1. The afternoon I almost lost the deal
Last Wednesday, on the subway, Gmail popped up "47 unread." I almost missed a $7K order.
2. What Fastmail is, and who's already on it
When I got home and checked my phone, I found a client had asked two days earlier whether I'd take the project. My hands were shaking when I replied "yes" — that feeling of almost losing money over an email setting is worse than never hearing about the deal at all.
Fastmail is a paid email service, $3-5/month. The pitch isn't more features — it's fewer rules. No AI sorting my emails into Promotions for me, no "smart inbox" deciding what matters.
On HN, that 104-upvote post — OP "moddedbear" is an indie dev who's been on it since 2022, now in year three of updates. A friend of mine, Lao Zhou, has been an independent consultant for 4 years and switched two years ago. He told me: "Since switching, I haven't missed a single client reply because of email."
3. What it cost me to switch today
Money: $3/month ($30/year). 30-day free trial, no card needed to sign up.
Time: From signup to migrating 5 years of Gmail archives — took me an afternoon, about 3 hours. Got stuck once mid-way.
Technical barrier: Knowing how to sign up for an account and receive a verification code is enough. But I made one mistake — I thought once the migration was done, I was good. Turns out the new inbox doesn't receive incoming mail in real-time; you have to set up "forward to Fastmail address" inside your old Gmail. I got this wrong, and almost missed another client email.
First step: Go to fastmail.com, click the "Start free trial" button on the homepage, sign up with your email.
4. Advice by stage
If you're just starting out: don't switch yet. Gmail free is fine. Wait until you start using email to negotiate with clients and receive payment notifications.
If you have 1-2 clients: worth switching. $3/month to not miss deals — this is exactly when I switched, and that $7K email almost made me regret it forever.
If you're scaling up: must switch. Once you have a team or multiple project inboxes, Gmail free won't hold. Fastmail lets you add 2-5 email aliases (like support@yourbrand, hello@yourbrand) at no extra cost.
This tool isn't for everyone. But if you've also been burned by "email silently buried, missed replying to a client" — no rush to try it now. Bookmark it, and pull it back out next time you get burned.