Post Published on March 11, 2013.
Last Updated on April 3, 2016 by davemackey.
I’m not sure how I survived this long without Boomerang for Gmail, and I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do when my free premium trial runs out either. This tool is absolutely awesome for increasing productivity.
Essentially, Boomerang allows you to remind yourself and others about emails in your inbox. If you are like me and are continuously getting emails, this is a must-have. For example, if you send an email and need a response to it you can have Boomerang bring the message back to the top of your inbox if you don’t receive a message with x time frame.
Another awesome feature is the ability to send recurring scheduled emails. For example, if you have someone who tends to forget things you can set up a scheduled email which will send another copy of the email every day until they remember to do whatever the email specifies. Of course, this could be abused – but properly used it is awesome.
One feature I’d love to see added to Boomerang for Gmail is the ability to SMS someone if something doesn’t happen in x time frame. This could be a text message to self reminding yourself to answer an email, or a reminder that you haven’t received a response to an email, or even a more persistent form of the recurring scheduled message – say the person doesn’t respond within five days to your recurring emails it could escalate to recurring text messages.
Boomerang is available for free on a limited basis and there is a personal account priced at $5/mo. But to get the recurring messages you’ll need the Professional which clocks in at a whopping $15/mo. I pay $5/mo. to SugarSync for 30 GB of data!
I understand Boomerang needs to make money – but might I suggest an alternate pricing scheme? How about a pay for usage option? For example, let me deposit a specified amount into my Boomerang account (lets say $10) and then charge me $.10 for each email reminder I make for myself above the base ten free and maybe $.25 for each recurring email reminder I schedule.
For some people, the flat Professional package would be the best deal – but for others the pay per usage would be more than adequate. I imagine this would add significantly to Boomerang’s user base. I really don’t think I can afford another $15/mo. for a professional subscription. I already pay $60/mo. for internet, $5/mo. for SugarSync, may need to start paying FreshBooks for invoicing, adding Boomerang on top of it all? If I was going to use it heavily, sure, but I’d say I’m a medium load user. I might schedule a few reminder emails per day max and the recurring emails would probably next exceed ten a month.