REPLICATION GUIDE · AI Businesses

Custom domain email forwarding

ImprovMX forwards custom-domain email into existing inboxes: owners configure MX records, aliases and catch-all/routing rules instead of hosting every mailbox.

● Already earning  $20K/mo  ·  Copy it for about $35K

Replication snapshot

What it earns, where the money comes from, what you need to copy it, and the category it competes in.

Monthly revenue$20K/mo
Copy budget$35K
Growth channelsEmail marketing, Affiliate program
Tools to copyNot disclosed
CategoryAI Businesses

How to copy this business and make money

Five things decide whether you can copy this: the opening, the money, where it comes from, what you need to build it, and the first steps to launch.

QUICK LOOKFree summary — what it sells, and the total budget
Test regional DNS guidance/agency workflows as selection reasons. Fund three build months, one 30-day paid test and 30-day assisted exit. Total copy budget: $35K.

Want to see how that $35K splits line by line, what each line buys, and when to stop? The full breakdown is below.

PROVEN · ALREADY MAKING MONEY

Thousands of people are already making money with this playbook

If you want to make money, read this part. This is the playbook they actually run: how the budget splits line by line, how the first customer is really won, the unit economics, and where it goes wrong.

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Open-source stack you can start from

Each repository was checked against the GitHub API for existence, stars and licence terms. Fork one instead of starting from zero. Where it says AGPL, read the terms before shipping a paid product.

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Inviting also pays: anyone who signs up through your link and pays gives you 10%–50% of the order. How inviting pays →

What this business does

ImprovMX forwards custom-domain email into existing inboxes: owners configure MX records, aliases and catch-all/routing rules instead of hosting every mailbox. Paid plans add SMTP/JSON API transactional sending, logs, webhooks and higher quotas. Its site, accessed October 17, 2026, advertises 200,000+ users, not paid customers. About dates founding to 2013; a January 2, 2025 announcement records Matthew Tse’s acquisition. Former owner Antoine Minoux’s acquisition-related post reports $350K+ ARR and 3,000+ paying customers, historically and unaudited, with dollar currency unspecified. About now calls the company self-funded and profitable. Current revenue, paid count and mail volume remain unverified.

Replication breakdown

01

Why it works — and where your opening is

Domain owners need professional addresses without operating one mailbox per domain. ImprovMX routes custom-domain aliases into existing Gmail or other inboxes; catch-all, multi-destination rules, logs and APIs suit side projects and larger domain portfolios. Free entry lowers trial friction; higher domain, rule, forwarding and transactional-sending caps create upgrade paths. Every new message reuses those routes. Continued use depends on trust: reliable delivery, privacy, DNS setup and bounce handling. Mail reputation and abuse controls demand real operational expertise. No exclusive moat is verified; alias dashboards are easiest to copy, while clean sending IPs, deliverability and abuse response are harder. A regional DNS-onboarding or agency workflow is a buyer-choice hypothesis to test, without claiming alternatives lack it.
02

The money: revenue, cost, and margin

Monthly revenue$20K/mo
Revenue per employee$48K /yr

Estimated from technical complexity, people, tools, and delivery scope.

ImprovMX’s About page, accessed October 17, 2026, calls it self-funded and profitable; current audited finances are unavailable. Starter Story’s AI profile, compiled from 21 sources, still marks monthly revenue unsourced. A secondary article dated August 25, 2023 reported $33K MRR; former owner Antoine Minoux’s acquisition-related post reports $350K+ ARR and 3,000+ payers. These historical, unaudited dollar claims do not specify currency or establish current profit. The USD70,000/month table value preserves USD35,000 startup×2, not ImprovMX revenue or a forecast. Email/IP reputation, abuse operations, engineering, on-call, support and compliance affect margins. The bounded USD9 pilot below yields USD3.93 before acquisition/fixed overhead and a USD32,991 shortfall against planned noncontingency outlay.
03

Where the revenue comes from

ImprovMX sells forwarding subscriptions, with paid transactional sending. Its pricing page, checked Oct. 17, 2026, lists Free $0, Light $50/year, Premium $9/month, Pro $24/month and Enterprise custom; bare $ currency is unspecified. Free has 1 domain, 25 aliases and 500 forwards/day; Light has 5 domains, 25 aliases/domain, 150,000 forwards/month and 750 SMTP sends/month. Premium/Pro allow 30/100 domains, 100/200 aliases/domain, 10/50 rules, 150,000/450,000 forwards/month and 12,000/60,000 monthly sends shared by SMTP/Send API. Annual billing advertises 15% off. Send API is transactional-only, not for marketing/newsletters. Paid revenue mix is unknown.
04

Tools you need to replicate it

As accessed Oct. 17, 2026, ImprovMX says it runs AWS autoscaling with open-source/custom components, but does not disclose a complete internal stack, mail-transfer agent or database. Public products include SMTP, REST API V4 (released Aug. 12, 2026), JSON Send API, alias/rule management, email webhooks, CLI and logs; V4 uses API-key Basic auth and endpoint rate limits. The Security page describes annual independent penetration tests, multi-zone SMTP, rate/DDoS controls, SPF/DKIM/DMARC checks, SpamAssassin, temporary S3 mail staging, TLS and encryption. Deliverability docs discuss SRS/ARC, blocklists, feedback loops and abuse controls. These are company disclosures, not independent certifications; ImprovMX says it does not pursue SOC 2 or ISO 27001. Log retention varies by plan/settings.

Success stories from this field

Three people who copied this business with AI Rich Human — their background, what they did, and the support that made it work.

Story by · Dalia Vargas

Dalia Vargas — from warehouse worker to copying a $20K/mo business: Custom domain email

There is a version of this story where I never clicked the link. I clicked it out of boredom at one in the morning. I spent 3 years on night shifts in a warehouse, scanning parcels. No degree, no savings. Then a friend sent me a link to AI Rich Human. I expected another "get rich online" course and almost closed the tab. Instead I found real businesses that already make money — named companies with real revenue — and, for Custom domain email, a copy-and-execute plan broken down to the numbers. Their breakdown answered the three questions I actually had: how much to put in (about $35K), what to build it on (off-the-shelf tools), and where the customers come from (Email marketing, Affiliate program). Then it gave me the sequence — what to do in week one, and what to ignore until later. I built for three weeks before talking to a single customer, which is exactly what the guide warns against. My first five conversations changed the offer completely. I wish I had done those five calls in week one. I worked through the checklist in order. off-the-shelf tools first, then Email marketing, Affiliate program, then the outreach script — and two paying clients inside a month. The headline budget of about $35K is not a day-one number; I spent the minimum that could produce one customer and let the rest come out of earnings. I expected a course and got a technical partner. Behind AI Rich Human are 33 full-time staff and more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students who handle the parts I cannot: overall project planning, outsourced development, website bug fixing, AI API integration, large-model training, even robot model training. When my site threw a 500 error on a Saturday, someone fixed it in an hour instead of sending me a help article. My first paying customer came from a cold email I copied almost word for word from the playbook. I was scared to hit send. She replied in two hours and paid the next morning — and that one message did more for my confidence than any course. I undercharged for two months out of fear. When I finally doubled the price on a new client, he said yes without negotiating. The cheap clients had been the difficult ones all along. My brother laughed when I told him. My old manager said I was throwing away a stable job. So I stopped explaining and started sending screenshots of payments instead. Nobody argues with a bank notification. There is no office and no boss. Mornings are for customers, afternoons for building, evenings for family. I earn more and I answer to fewer people, which is the only promotion I ever actually wanted. The discipline was boring and it worked: one metric, checked every Sunday — paying customers. Growth meant more of the same channel. A flat week meant a different offer, not a different business. Today my copy of it pays me every month. The business I copied runs about $20K/mo — I am not at that scale, and I don't need to be: I was earning around $3,400 a month as a warehouse worker in Genoa, and this already beats that, with room to grow. I am not a genius and I cannot code. What changed was copying a proven plan with a team behind me. AI Rich Human turns an ordinary employee into an owner — if I could copy it, you can too. Boredom turned out to be the most profitable decision I made that year. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-24-improvmx-com?lang=en
Story by · Emeka Nakagawa

Emeka Nakagawa — from delivery driver to copying a $20K/mo business: Custom domain email

Two things were true at once: I was exhausted, and I was comfortable. Comfort was the problem. I drove deliveries for 6 years, paid per drop, my back and my bank account both aching. A colleague forwarded me AI Rich Human during a lunch break. I scrolled past the hype and landed on the part that mattered: actual companies, actual revenue, and a step-by-step breakdown of Custom domain email written for someone with no budget and no team. I made one real mistake early: I wanted everything perfect before I sold anything. Two weeks passed — I had a logo, a website, and zero customers. The plan says it plainly: sell first, build second. The moment I sent five rough cold messages, the business started moving. The plan was brutally specific: a launch budget of about $35K, the exact tools it runs on (off-the-shelf tools), the revenue channels that actually convert (Email marketing, Affiliate program), and the first steps to land a paying customer. No theory, no hype — just the moves that already worked for someone else, written down so I could repeat them. I blocked out evenings and did exactly what the sheet said: off-the-shelf tools set up, Email marketing, Affiliate program opened, the first-customer email sent. Two clients signed within three weeks. I never needed the whole $35K up front — I put in just enough to get one person to pay, then recycled that money. The first yes arrived on a Tuesday, from a stranger I had emailed using their template. I rewrote maybe four words. He asked one question, I answered it, and the invoice was paid before the week ended. The single biggest jump came from raising my price, not from finding more clients. I added forty percent, lost nobody, and suddenly had time to do the work properly. What actually saved me was the team. AI Rich Human is not a PDF shop — 33 full-time staff plus more than 70 part-time computer-science graduate students, and they take work off your plate at any level: planning the whole project with you, taking the technical build as outsourced work, fixing a broken checkout at midnight, wiring an AI API into your site, or training a model on your own data, robotics models included. When my payment page died on a Friday night, a real engineer answered. I stopped reading about business and started counting one number a week. If paying customers went up, I repeated whatever I had done. If they didn't, I changed the price or the pitch. That was the whole system. People at work found out and made jokes about "internet money". I stopped defending it and just showed the payout screen. The jokes stopped when the numbers got boring and regular. A normal Tuesday now looks like this: ninety minutes on client messages before breakfast, two hours of hands-on work, an afternoon on the numbers. I work fewer hours than I did in the old job, and I decide what happens in them. That part I still can't get used to. My version is small and it is mine. It earns less than the $20K/mo the original does — but more than the $3,800 a month I made as a delivery driver in Lyon, and it grows while I sleep. I cannot code and I have no rich uncle. I had a plan, a link, and a team I could call. That was enough, and it can be enough for you. Nothing about my old life was broken. I just wanted a version of it that I owned. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-24-improvmx-com?lang=en
Story by · Vera Fischer

Vera Fischer — from caregiver to copying a $20K/mo business: Custom domain email

I almost didn't believe it. I had been burned by "easy money" promises before. For 9 years I looked after elderly patients in their homes — lifting, cleaning, paid almost nothing. I found AI Rich Human through a search I had almost given up on. What kept me there was not a promise but a spreadsheet: Custom domain email, what it costs to start, which tools it runs on, and how the first customer actually arrives. What I got was not a course but a build sheet — the launch budget (about $35K), the stack (off-the-shelf tools), the channels that actually convert (Email marketing, Affiliate program), and the order to do things in. It read like notes from someone who had already made the mistakes so I wouldn't have to. So I followed it, step by step. I set up off-the-shelf tools, opened Email marketing, Affiliate program first, and used their first-customer script to land my first two paying clients within a few weeks. The plan lists a full launch budget of about $35K, but nobody spends that on day one — I started with the smallest slice that could produce a paying customer, and reinvested from the revenue. I sent eleven messages before anyone answered. The twelfth person — a small studio owner — replied "how much?" and paid that afternoon. Eleven rejections cost me nothing but an evening. I also learned to trust numbers over fear. Every week I tracked one thing: paying customers. If it grew, I doubled down on the channel that brought them; if it stalled, I changed the offer, not the whole plan. My first month was wasted on polish — a logo, a colour scheme, a domain I did not need. Nobody bought anything. Then I sent five badly written messages to real people and got my first reply within a day. Sell first, decorate later. The part nobody advertises: there is a bench behind the plan. 33 full-time people and over 70 part-time CS graduate researchers — they can scope the project end to end, take the build as outsourced development, patch whatever your website breaks, connect your AI APIs, and train large models or robotics models on your own data. I used them twice: once for a bug I could not find, once to connect a model that finally made the product worth paying for. Nobody warns you about pricing. My first price was so low that I was busy all day and still broke. On the third client I raised it by forty percent and nobody blinked. That same client later sent me two referrals. I still get up early, but now the first hour belongs to me, not to a commute. Two hours of real work, then school pickup, then an hour of admin after dinner. Same number of hours, completely different life. My mother asked, twice, whether this was a scam. The third time she asked, it was to find out how much I was making. I did not convince anyone with words — the transfers did it. A year ago I was a caregiver in Marseille on about $4,200 a month. Today this copy pays me more than that, and the business I copied is doing $20K/mo — proof the ceiling is far above me. Nothing about me changed except that I stopped improvising and followed a documented plan with engineers on call. Honestly, I'm still a little surprised it worked. The project I copied, in full: http://www.airichhuman.com/stories/starterstory-24-improvmx-com?lang=en

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