I was on Mailbox for about 3 months, and I liked the fact their CEO is someone who knows everything there is to do with email protocols. I found their lack of updates to the backend system on their drive solution frustrating (Open Exchange), plus the smallish size of mail storage. I have family members I wanted to move off GMail and they have 30GB or some of mail storage. Also, not the greatest UI. But, as an email solution, solid as a rock.

I'd forgotten I was also on Infomaniak for about a year. This seemed the perfect fit, until I realised how convoluted their system was and would a no-go for bringing family members into it.

I tried Proton, but just couldn't sell myself on their services. They are also expensive for a family solution with too many other products I don't need (VPN, Password). No easy SMTP either. I have a mum who loves Thunderbird, so easy SMTP is a must. I don't like the bridge solution they offer: just support SMTP FFS!!

Tuta? Just too basic a service and no SMTP

Soverin? Looked at them, didn't try them.

MXroute? I liked that for the fact you can bring a lot of address across for not much money. But, still only custom domains.

Then I came across someone on here who said they had tried Fastmail and stuck with it, so I gave it a go. Loved it from the start!

You can create a basic @fastmail account, then bring across a custom domain to that account later and make it the defacto login. Loved this. Tick!

Lots of email storage. Tick!

Cheap for family plan. Tick!

3rd part SMTP client support. Tick!

Nice apps for macOS, Android etc. Tick!

Good signature support across different emails, masked emails... lots of basic things, just done well.

And I use DavX for calendar and contact support on my Graphene pixel phone, and Fastmail is supported with easy-setup, coming from Infomaniak with lots of app-passwords, this was a double tick!!

Phew, longer reply than I planned. Back to work....

EDIT: Oh, and I looked at Hey as well, but that's off the charts bonkers as an email solution.