Hi everyone. This is Zach from LuxSci

[zmiller]

Hi everyone. This is Zach from LuxSci technical sales. I'm new to the forums and wanted to introduce myself (Mod--please let me know what is needed to get the appropriate 'Representative of:' status).

On behalf of Team LuxSci, I'd like to thank everyone for all the feedback in this and other threads, and let you know we appreciate and listen to the comments posted here. We strive to constantly improve our services in response to customer requests and business trends. In fact, we're planning some UI improvements in the near term, so please feel free to private message me with any specific requests or suggestions. And it's easy to keep current with updates, new features, and other great insight through our own FYI blog at http:/luxsci.com/blog.

We'd like to invite all EmailDiscussions.com members to test drive our email, web and form services with a 30-day free trial. https://luxsci.com/extranet/trial_request.html. Use your FastMail email address, and we'll give you a 20% discount on most services when you place your first order. Just PM me or contact Sales for a special referral code.

Feel free to post any questions here and I'll do my best to respond. Best of luck to everyone in your quest for your perfect provider!

Zach

[ReuvenNY]

Welcome to the forum, Zach!
I created a new thread for your posting in order to give it more visibility. If you would like to change the subject, please PM me or post a reply.
In order to get a Representative of: status, you should PM Edwin, the forum administrator.
Welcome again and please don't be a stranger.

[sflorack]

While I hear everyone rave about the service, I've always felt that the pricing structure is confusing and outrageously high.

For instance, there are currently 41 upgrades that can be performed for an account, not including "premium filtering" and web hosting. After paying $120/yr for an email provider -- compared to other services that charge half that -- having so many add-on's give your service the "airline feel". i.e. being nickle-and-dimed for everything from earlier seating, to baggage and food.

Are there plans to introduce cheaper plans that would be more suitable for personal accounts?

[qwertz123456]

Originally Posted by sflorack

While I hear everyone rave about the service, I've always felt that the pricing structure is confusing and outrageously high.

For instance, there are currently 41 upgrades that can be performed for an account, not including "premium filtering" and web hosting. After paying $120/yr for an email provider -- compared to other services that charge half that -- having so many add-on's give your service the "airline feel". i.e. being nickle-and-dimed for everything from earlier seating, to baggage and food.

Are there plans to introduce cheaper plans that would be more suitable for personal accounts?

Completely agree. From a business perspective studies and real life example show that having less options e.g. 2 and at the max. 3 options actually INCREASE revenue, despite what is always claimed. If customers feel confused about the pricing they'll ask more and more questions...

Just have a single user pricing Basic and premium instead of a la carte. I don't want to have science degree to understand all the option and permutations. Options are nice (especially if we're talking about women), but life too complicated already. Don't make it any harder than it has to be.

[ioneja]

I agree about the billing. In petergh's thread (http://www.emaildiscussions.com/show...=64118&page=10), Zach said this about the billing issue:

"2) I'll be the first to admit our billing is a bit complex, but we do offer packaged things like the user bundle (Webmail/POP/IMAP/SMTP/Basic Spam Filtering), Mobile Sync plus Webaides bundles, and Premium Email Filtering plus Premium Email Archival bundles. The a-la carte model benefits customers by offering highly customizeable packages across all our services (for example, you could have a Private Labeled HIPAA compliant account with standard email services, web hosting, bulk sending capacity, SecureForm, and even be a reseller to boot!), and with a-la-carte, customers never have to pay for more than what they need."

[zmiller]

I know options can be overwhelming, but.... to put it simply ... we offer a lot ! And we like giving customers the flexibility to pick and choose services, because one person's discounted bundle of services may be another person's bundle of some things they don't need and don't want to be forced into paying for. For now, the a-la-carte price model with some bundled service offerings is staying, but we may simplify/consolidate more in the future.

[curvefan]

Originally Posted by sflorack

While I hear everyone rave about the service, I've always felt that the pricing structure is confusing and outrageously high.

For instance, there are currently 41 upgrades that can be performed for an account, not including "premium filtering" and web hosting. After paying $120/yr for an email provider -- compared to other services that charge half that -- having so many add-on's give your service the "airline feel". i.e. being nickle-and-dimed for everything from earlier seating, to baggage and food.

Are there plans to introduce cheaper plans that would be more suitable for personal accounts?

I gotta agree.

To me, $120.00 a year for email is way too much.

I'm sure LuxSci offers a great service no doubt, but there are other alternatives out there for a lot less.

How does LuxSci compete with the other services such as Polarismail or Eumx.net or even a paid version of Google Apps is far less money. Does LuxSci offer a lot of services that these other providers don't? What makes them $108.00 better a year than a regular account at Polarismail?

I just don't get it.........

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by curvefan

I gotta agree.

To me, $120.00 a year for email is way too much.

I'm sure LuxSci offers a great service no doubt, but there are other alternatives out there for a lot less.

How does LuxSci compete with the other services such as Polarismail or Eumx.net or even a paid version of Google Apps is far less money. Does LuxSci offer a lot of services that these other providers don't? What makes them $108.00 better a year than a regular account at Polarismail?

I just don't get it.........

Not to defend LuxSci's pricing structure (I'm sure Zach will handle it far better), but you are comparing apples to oranges here... and frankly, it doesn't help that LuxSci's pricing structure is so confusing at first glance... but let's break it down more accurately with one quick example to show what I mean.

Let's keep it to monthly for this example -- and these are the current prices and specs as of June 2012... maybe they'll change soon.

1 user with paid Google Apps for Business (GAB for short) is $5 per user per month. Easy math.

1 user with Luxsci is $10 per month... but it is NOT per user... that just starts the base email package which includes 1 user... then you add more users for much less per month.

2 users with GAB is $10 per month ($5 + $5)

2 users with Luxsci is $11 per month (i.e.: $10 for the base account, + $1 for a single additional "Standard Bundle" user, which includes the basics... you may want more features though)

3 users with GAB is $15 per month ($5 + $5 + $5)

3 users with Luxsci is $12 per month ($10 + $1 + $1)

etc....

So at 3 users, Luxsci is actually cheaper..... HOWEVER, again we're still comparing apples to oranges since Luxsci shares all the storage from the base account, and the admin can split that however he wants.

Paid GAB simply gives you 25GB per user... easy.... and very generous storage.

Luxsci "premium" servers start with 5GB total, Luxsci "basic" servers start with 15GB total to spread among your users. Additional space costs extra... buy as much as you need. TOTALLY DIFFERENT pricing model than GAB.

So once again you have to look more deeply and calculate how much storage you may want for your Luxsci account(s).

That's just one simple example, and it can get really complex very quickly once you factor in all the additional services, of which there are many... and then on top of that, there are two classes of servers you can be on, etc., etc..

Complicated? Yes. Easy to compare services? No, not really. Pain in the neck? Frankly, yes. I wish they would improve and simplify this, and also be a little more generous on the initial and upgrade storage prices.

But still, if your storage needs are conservative and you want to start with at least 3 users... technically, Luxsci is cheaper than paid Google Apps for Business for basic email services out of the box.

What I had to do was set up a simple spreadsheet and break things down based on the specific services I needed. Pain in the neck...

Additionally, the other question you have to ask yourself is the level of service you are paying for... and in that case, Luxsci's service is worth extra $$ for some people.

Hope that helps clear things up. Sheesh. I should get a discount from Luxsci now.

[curvefan]

Thank you for that in depth explanation.

I am strictly speaking as an individual email user.

For just a single account, I think $120.00/yr is way too much for my tastes considering the other services that I mentioned.

Maybe in a business structure where you need multiple accounts/users, LuxSci would fit the bill.

All in all, the pricing structure is pretty confusing.

I really don't know a whole lot about LuxSci and probably shouldn't even have stuck my nose in this thread, but I thought that the $120.00 figure was a little crazy.

Just my thoughts....

[davy51]

I think LuSci is aimed more at heavy email users and business accounts
To an average user it would be confusing but to an email guru such as some on this forum are its not really bad

As for the price you get what you pay for
But I do agree Other services do the same for a single user as LuSci does at a lower price

Some like the service and setup along with the security and that makes the price worth it to them

[William9]

I think it's worth it. The service is always available, fast, configurable with just about any feature or option that one can think of, and awesome 5 star support.

[jeffpan]

the account with one user, I think the price 12 USD per year is reasonable.
today everything is free, google apps free, live domains free, zoho free, dropbox free, why we pay that much for a personal email account?

[petergh]

Originally Posted by William9

I think it's worth it. The service is always available, fast, configurable with just about any feature or option that one can think of, and awesome 5 star support.

Can't argue with that, except for the speed. You're in San Francisco, which is relatively close to the Rackspace data center. I'm in Europe, which is much further away, so access speed here is slow compared to servers within mainland Europe. I asked LS about whether I could get an account placed in London where they also offer their services, but unfortunately that location is reserved for dedicated servers.

I would really like to see accounts on shared servers available in a European location for better access speeds. LS webmail is slow enough (compared to the competition) as it is, latency due to geographic distance only makes it worse.

Cheers,
Peter

[Bamb0]

Welcome to EMD

[ioneja]

Originally Posted by jeffpan

today everything is free, google apps free, live domains free, zoho free, dropbox free, why we pay that much for a personal email account?

Nothing is really "free" -- there is a price for everything. And that is even more true with "free" Internet services. Either the company that is providing the "free" account to you is considering that part of its marketing/sales model (they *still* have to pay for the resources that you are using) -- OR -- more often, you are giving something of value to them that makes it worth it to them... i.e.: you agree to have your information mined and you get hit with advertisements which then pay for the resources you use. In fact, they can make a whole lot of money off of your profile... so in those cases they are getting the best deal by far.

Generally, even with the best of the "free" services, you really are going to get what you are paying for. Just take a good look at the service agreement when you signed up for "free" services. Sometimes, it's plain as day... Google Apps is a good example.

With "free" Google Apps, not only do you get hit with ads, but you have no decent/quick support options should something bad happen, compared to "paid" Google Apps for Business, which lets you remove all ads, AND you get a telephone number to call for support, plus an SLA (which is critical to business users), and a few other business/enterprise-oriented features.

So you tell me if that $5 per month per user for paid Google Apps for Business is worth it over the "free" Google Apps? For some people, it is of course totally worth it. $5 is nothing to them in order to get the removal of ads, better support, guarantees and other features. Other people are perfectly happy with the "free" service, complete with ads and virtually no support... and that's fine if it meets their needs.

As for Luxsci's $10 per month cost if you just want ONE user, again, it may be completely worth it to some people. If you've ever needed or wanted 5-star customer support that responds to you in an average of 30 minutes (in my experience) or less, then $10 per month will seem like a totally reasonable price, even for one user.

It's just one point of view, and it's also completely understandable why some other person may think that $10 per month is way too expensive.

But again, you generally get what you pay for.