Habeas.com – Discussion by stevenash

I need to send out a bunch of emails to users of a site I own, but I don't want to get marked as spam by the email companies. I'm only doing about 1000 emails a month though. Does anyone know if it's worth it for me to pay for a service like Habeas (does it work? is www.senderscorecertified.com better?) or should I actually go to each ISP/email provider and attempt to get whitelisted? I'd appreciate any help...

Haven't used Habeas, but I've been happy with Return Path - they provide similar services to ensure email delivery for publishers. Here's a useful interview with one of their execs:

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/deliverability/reputation/sender-reputation.htm

My previous company used Habeas for email delivery monitoring, white-listing ("trusted sender program"), and as consultants when we had problems. They are good, but not cheap. Habeas provides a very hands-on service, but delivery monitoring starts out at around $5000 per year and white-listing starts at $11,000 per year. Other companies, like Return Path, provide much cheaper services but are much more hands off and provide somewhat fewer features. So if you're a start-up and email delivery is not 100% vital to your business model, I would think about using Return Path or one of the other cheaper services.

Well paloalto sounds like a Habeas employee! We were with Habeas prior to Return Path and regret not going with Return Path initially. I can tell you from personal experince that the Habeas tools are entirely inferior and with regard to support, I don't know what palalto is smoking but the Return Path Support completely BLOWS habeas away. AND Return Path is MORE expensive, not cheaper as paloalto alludes to. So very incorrect information in that post. Call up Return Path and talk to those guys.

Hahah - I AM NOT a Habeas employee. But I did have a good experience with them. However, I have not used Return Path (and I have clearly heard wrong :)

Peter, can you elaborate on what makes Return Path better? And how much more expensive are they?

I talked to Habeas and Return Path, but for a start up that doesn't have a ton of cash, they are too expensive. For delivery monitoring and whitelisting, both services are well over $10,000. Instead I opted for www.deliverymonitor.com - they don't provide much support, and if your emails don't get delivered they don't do anything for you. BUT, they do give you basic feedback on whether your emails are delivered to most major email providers and ISPs. AND, they have a 30 day free trial (after that it's $80/month, but I might just cancel bc all my emails are being delivered :)

Looks like the Habeas verus Return Path argument may
not matter since Return Path just bough Habeas:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10015518-93.html

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