It has never been clear what is going on with MailStore Plus since they started it. There was never an easy link to the information and you always had to email support to get a license.

They are obviously still producing Home Plus (which is presumably the basis for Home Office but again that is not at all clear) as I have Home Plus 3.

Their website really needs a huge overhall to give it any coherence or actually make it informative, and their charging policies need someone to sort them out (prefereably someone who can understand that 5 copies of the Home version should be cheaper than a 10 license Server edition).

I did ask them about the pricing when I requested info about Home Plus 3 but got no response whatsoever.

I have to say the information is pretty secure for the long term. At any point your data can be exported in numerous ways and backed up in different ways. There is no sense in which you are locked into a proprietary format.

I can understand the pricing strategy for the Server version - they are offering a business a central shared repository for business related emails. You can specify exactly what you want archived away, and the great thing is the archive is much quicker and easier to search than Outlook! You can even reply to emails from within MailStore and quickly access attachments etc.

The place where they seem to have lost their way is the pricing for Home Office - they seem to suggest that it is functionally equivalent to the Home version (they don't even say Home Plus) but they have put it at a higher price point than the server version and seem to have missed the point that many Home Office users will be sole traders who would like to buy a single copy.

As for their website - I think they must be a small company spreading themselves a little thin and so the website gets cobbled together quickly and isn't seen as a priority. This is a silly mistake to make if they want to build confidence in customers and even more so if they want to encourage potential customers to spend money.

If it was my business my pricing strategy would be:

MailStore Home - free but more restrictive than the current version (say only one profile and only cover Outlook Express and other common free mail clients and mail types)
MailStore Home Plus - a low price paid for version for non-commercial use (they can give the money to charity if they want or make it donationware)
MailStore Workstation - a paid for version of Plus for commercial use (available as single copies or multi-packs with discounts)
MailStore Server - full server based business package with multiseat licenses

Sensible pricing scheme. Why don't you forward that to them?

I sent them a mail saying their pricing scheme rules out self-employed/sole-traders with only one or two (or 3 or 4 or 5!) computers and sent links to this post and Carol's above

Reply was

Hi Tom,

please excuse my short answer - at the moment there is only the current pricing.

Best Regards,

I guess as Carol says they too busy to look at this or the just focusing on bigger or corporate sales

I like the new version a lot. It's much quicker than version 2, if memory serves. I'm with Allen, though, I'd like to move up to Home Plus but regret that there isn't an easier way to do it. For now, I'm going to see if the Home version suits my needs.

. . . and probably too busy to notice someone in a small business that doesn't need 5 licenses using the free version.

I'm all for paying for software but, generally only when means to do so are provided

ahem, yes, yes ......

You may achieve that - or possibly the complete withdrawal of the plus version!

This is good software. I just successfully converted 15000 emails from Thunderbird to outlook express.

Trying.
Seems a very interesting software to backup the home emails.
Best Regards