Edison announced OnMail back in April as a completely new email service to rethink a lot of the ways that we interact with email. Today, OnMail is available to purchase with free custom domain names.

Email has been a hot topic for the past few months after the public battle between Hey and Apple. Despite the attempts for moving everything away from email into tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, email is alive and kicking. I personally prefer email for the majority of my communications. Like Hey, OnMail is a completely new email service but one where you can use your own custom domain name.

OnMail is available in four plans: free Personal accounts and three subscription-based plans for Freelance, Professional, and Business use. The freelance, professional, and business accounts all come with a free custom domain name. You can also bring your own domain name to OnMail if you already own it. The personal accounts will receive free @onmail.com addresses.

Key Features of OnMail

  • Accept Sender – Edison allows you to stop someone from emailing you before it even comes into your inbox. This feature is similar to what Hey offers, but with a custom domain name
  • Anti-Tracking Technology – Read receipts are blocked automatically in OnMail
  • Large Attachments – Depending on the plan you choose, you can send up to 5GB attachments
  • Search – OnMail’s natural language search makes it easy to find emails, files, etc.
  • AI-Based Assistant – Edison’s assistant technology is built into OnMail. It helps you to follow up on emails you have not received a response to or replied to is included with an automatic alert. It can also automatically categorize details like travel, shipping tracking, and receipts.

OnMail can be used with any web browser and is compatible with the Edison Mail app for iOS, Android, and Mac (with OnMail key feature support coming by end of 2020). Dedicated OnMail mobile apps will be coming in early 2021. OnMail cannot be used with other email clients though (similar to how Hey works).

Every aspect of email that our Edison team has worked on for the past decade has led us to the creation of OnMail. We’ve worked tirelessly toward our mission of bringing happiness back to using email, and this is an email service that reflects that effort. Email has scaled beyond its original design, and OnMail is made to be what email should look and feel like in today’s world.

Mikael Berner, CEO at Edison Software.

Access to OnMail’s free Personal plan is currently being rolled out in batches after requesting access at OnMail.com. OnMail’s paid Freelance plan or above are available for purchase with immediate access.

Edison Mail+

The new email service comes on the heels of the Edison Mail+ announcement from a few weeks ago.

  • Verify Sender includes four levels of deep-scanning email criteria validates whether the sender is authentic or not
  • Spam Blocker gives you the allows to permanently block calls and texts from bothersome email junk senders
  • Inbox Caller ID discovers and recognizes information within email signatures to find the name of the senders when they call or text you if they aren’t in your contacts already.
  • Validate Contacts can help update your iPhone contacts based on information found in email signatures.

Eidson Mail+ is $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year and is available as an in-app purchase on the iOS app.

There is a lot to like about what OnMail is offering. I like many of the features that Hey offers, but I don’t want to have to get a new email address. I also don’t like being locked into Hey forever. With OnMail’s ability to use a custom domain name, you should be able to easily switch to an alternative email service in the future. I did confirm with Edison that if you want to leave OnMail in the future, that they will transfer the domain to you at no charge. One thing to keep in mind with the custom domain name you get from OnMail, you cannot currently access DNS records to hook it up to your website hosting. I asked OnMail about this feature, and they hope it becomes available in the next few months.

I love the innovation around email in 2020. Between Spike, Hey, Two-bird, Spark, and OnMail, we’re seeing innovation with email that we’ve not seen in years. Best of all: all of these new apps and services have clear business models.