On running my own mail in 2026

Every two or three years someone writes a post titled “You can no longer self-host email” and every two or three years it is wrong, but only narrowly. I run mail for a single domain on a small VPS in Helsinki. It has worked since 2015. Deliverability is fine if you do the boring things, and miserable if you do not.

The boring things

• SPF, DKIM, DMARC. All three. Hard fail on SPF, p=reject on DMARC, two DKIM keys with rotation.
• Reverse DNS that matches the HELO. Your VPS provider has a control panel for this; use it.
• Outbound rate limiting. Even a single batched newsletter at 200 messages/minute will get you on a list.
• TLS reporting and MTA-STS. Free, takes ten minutes, and Gmail visibly raises your score.

What I would change today

I would put outbound through a relay. Not because I cannot do it myself — I have for a decade — but because the failure mode where one residential IP next to mine starts spamming and gets the whole /24 listed is just not worth my Saturday.

Postmark, AWS SES, or a friend’s relay. The receiving side is the interesting part anyway.