Developer and reviewer programme
Use it properly. Publish what you find.
Complimentary Pro for twelve months, for developers, reviewers and technical creators who will genuinely test this and write about it in public. A positive review is not required, and we will never ask to see your piece before it goes out.
- What you get Pro for 12 months, then free again
- What we ask A real test, published, and disclosed
- Positive review Not required, and never asked for
Why this exists
Five calls a day is not a test
Every mailbox here starts free, and free is 5 MCP calls a day. That is enough to prove the thing connects and nowhere near enough to find out whether it is any good. One conversation in which an AI lists a mailbox, opens three messages and drafts a reply has spent the whole allowance.
So a reviewer working from the free tier would spend an evening hitting a ceiling and then write about a product they never actually got to use. That review would be worth less to their readers than to us, which is the wrong way round. The complimentary year removes an obstacle to an honest test. It does not buy an opinion, and nothing here is arranged as though it could.
Pro is 1,000 calls a day per mailbox, which is a published ceiling rather than an unlimited plan, and it is the same allowance a paying customer gets. The figures are on the pricing page and they are the same numbers we quote everywhere else.
The offer
A year of Pro, with nothing attached to it
Complimentary Pro on your account for twelve months. It covers every mailbox you attach rather than one, so you can connect a Microsoft 365 account, a Gmail account and a spare IMAP mailbox and compare how the same operations behave across all three, which is the comparison most worth writing up.
It ends by itself. There is no card on file, no invoice, nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel: after twelve months the account goes back to the free allowance and everything else about it stays exactly as it is.
If you hit something that looks like a bug while you are testing, tell us and we will look at it properly, the same as for anyone paying. That is support, and it is where our involvement stops. We do not offer to help write anything, we do not supply copy, and we have no view we would like represented.
The ask
What we ask of you
Five things, and none of them is about the verdict.
- Actually use it. Connect a real mailbox you can afford to experiment in and put it through something resembling your own work. Reading the documentation is not a test, and neither is one send.
- Go past send and read. Those two work everywhere and prove nothing. The interesting parts are threading, filing, drafts that another client can still edit, attachments coming back out intact, and what happens when the mail server says no.
- Publish something public and substantial. A written review, a technical piece, a comparison, a video, a tutorial that reaches conclusions, a newsletter, a podcast segment.
- Say that the access was complimentary. Plainly, in the piece itself. This is what the UK CAP Code and the equivalent rules elsewhere require of you anyway, and it protects your readers rather than us.
- Send us the link once it is live. That is the only way we find out, because nothing in the product tracks what anybody published and there is deliberately nowhere to record what you concluded.
That is the whole of it. There is no minimum word count, no deadline we hold you to, and no template.
Who applies
Relevance beats reach, and we mean it literally
We are not looking for the biggest follower count. A developer with two thousand engaged MCP or AI readers is considerably more use here than an account with a hundred thousand that rarely covers developer tools, and the application form is built to reflect that: one rough audience band for context, and then two to five links to work you have already published. The links are the part that gets read.
People who fit tend to publish about AI and AI agents, MCP itself, developer tools and APIs, software development, SaaS, email, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, automation, WordPress, cyber security, or the practical business of getting an AI client to do useful work. If you write or record for people who would recognise the phrase Model Context Protocol, you are in the right place.
Journalists, newsletter authors, YouTubers, agency and consultancy people, educators and MCP implementers are all welcome. So is somebody with a small specialist audience and something genuinely new to say about it.
Worth testing
What there is to test
The tool reference lists every email tool on any mailbox, plus the calendar tools that appear once a calendar is connected, with what each one does and where each one stops. That page counts itself, so it is the honest answer to how big the surface is.
The claims worth attacking are the ones about fidelity, because they are the ones that are easy to say and hard to do. A reply that threads properly in Outlook rather than starting a new conversation. A send that files exactly one copy in Sent, with the same Message-ID. A draft written by an AI that you can then open and finish in your own mail client. A delete that goes to Trash rather than vanishing. Reading that does not mark anything as read. Attachments that come back byte for byte.
The security page is the other half, and the prompt-injection handling is the part we would most like somebody hostile to look at. There is also our own comparison against the other email MCP servers, with every cell sourced and dated, which is a good place to start disagreeing with us.
The three connection routes behave differently and that difference is worth writing about on its own: Microsoft 365 brings a calendar with the mail, Gmail wants either an app password or a Google sign-in, and a plain IMAP mailbox has no calendar of its own.
Limits
What we will not do
Most of these are restraints on us rather than on you, and they are the part of this offer that actually matters. The last two are the honest limits of what is being offered.
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We will not require a positive review
It is not a condition, it is not implied, and it cannot be withdrawn afterwards: the year runs for twelve months whatever you publish. A mixed review from somebody who really used the product is worth more to us than praise from somebody who sent one email.
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We will not ask to see it first
No preview, no approval, no embargo, and no sight of a draft. The first time we read your piece will be when everybody else does.
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We will not ask you to soften anything
If you find something poor, say so. We may point out a plain factual error, something we can show you in the documentation, and that is the whole of our involvement. What you conclude from the facts stays yours.
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We will not write any of it
No supplied copy, no suggested angles, no review templates, no quotes to drop in and no key messages. If you want a fact checked or a technical detail confirmed, ask and we will answer it straight.
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A place is not guaranteed
Every application is read by a person and the programme is small, so a perfectly good application can still be turned down. A decline says so and gives no reason, because a reason for a discretionary place invites an argument about it rather than a better application.
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There is no payment, and no affiliate scheme
Nothing is paid, and there is no commission, referral fee or affiliate link on offer. The access is the whole of it, and it ends after twelve months at the price of nothing.
Apply
How to apply
The form is fourteen questions and takes about five minutes. Most of it is who you are and where you publish; the part that decides it is the last box, where you say what you would actually test.
Whether you already have an account makes no difference to the decision. It makes one difference afterwards: an approval is held against your email address rather than against an account. If you have already signed up with that address, the Pro year is running by the time you read our reply. If you have not, it starts by itself the moment you sign up and confirm the address. Use the same address either way, because a different one will not find the approval.
Everything you send is used to consider the application and to run the programme, and nothing else. We ask for public web addresses and a rough audience band, because that is what a decision needs. We do not ask for your postal address, your phone number, your analytics logins or screenshots of anything private, and we never will. The privacy policy says what is held and for how long.
Questions
Questions people ask
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a large audience?
No, and follower count is not what the decision turns on. A developer with two thousand readers who genuinely care about MCP is a better fit here than an account with a hundred thousand that never covers developer tools. The form asks for one rough audience band for context and then asks for two to five links to things you have already published, which is the part that actually gets read.
Do you require a positive review?
No. It is not a condition of the access, it is not implied, and there is nothing we can do about your verdict after the fact: the year runs for twelve months whatever you write. A three-star review from somebody who genuinely pushed the product is worth more to us than five stars from somebody who sent one email, because the thing we are short of is real testing rather than praise.
Will you want to see it before I publish?
No. We do not ask for a preview, we do not ask for approval, and we will not ask you to change or soften a criticism. If we spot a plain factual error, something we can point at in the documentation, we may tell you. What you conclude from the facts is yours.
Why is complimentary access necessary at all?
Because the free tier is 5 MCP calls a day, which is enough to see that the thing connects and nowhere near enough to test it. One conversation that lists a mailbox, opens three messages and drafts a reply has spent the day. Without Pro, a reviewer would be writing about a product they never got to use, and the review would be worth less to their readers than to us.
Do I have to disclose that the access was free?
Yes, and it is the one thing we ask for. Say plainly in the piece that complimentary access was provided for review. That is a requirement of the UK CAP Code and of the equivalent rules in most other places, so it protects you rather than us, and a review that hides it is worth less to everybody including your readers.
What counts as a review?
Anything public and substantial: a written review, a technical deep dive, a comparison, a tutorial that reaches real conclusions, a video, a newsletter piece, a podcast segment, or a thread with actual findings in it. A one-line mention in a roundup is not really a test, and neither is a listing with an affiliate link. What we are looking for is evidence that somebody used the thing.
Can I compare it with other products?
Please do. A comparison against the other email MCP servers is more useful to a reader than anything written about this one alone, and we publish our own comparison with every cell sourced and dated, so you have somewhere to check our claims and somewhere to disagree with them.
Is everybody who applies accepted?
No. Places are limited and each application is read individually, so a good one can still be turned down. If yours is, we will tell you and we will not give a reason, because a stated reason for a discretionary place invites an argument about it. You are welcome to apply again later.
What happens when the year ends?
It goes back to the free tier on its own. There is no card on file, no invoice, nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel. If you want to carry on after that, Pro is bought per mailbox at the price on the pricing page like anybody else.
Should I create an account before I apply?
You can do either, and it makes no difference to whether you are accepted. It makes one difference afterwards: an approval is held against your email address rather than against an account, so if you have already signed up with that address the Pro year is running by the time you read our reply, and if you have not it starts the moment you sign up and confirm it. Use the same address either way.
Test it first. Apply after, if you still want to.
Every mailbox starts free with no card, so nothing stops you connecting one this afternoon and seeing whether it is worth your readers' time before you ask us for anything.