blacklists but I can't speak on getting whitelistred" by providers. I can send to gmail without going to spam. Idon't generally send much email though.