Recently I StumbleUpon'ed an interesting post entitled 10 Absolute "Nos!" for Freelancers that presents a good balance to freelancers/consultants who naturally go the extra mile for their clients (those that seek to screw clients don't need Samuel's advice).

In addition to #3 I would add the formerly painless "since I'm hosting your web site, how about I provide you with free mail for that domain?" freebee. When mail was as easy as adding lines to virtusertable and restarting sendmail, mail was cheap. Now, mail is a full-time administrative job that requires more processing than Apache, PHP and MySQL applications (if using spam and anti-virus filtering along with greylisting, RBL checking, etc.). I see more and more web designers losing clients due to hosting issues -- especially mail related issues! -- than anything to do with their main business.

DO NOT HOST EMAIL unless your business model is hosting email. Refuse to do it. If they want email hosting suggest several of the big Email Service Providers.

This isn't just about stopping spam, but allowing their "spam" to be sent out. I see several requests from the same client on one hand demanding that spam be stopped from flooding their mailbox but then complaining that Hotmail, Yahoo, GMail, AOL are blocking their mail -- "fix it!" they demand, missing the irony.

So, after installing and configuring SpamAssassin/dspam/etc. and Amavis/ClamAV/Sophos and setting the hostname, PTR, mail headers of PHP-Mailer apps to match along with SPF, DomainKeys, etc. You start to realize that this will never end. You are now offering to help fight in the anti-spam pro-commercial mail battle waging over port 25. Outsource this crap!

Afraid your client won't pay the small per-seat email fee? Client demands a one-stop solution? Then front the email service provider and pay them yourself. You'll sleep better and keep your client longer.

But, the best situation is divorce yourself from services that are not your expertise. After all, the MX record can point to ANY A record. Any.

Hope this helps!