Google apps as a free smtp server for rails
I was looking for a cheap smtp server for one of my rails apps and stopped at google apps service, which is … free. It allows to send 500 emails every day for nothing, when other smtp service providers asking 1-2 dollars per 1k emails/month. Moreover, that 500 emails/day limit by Google is for one user. Google apps Standard Edition account allows you to have 200 users, which totals in 10k emails per day for free. Google even gives you a hint on what to do if you reached 500/day limit – create multiple users:
“Here are a few additional tips:
- Create multiple user accounts to send mail. For example, ‘Admin1’ and ‘Admin2’ can each send 500 messages to reach 1000 unique recipients. (On the Premier or Education Edition, two accounts can reach 4000 recipients.)
- Stagger mass communications over the course of two days. For example, send messages to the allotted number of recipients on day one, wait for 24 hours, and send messages to another group of recipients on day two. “
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en-il&answer=59797
What’s the catch?