There was a time when email felt like a freebie — a simple service bundled with your internet connection. Remember those @bigpond.com or @aapt.net.au addresses? They came at no extra charge, and they worked… mostly. But email has come a long way since then — and not always in the direction of simplicity or affordability.
So why are we paying more for email today than ever before?
Email Has Become a Business Essential
Email isn’t just a communication tool anymore; it’s a core part of your business identity. That @yourbusiness.com.au address conveys professionalism and credibility. Free Gmail or ISP-provided addresses don’t communicate the same message.
As branding became essential to business, so did owning and managing your own domain-based email. This shift introduced new responsibilities—and new costs. You now need to host, secure, manage, and back up your email platform. Doing it right requires more than simply forwarding emails to a free inbox.
Spam and Security: The Hidden Costs of Trust
As email grew in importance, it also became a prime target for bad actors. Spammers, phishers, and cybercriminals flooded inboxes, and the race to keep them out drove the need for increasingly complex security layers: spam filters, antivirus scanning, and blacklist checks. All of these add overhead to the systems that deliver your emails.
And here’s the kicker: These same security systems can now work against you. If your email domain isn’t properly configured, you might find that your legitimate messages aren’t even reaching inboxes. They’re being flagged as spam or silently rejected. This leads us to the next significant cost…
Deliverability is No Longer Guaranteed
With cyber threats on the rise, email providers are becoming stricter about which messages they trust. If you aren’t following best practices—or worse, if your domain is being impersonated by attackers—your email deliverability will suffer.
This is why your emails might vanish into the void or end up in junk folders unexpectedly. Recovering from that damage to your reputation takes time, effort, and yes — money.
Enter DMARC: Your Domain’s Bodyguard
To tackle these issues, a set of protocols known as DMARC, SPF, and DKIM was developed. Together, they assist in verifying that emails claiming to come from your domain truly originated from you.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is particularly powerful. It not only helps safeguard your domain from being spoofed by cybercriminals, but it also provides insight into how your domain is being used—or misused—out there on the internet.
But here’s the catch: DMARC reports are complex. They’re generated by mail servers worldwide and sent to you in cryptic XML files. To make sense of them, you need a monitoring service — a platform that decodes, visualizes, and alerts you to issues. However, that service isn’t free.
Why You’re Paying More — And Why It’s Worth It
Today, email isn’t just a tool — it’s infrastructure. It’s a blend of branding, security, and trust, all supported by a constantly evolving technical foundation. You’re no longer paying for just email. You’re paying for:
• Reliable, branded communication
• Advanced spam and virus protection
• Security against phishing and spoofing
• Monitoring tools to protect your domain’s reputation
• Support when things go wrong.
Email isn’t simple anymore. But with the right systems in place — and the right team behind them — it can still be powerful, professional, and secure.d the right team behind them — it can still be powerful, professional, and secure.