Some services Ive been looking at:
I use posteo.
If you're thinking of using your own domain, I would suggest using forwardemail.net
I have been using purelymail with my own domains, and at $10 a year with no limit on domains or users under those domains, it’s amazing value.
Third this. I use it for my personal vps'/vms/etc. email sending and liked it so much I replaced o365 send for machine accounts at work with it and it's been sending 30k emails a month to my o365 domain (mostly reports programatically sent from one program/excel sheet [yah I know, don't judge us, it works] to one or a set of users who have 0365 email accounts on my work domain) with no trouble for over a year now. I pay as I go on that account but it's usually 17-25 dollars a month, way less than what I was paying when I had a smaller subset of current senders on o365 and with way less pain because it supports less annoying for programming methods of authentication without having to whitelist ips, which was often impossible because people moved their laptops around and sent from different locations.
Second this, I've been using them for a couple of years and the service is rock solid.
If you want free, I'd recommend Protom Mail.
For paid, I really like Mailbox.org and Posteo. They work with IMAP/POP3, CardDAV, and CalDAV
And how would you use Tbird on a free subscription? The bridge is a subscriber service.
I am using proton essentials plan it gets you ten custom emails that you can use with three custom domains.
So I use one email for my game servers so those services use that then I have another general use email for sending info like recently added plex content or alerts from my server then a few mix and match for random stuff.
Not the cheapest but now I'm also using their calendar which is nice. I don't use any desktop clients though I prefer to keep as much stuff in the browser
Iirc SMTP and whatnot is business only for Proton, so I assume you're sending alert emails through some other service like myself, right? I've been using SMTP2GO's free tier and it works well for my very low usage needs, would love to hear more about your setup if you have any tips.
Yeah essentials is the low tier business plan
Ah, I had that one confused with the basic personal plan. 😅
I'm using Zoho. It's pretty cheap and wasn't hard to set up with my domain.
I use migadu.com now, previously also used mailbox.org and protonmail.
The great part with migadu is how much control you have. Want to add multiple domains or have multiple users? No problem. (Though they reserve the right to ask what you're doing if it's excessive).
Limits are based on mails sent, mails received and storage space.
I was on their cheapest plan (19$/year) until I filled my receiving contingent because my servers had issues and monitoring kept dutifully sending email alerts about that.
posteo is really cheap but a great service
Been using Zoho with multiple domains for many years. I have a business account and a personal account (and an admin account) in Zoho fed from maybe ten domains. DNS on Google cloud.
Zoho is almost never down - can't remember the last time - but they do tend to tinker stupidly occasionally. Logging in to the web is page after page of stupid questions - ok it's three but they're pushing their authentication app I don't ever want. There's PassKey but it doesn't understand Linux/Bitwarden AFAICT. I use 2fa with Bitwarden. Documentation is good but there can be multiple pages on the same subject sometimes.
Client mobile app is great. Admin mobile app is crap. Costs c. £60 a year which I think is good value given the ability to white page, (excessive) filters and automation*, mailing lists etc. Finding where you set an email address up is a bastard so take notes but they are eager to help if you can't find it.
I usually get pissed off with suppliers after a couple years of being jerked around. I've been with Zoho email for an easy decade maybe one and a half. It was definitely this century .. but .. !
I'm very privacy minded, at least one of the domains is a addy.io proxy, but never seen any indication that my/client data is being sold. Spam malware is very tight and you can admin that to within an inch of its life in miriad of ways.
Comes with all the bells and whistles you'd expect on the client end and on the server end. IMAP POP3 sure but I use the Zoho mobile client and web for all the features (tagging, priority etc) that Thunderbird won't grok.
Zoho had a deserved poor rep many years ago for going up and down like a tart's drawers but it's been nothing but up that I've noticed in the last 5 years.
I have no affiliation with any company mentioned.
I hosted my first email server in c.1996 on 14kbps before email admin became a full time job. I feel your pain.
I switched over to Zoho as well recently. While there are some upsells, they are usually reasonable enough. I also occasionally use their other services like writer, notes, and calendar which is nice.
Proton, Tuta, Mailbox, and Posteo are all good.
Proton and Tuta have free offerings. Posteo and mailbox have the cheapest paid offering, but posteo doesn't allow custom domains.
Tuta won't work w/ Thunderbird, but they do have a desktop app.
Proton should work with their bridge.
It works fine for me fwiw
Mxroute.com look for a discount offer since they have lots of good ones.
Using Fastmail
In case those features are important to you
second fastmail. works with bitwarden just like 1password
If you want free tier with good privacy practices, Proton is going to be the best option.
I have several paid webhost accounts already, so I just use those for email. Any important messages (which are increasingly rare) are saved to PDF and stored offline (business/tax/medical info, etc.), and the rest is purged once read/sent.
I have started using Mailbox.org since about a year with several custom domains. Its around 3 €/$ per month for the basic tier which also includes some cloud storage and an online office suite (of which neither I use). I've been happy with it.
I assume that your inbox size counts against the cloud storage they provide?
There's a separate quota for email storage and cloud storage.
Take a look at Tuta
I have several addresses at cock.li. Uptime is not the best, around 98%, but free. According to their policy they don't collect any personal data, but they comply with legal requests. https://cock.li/help
You can select from a lot of domains, some of them ar normal like firemail.cc or airmail.cc, some of them are funny like aaathats3as.com, some of them are edgy like cocaine.ninja or national.shitposting.agency, some of them are racist like nuke.africa or hitler.rocks
About a year ago, I trialed both Proton Mail and Tuta mail. Proton mail worked out better for my needs, but YMMV. 
One nice thing about switching providers is that it gives you the opportunity to rid yourself of years of built-up cruft and spam.
I'm using Proton mail, I like their focus on privacy and e2e (only with other Proton users, though).
And desktop email clients work if you install their bridge thing.
proton
I’m using UberSpace for 5€/month for a few small web projects and for emails. Unlimited mailboxes, unlimited aliases. However, you have to configure it using console commands via SSH. But it’s all explained in their documentation.
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