The Questions · Vol. I — № 005

Questions before the first letter.

This is the long-form answer page for anyone weighing whether an inbox designed around one reader, many domains fits them. Grouped into five chapters; each question stands on its own, so jump wherever the doubt lives.

I · The product, in one breath

What it is, who it's for, what it won't do.

01What is Folio, actually?
A web-based email client for one reader with many domains. Your studio's address, your practice's address, and your newsletter's address all arrive in the same inbox — but each keeps its own coloured stripe, its own DKIM signature, and its own reply-From behaviour. Think Gmail with multi-identity as the first-class feature, not a buried setting.
02Who is this for?
The portfolio entrepreneur. The consultant with a product on the side. The solo founder running a main company and two experiments. The holding-company-of-one. Anyone who owns more than one domain name they want to send and receive mail on, but doesn't want to pay per seat for each.
03Who is this not for?
Teams. Folio is explicitly single-user — one reader, many identities. If you have employees who each need their own inbox, Google Workspace or Fastmail Teams is the better fit. We may add teams later. Today, no.
04Is this a webmail app or an email provider?
Both. We handle the inbound MTA (Haraka), the outbound sending (Amazon SES with per-domain DKIM), the storage (DynamoDB), and the interface. When you add a domain, we're the host — no pointing at another provider downstream.
05Who is behind this?
Folio is built by Yoni Ryabinski, the founder behind several small public products. It comes from his own portfolio-operator problem: multiple domains, multiple public identities, and one person who still needs to answer the mail cleanly.

II · Domains & identities

Bring the names you already own.

01Can I bring my own domains?
Yes — that's the point. Add any domain you control, paste the records the wizard shows, and verify them from the domain detail page. The base set routes inbound mail and publishes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC; the carrier records prove the domain to Amazon SES and align the Return-Path for outbound mail. Most DNS changes show up within minutes, though SES can take longer to confirm.
02How many domains can I add?
Preview accounts can bind one domain without a card. Once you start a paid trial, Solo includes 3 domains, Studio 10, and Holding Co. unlimited — with only a high anti-abuse safety backstop above that.
03Can I have multiple addresses per domain?
Yes. For each verified domain, add as many identities as you need — press@, hello@, yourname@, billing@. Every address shares the same coloured stripe as its domain so the eye groups them naturally.
04What if I already use my domain somewhere else?
You'll point MX at us, which means inbound mail flows here. Your existing outbound (from, say, a marketing tool) keeps working as long as its sending servers are in your SPF record. The wizard explains the cutover — it's not destructive, but it is a switch.
05Do replies come from the same address they were sent to?
Yes, by default. When a letter arrives at press@studio.yours, the reply's From is pre-filled as press@studio.yours. You can override in the compose window, but most days you won't need to — which is the whole point.

III · Price & billing

Simple tiers, honest billing, cancellable.

01How much does it cost?
Solo is $3.50/month or $2.99/month billed annually (up to 3 domains, 1,000 sends a month). Studio is $15/month or $12/month billed annually (up to 10 domains, 6,000 sends a month). Holding Co. is $39/month or $29/month billed annually (unlimited domains, 30,000 sends a month) for onboarding and priority support. Plans scale by domains and monthly send volume. Every account starts free in preview (100 sends, one domain, no card); the 14-day card trial begins only when you're ready to lift those preview caps.
02I run three businesses. Do I pay three times?
No. You are one person; you choose one plan, not one per business. Solo covers up to 3 domains, Studio up to 10, and Holding Co. unlimited — all without a separate charge per domain. The plan you pick scales with how many businesses you run and how much you send (Solo 1,000 sends/mo, Studio 6,000, Holding Co. 30,000).
03Do I need a card to start?
No. New accounts start in preview mode: 100 sends and one custom domain, no card required. The 14-day card-required trial kicks in only when you're ready to lift those caps; cancel before day 15 and nothing is charged.
04How do I cancel?
From the Stripe billing portal, linked inside the app. You'll see exactly what you're being billed and when. Cancellation stops the next renewal — letters you've already received remain yours.
05Can I get my mail in and out?
Both. Bring existing mail in from a Google Takeout export, and take everything out anytime: Security → Export all mail downloads your inbox, archive, sent, and spam as a standard .mbox file that Thunderbird, Apple Mail, mutt, and Google Takeout all read. Nothing held hostage.

IV · Deliverability & trust

The parts a recipient's mail server cares about.

01Is my email actually going to be delivered?
That is the main buyer fear, so the product is built around per-domain DKIM, SPF and DMARC setup, Amazon SES outbound, and bounce/complaint handling. The homepage deliverability section lays out the mechanism instead of asking you to take it on faith.
02Is my outbound mail DKIM-signed?
Yes, per domain. Each bound domain gets its own RSA-2048 DKIM key pair. The private half is Fernet-encrypted at rest. When a letter is sent, it's signed by the specific key that belongs to that domain — not a shared signer, not a generic vendor key.
03What's your DMARC policy by default?
We set your domain's DMARC to p=quarantine with aggregate reports routed to dmarc@emcognito.com. You publish only the wizard's _dmarc record; Folio owns the external reporting authorization.
04What about SPF?
The wizard writes an SPF record that authorises Amazon SES (our outbound carrier). If you send from other systems — newsletter tools, transactional providers — you'll add them to the same record. It's a single TXT record, so coexistence is cheap.
05What happens when mail bounces?
SNS notifications catch bounces and complaints at the edge. Dead addresses are marked so a second letter doesn't go out and erode your reputation. Complaints are treated more aggressively: a complainant goes on the suppression list immediately.
06Do replies thread correctly in Gmail and Outlook?
Yes. We set In-Reply-To and References headers on every outbound, so mainstream clients fold your reply into the original thread rather than starting a new one.

V · Security & privacy

What we keep, and how we keep it.

01How do I sign in?
A magic link. Enter an address, click the link that arrives there. No password to set, remember, or leak. Links are single-use and expire in fifteen minutes.
02Where is my data stored?
DynamoDB (with Point-in-Time Recovery) for message metadata, S3 for attachment bodies. All in the same AWS region. DKIM keys are encrypted at rest with Fernet; the master key lives in AWS Secrets Manager.
03Do you read my email?
No. Nothing about your mail is scanned for advertising, training, or any other derivative purpose. Our revenue is your subscription — the alignment is straightforward.
04What if I delete something by accident?
Trashed letters are recoverable for thirty days. After that they're purged by a TTL, not held forever in some secondary index.

Sources

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Updated 11 May 2026 (2026-05-11)