Executive Summary

Solo consultants and very small service businesses (think 1–5 people) increasingly struggle to get client-facing email delivered: inbox providers are imposing stricter authentication and reputation requirements, causing legitimate outreach to land in spam or be blocked. This affects a large addressable base — roughly 30 million small businesses worldwide — and supports an estimated $9.0B market if you assume about $300 average annual spend on email and deliverability tooling. A practical product would combine a hosted inbox tied to each consultant’s own domain with sending orchestration that automates SPF/DKIM/DMARC/BIMI setup, staged IP warm‑up, multi‑route failover across API‑first SMTP providers, deliverability monitoring and automated remediation. Pricing in the $200–$400 ACV band with optional concierge onboarding and reputation guarantees targets buyers who won’t hire a consultant but will pay for reliable outcomes. The technical approach leverages affordable SMTP APIs and opinionated defaults to reduce cognitive load while surfacing clear performance metrics. The market is attractive now because mailbox providers are tightening protections, SMBs are moving off bundled hosting email for brand control, and API‑first sending infra makes multi‑route orchestration feasible and cost-effective. To stand out you must specialize on the solo‑consultant persona with white‑glove onboarding, curated warm‑up and reputation pools, and UX that emphasizes demonstrable increases in deliverability and outreach ROI; honest challenges include managing abuse and long‑term reputation at scale, proving causal impact to skeptical buyers, and customer acquisition costs, but the combination of a focused niche and operationalized remediation offers meaningful revenue and defensibility.

Market Opportunity

Email deliverability for solo consultants — hosted inbox + sending orchestration targets a $9.0B = 30M small businesses globally x $300 ACV (email+deliverability tooling/year) total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 12-18% -- SMB SaaS and email marketing adoption growth driven by remote-work and creator economy.

Key trends driving demand: Tighter inbox protections -- providers require proper authentication and reputation signals, increasing complexity for small senders.; Move off shared hosting -- SMBs migrating from bundled hosting email to dedicated providers for reliability and brand control.; API-first email infra -- affordable SMTP/transactional providers enable orchestration across sending routes for better deliverability.; AI-assisted content & cadence -- AI improves open rates and can automate warmup and scheduling recommendations..

Key competitors include Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp (Intuit), Twilio SendGrid, Hosting-provider email (GoDaddy / SiteGround / Bluehost).

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Email deliverability for solo consultants — hosted inbox + sending orchestration

Executive Summary

Market Validation

Market Opportunity

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