Paid e-mail providers - your experiences, how you use them and how I would use it
I decided to spin off this topic based on the discussion in the Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking.
Since I kinda by chance got rid of my dependency on Google Photos (as I installed Immich on my server which does the same but on my own hardware) I decided I want to try and de-Google my life more.
I was thinking about using my own domain to send e-mail from, but since I don't run e-mail server myself and I don't even want to - because of security reasons from multiple directions - I would like to use some paid e-mail service provider that would host the e-mail for me and I would append my domain to it.
I probably know technicalities on how to do that - through setting DNS MX record on my domain provider and pointing it to my e-mail provider. But I don't know which provider to choose.
I would like to sync my contacts (not through import/export feature via .vcf file, rather automatic synchronization like Google/Microsoft/Apple accounts do), I would like to sync calendar and have the ability to share it with other people (can be another account on the service if not outsiders) and of course e-mail, preferably one that doesn't rely on their own app so I can use ie. Thunderbird.
I would like to kindly ask anyone here in audience to share their experience with their providers, if you use some. It would be great if you used the service as I would do or if you could try my proposed usage on your account.
Thank you all who respond to me. I may have questions if you do :-)
I know about Fastmail which is appealing for not being US (things are kinda unsettling there right now), for having contacts, calendar and plenty space, but isn't exactly cheap - not expensive though. I know about Tuta, which is cheaper for 1-3 accounts but not for 4 and above, it has less space (still enough) but I don't know about contacts there at the moment. I found this Wikipedia comparison page and had a look there, but I would like to hear personal experiences and thoughts.
Worth mentioning that iOS has been shown to be vulnerable, as well :)
I've been very happy with FastMail, more than anything, because of their integration with BitWarden for masked email addresses. But nearly two years into it, never had an issue with my things going to spam, haven't had much issues with incoming spam (a couple false positives, but the true positives were easily manageable due to masked email addresses). Their price point has been good, too. Support for contacts and calendar, as well. I can provide a referral code if you care for it.
Similar anecdotes with FastMail here, though I haven't used the Bitwarden integration. For a stint several years ago I ran my own mail server, but it was more work to keep up than I cared for (and probably had receivability issues, but I wasn't sending much mail at that point).
Compatibility with generic clients via standard protocols (e.g. IMAP or now JMAP) is a hard requirement for me, which eliminates some providers like Protonmail. Regardless of how good a provider's web and mobile apps are, they're a pain in the rear if you've got more than a couple of addresses to manage, which makes a decent provider-agnostic client designed to handle multiple accounts like Apple Mail a must.
For paid accounts, Proton has an IMAP/SMTP bridge app that you can run on your machine (in Linux, Windows or MacOS) that allows any IMAP client to read and send e-mail using a Proton account. I use eM Client to manage my many mail accounts, and it has no problems with my Proton accounts. (I have also used Thunderbird in the past with Proton)
Technically, Proton only keeps your e-mails encrypted on their servers, and does not store your decryption key, so that if anyone got access to your e-mails via Proton, they would not be able to read them. However, this also means they could not serve you those e-mails over IMAP. The bridge does the decryption locally, under your control.
Yeah I’ve heard about the bridge solution, but it’s somewhat awkward in my opinion and another piece that can break. I’d rather the provider just natively support IMAP.
I degoogled years ago and it was down to Protonmail and Fastmail at the time.
Fastmail gave me more space for my mails (like gigabytes more) so I went with them. Haven't really regretted it now that Proton is expanding into a weird Everything App with their VPNs, password managers, office suites etc.
I'm paying for mail, I only need mail. Please don't try to be a billion dollar unicorn and grow exponentially.
I mean, mail was always the secondary thing to VPN.
Cloud storage makes sense given you need to store emails anyhow. Once you have that, proper photos/backup makes sense too.
Password manager makes sense when paired with auto-generating masked emails to go with auto-generated passwords.
The only two that feel a bit shoehorned is their AI chatbot and the writer. I can see why providing a basic office function is useful, and I would probably use it substantially more if they had an equivalently powerful online spreadsheet.
Ummm, this is wrong. I used proton for a bit many years ago. That was before the VPN existed at all. The service was called « Proton Mail ». It started out as just a mail service. I left proton for much the same reason as the person you replied to.
I stand corrected. I suspect I thought that cause that was the sponsorships I saw first.
I'll be one more log on the fire that is the warm, cozy blaze of Fastmail.
In addition to what everyone else has said: they just released their own desktop app with Linux support.
I'll second Fastmail. Everything about their service runs extremely seamlessly and is very well thought out. I don't use the contacts or or notes features, but they are there if I want to use it. It basically does everything you would expect out of an exchange-like server, with a few nice extras like a really good webmail client and integration with some third party services; I use 1password with Fastmail's private email address service so I don't have to give my real email address out.
+1 for Fastmail. Happy user for over a year now. (Formerly self-hosted.) The price is acceptable to me, but that obviously varies from person to person.
Things I like about it: easy masked email; can use mail client (instead of web interface); no (known) issues with rejected mail or spam false positives; zero downtime so far. It does the job, and has no annoying UX issues.
I only need and want them for email. Can't speak to calendar or contacts features.
Amazing, I never even knew this was a thing!! I just learned that this also works with Firefox Relay, which I was using for disposable email adresses! Thank you for bringing this to my attention!
+1 for Fastmail, been using it for years. They do have their own app but they're an IMAP email provider that you can use with anything, e.g. Thunderbird as you say (I use their app on my phone but I use Thunderbird everywhere else).
Been using Protonmail, a duo plan for me and spouse.
Biggest downside is if you want to use a third party client you'll need to install the bridge. But otherwise the feature set is awesome.
Here's the base feature set for $14/mo (currently 50% off)
In your case, you can have up to 15 email addresses, up to 3 custom domains. Provides unlimited email masks, a decent calendar (though sharing doesn't work great in-app, it does decent in desktop). Solo has 500GB cloud storage (which I mount on server using rclone to store backups).
They also recently rolled out SMTP support so you can have your systems send emails using one of your addresess, which solved a big pain point for me.
Plus you get the VPN, which has also been fantastic.
I use Purelymail which is just $10/year. It works just fine with standard email protocols, so I use Thunderbird and iOS's Mail.app as clients. It's lighter on features than some of the other providers (though they have basic WebDAV/CalDAV/CardDAV), but all I need is reliable sending/receiving from a few custom domains for one individual, and for that it's great. There is a bus factor concern since it's basically a one-person company. If I ever need to switch it will probably be to Fastmail.
I use the €3.00 plan on https://mailbox.org
It's cheap, it's German, it works with IMAP/SMTP, they have a guide on how to set it and your domain records up.
Speaking of cheap and German, I use IONOS (formerly 1&1) for my domain (purchase and management), email, and (admittedly simple) web-hosting needs. Very content customer for the years I’ve been there so far.
I have been using mailbox.org for several years now and can second the recommendation. I have never experienced issues either. Setting up a custom domain was also relatively easy to do, just needed to carefully set the right DNS records at my domain's registrar.
As far as @Pavouk106's requirements go:
Bonus features:
Most features other than mail are centered around *DAV protocols. So webdav, caldav, etc. Most of it is driven by a version of open-xchange
Thanks for the reply. What I meant with sharing the calendar: Family calendar where everyone can see, add and remove events.
In Google calendar I created one on my own account and added other people (accounts) as editors - I don't remember how it went on technical side, but that is the state it is in now. I would like to have this functionality on the paid service as well - people could access and edit selected calendar on my account from their own accounts.
I don't mean invites to events I plan, ie. for friends to come to have a party night, or read-only sharing of my calendar. But it is good to know I can send such invites.
Ah yeah like that, just went back to check and that is also possible. Though, it appears to be based on the link that is sent to people if they don't have a mailbox account. So if they share that link with others, those can also access that specific calendar.
That wouldn't be a problem, since the people that I want to access the calendar are "trusted" (they are family members, who should be trusted more than them?). Although in case of device loss/unauthorized access, there could be damage done to the calendar. But hey, it's just a calendar, worlds isn't standing on top of that, is it? I could delete it and make a new one...
Thanks for checking it out.
I like Tutnota Mail aka Tuta mail tutanota.com
Tutanota encrypts much more than many other email services: subject lines, attachments, address book/contacts, calendar entries. 
• They operate a “zero-knowledge” model (the provider themselves can’t read your mail content) and strip IP addresses from outgoing mail headers to improve anonymity. 
• Registration is possible without providing a phone number; they aim for minimal personal data collection. 
For less than $4 a month.
Keep in mind thar you can't use any other clients, other than theirs, to access your data (no third party mail apps or calendars iirc)
Also worth mentioning, all that encryption is used end to end only if you communicate with another tutanota adress. Otherwise you're juste sending a regular email. And when receiving email from a regular adress, it is encrypted at rest in your inbox but not until then... The encryption of pretty much all provider is incompatible between them.
Proton mail is probable the most widely adopted at this point, even thought they are worse than tutanota, and seem kind of scammy...
Not shiting on tuta. It's what i use personally, but it's no silver bullet. You have to set your expectation appropriately when it come to emails.
This is the same problem as facebook being only interresting because everyone is on it.
You can actually send encrypted emails to non-Tuta addresses, it just requires a significant extra step and is definitely not as convenient. You mark the email as encrypted and then enter a password for the recipient to use to decrypt it. This means you have to communicate the password to the recipient somehow. A hassle compared to regular email for sure, but it is possible.
Yes, that is true, but at that point you might as well ask your recipient to create a tutanota account... About exactly the same amount of hassle.
Your thoughts on its pricing aside, I can wholeheartedly recommend Fastmail. It's very easy to set things up for your custom domain. Some domain registrars even have plug and play type of support built in for it. If not, MX records are easy to modify regardless of your registrar. When it comes to important things like email, I think track record is important and they've been around more than Gmail has. Email is just what they do.
I don't mean to bash on other recommendations, I'm sure there are other great email providers out there that can very well be better than Fastmail, but do keep in mind that email is inherently neither secure nor private. It never was, never will be. Stuff like E2EE is loosely used for marketing purposes without giving the full truth and it's important not to fall into that trap, thinking that your email correspondence is secure and private because of it.
I'll recommend Posteo.
It's German, so weigh the 14 Eyes vs. GDPR pros and cons, but they do aim to be privacy-conscious. Webmail-based, so no app, and the actual service is quite good. Plans are €1/month for 2GB I think, and each gig past that is €0.25 up to 20GB. They accept anonymous payment methods so they don't ever get your personal info if you don't want them to, you get IMAP sync, multiple encryption options, you can rotate your address through like 10 different domains, up to 2 free aliases per address, and I think each extra address is like another €2 or €3. Support seems thorough, from what I've seen on the site. I always thought them including Linux, Vivaldi, and other niche platforms in their FAQs to be a good sign (Edit: they're open source! That's why.)... I think they might still even have their Blackberry 10 setup guides online. Never had any issues with it.
I also have posteo and like them. So far no problems. The webmail interface is a bit dated, but this was also never an issue for me. I don't use any other features like Calendar or anything.
You can also use "+" Filters like
youradress+netflix@posteo.deoryouradress+social@posteo.deto automatically filter email adresses without setting up special purpose email adresses, which is nice, but I rarely use.Oh yeah, I use that sometimes to trace if a service I sign up for will potentially leak my email address. But I believe lots (most?) of email providers have that capability now, I've done it with a few.
I mean, if I were an illicit adress pedler, I would probably get rid of those "+" appendices anyway. I think it is mostly a neat way to filter many different mails? But I also rarely use it.
+1 for Posteo.
I especially like that they offer transparency reports in which they list all inquiries by the authorities for a year, and also that they are not a typical start-up. They state in their FAQs:
They really seem to care about sustainability and privacy. I like that a lot.
I have found great success for Zoho for my company and have used them for several of those over the last ten or more years. Obviously not E2EE, but still decent and they have global corporate(ie, security and privacy) usage.
Calendar, docs, drive, etc. Only used their Mail+Cal+Contacts though, but its solid, has great security features, and most importantly reliable.
I think I pay $15 a year per person on that (I don't need their drive storage).
But, they also have a 'forever free' plan, which they've had for a decade, and that allows five users, five gigs of mail storage, and a single custom domain, for free. So if you have only one custom domain, its a great deal, even if you have twenty domains, $15 a year is a fantastic deal.
Edit: They also have the best MX record setup wizard I've ever seen on a site, if you use any other top 20 domain registrars or DNS handlers, its typically one click to set any record from their interface.
Edit 2: They also support catch all emails! So anything-you-want@here.com will always be sent to your primary email, and they support an unlimited number of aliases for sending and receiving at that.
I'll second this on Zoho!
I've been a paid customer for a handful of years now, and its been really great! I'm on the lowest paid plan - i think "Lite" maybe? Anyway, the storage tier isn't that great, its ok, but more than enough for my family's needs. I moved to them as i was beginning my de-googling. Funny actually, because i was grandfathered into that Google w/Your Own domain/Google Suite thing, whatever it was called. Back then i was weighing my options between Fastmail, Zoho, and a few others (i think one of the options i considered was also a low cost one in Germany as well?)...anyway, I really just went with Zoho due to low costs. But, as noted, they've been really great for several years.
Some Pros:
Some Cons:
Still, overall, Zoho is pretty good for the low cost.
Now @Pavouk106 I'll add a tiny bit about Fastmail, since there's many mentions of them...While i have only experience with what used to be their free tier mail years ago, it was really rock solid and , well, fast...but i've never used their paid offerings. Back a few years ago, when i was looking for a paid email provider, Fastmail seemed to be the most expensive offering on my shortlist, and the storage was ok, not bad, but not great...Well, i just checked and wow have they raised the amount of storage you get when you pay them! If i ever move away from Zoho, I'll be seriously considering migrating to Fastmail! My comment might only be a small data point, but hope it helps!
EDIT: As @macleod rightly noted, Zoho's MX DNs record setup wizard is pretty impressive!
I use MxRoute. It's just email, but if you have a lot of domains or want to create a lot of small accounts, it's a good value. I run email accounts for a lot of family members and all the email for my different domains. The guys who run it are a little prickly, but they provide good support via discord, and they are serious about providing high reputation email servers.
It requires you to configure email accounts, certificates, and domains using WYSIWYG tools - if you ever had email through one of the Cpanel shared hosts like bluehost, the level of configuration is similar.
Damn that's a good deal. Like... I cant say no to that.
You might want to wait for BF. Jar (mxroute owner) did some BF offers in lowendtalk in the past.
I'm paying $10/yr for 5/10GB (can't really remember).
I also use theie service for all of my domains. Very straightforward service that focuses on email services and thats really it.
Also the price is hard to beat.
I moved from Apple Mail to the Switzerland-based Proton Unlimited when I started moving away from Apple. A solid service for everyday casual mail where I can trust the privacy claims.
Can recommend.
In the original thread, you and I were talking about Tuta, and you asked about contacts sync. Here's my reply from over there:
RE: Contacts - Yes, I actually just set this up a few weeks ago. This post and its follow-up give an overview of the feature.
(This is all on Android/GrapheneOS): Basically, you put the Tuta mail app on your phone and then, in settings within the app, enable "Contacts Synchronization". This makes Tuta sync your device contacts with its own contacts. Any time that I interact with contacts-related things throughout the phone, it either asks which contacts list to use or defaults to Tuta with an option to change it. For example, when I choose to create a new contact from within my SMS app, it opens the stock contacts app which then gives me a choice between saving it to the Tuta, Google, or device contacts lists. I can edit the contacts from the Tuta mail app, the stock contacts app, or Tuta in a web browser and the changes will propagate to all locations.
One big caveat that could totally be a deal-breaker (but stay with me!): Tuta contact cards do not currently support pictures. However, this isn't as bad as it sounds - it actually only means that contact photos can't be displayed in the Tuta apps themselves. You can still attach pictures to Tuta contacts if you use the stock Contacts app to do it, and then anywhere else that displays contact photos (Signal, SMS messengers, contacts apps, phone apps, conversations settings in the OS, etc) can still do so. I'm not really sure why this works; maybe Tuta contacts support pictures but it's not fully implemented yet? Regardless, what I did was this: Enter all my contacts' info in Tuta, then go back through in my Contacts app and add pictures. Weird, but pretty painless honestly. So, the only place I don't see contact photos is in my email, which doesn't bother me personally. Everywhere else I mentioned above shows the photos I added in the Contacts app.
I don't personally use multiple phones so I can't confirm that the contacts would sync between them, but I see no reason to assume they wouldn't since the phone is essentially using Tuta's copy as the authoritative one. I do wonder if the contact photos would sync though. I have an old phone lying around, so I could test this out if you want. I'm curious now haha.
This is more or less where I'm at now; I still use my Gmail account because, like you, I've had it for forever and it's tangled up in too many things, but for everything else I'm using Tuta mail, calendar, and contacts as my daily drivers. I can elaborate on Tuta calendar, but that's a separate comment.
(Second comment to touch on Tuta calendar and mail briefly)
You mention these two things specifically:
You can only share Tuta calendars with other Tuta accounts. Google Calendars (and, I assume, anything that allows subscribing via an ical address) can be subscribed to (read-only).
I don't think using a 3rd-party mail client (e.g. Thunderbird) is possible with Tuta due to the E2EE.
@Pavouk106 I'll add another comment (separate from my Zoho feedback)...that if you have an Android mobile phone there is an annoyance for syncing contacts and calendars with any paid email providers...This is NOT the fault of any email providers, its simply how Android is configured to favor Google offerings. Basically, whenever not using a google offering like Gmail or Google calendar, Android will need a sort of "sync bridge" between your Android device and providers that are not Google. So, whatever email providers you consider might either nudge you to use their mobile apps (which avoid the Android synch hoop jumping), or they will suggest that you use a sync bridge in their setup guides....The ones i see recommended are DavX5 (which is what i use, and it works great!), etc. Don't be turned off by this! Its annoying, but many providers craft good documentation around this, and you do it once and won't need to worry about it (unless you change phones, etc.).
It's kind of wild that after all these years, Android never gained built in support for CalDAV, CardDAV, etc despite being positioned as the more open of the two dominant mobile operating systems.
System-level support for those protocols would a really good feature for some community-driven AOSP fork to add.
I'm surprised to learn this! I self-host CalDAV via Radicale and iOS's built-in Calendar.app syncs no problem. Sort of assumed Android had this level of support or better.
I do just the same, but really, really miss being able to view/edit my calendar on a computer screen. Do you know if that's possible with radicale?
There's no Radicale web UI that I'm aware of, but on desktop I view/edit my calendar with Merkuro. There are a handful of Linux CalDAV clients I've tried, and that one is KDE's built-in solution.
Nice one, I'll look into that one, thank you.
This is the first time I hear about Radicale (I haven't really searched for something like that, though). I could probably run this on my own hardware, it could lower the requirements for the e-mail provider if I did.
I'm not entirely sure if I want to run another service myself, though. Especially if many e-mail providers already provide this as well and I'm gonna be paying for it no matter what.
Since its hidden in the paragraph: Download DavX5 here. Open source, great utility, bare bones (thats a positive!) and just gets the job done. In fact, I would say its better than how Android/Google handle user accounts natively. If you use a custom calendar provider, contacts provider, or any of that (there is a great FOSS todo app that it natively syncs with any calendary, basically a superpowered ToDoist) - make sure you use it.
Edit: It will allow you to use any calendar/contacts apps on your phone, doesn't require you to use theirs (they don't even have one, they just handle the syncing).
https://www.davx5.com
I'm with zoho with two accounts: my main personal one and then a catch-all that has two domains. A catch-all is possibly the handiest thing going. Every business or site gets its own address; if they have a breach or whatever, I change the email with them (companyName2@blah.com) and blacklist the other. ezpz.
The service is cheap, too. Free if you don't care about IMAP. Everything with them has been an absolute breeze and they provide a bunch of other CRM stuff and more, but I don't even look at those.
I use a Protonmail alias as my “work” email, I have another alias for some website registrations or shopping, I would look elsewhere though unless you intend to use their other services.
I use Mail, Drive and VPN primarily.
Don’t care about Pass, Wallet or Calendar though I did consider using Pass but I’m mainly on Keepassium/KeepassXC instead with some Apple Password here and there.
I used it for around 2~3 years and I’m on Proton Ultimate paying bi-annually.
I'm also using Proton at the moment. My main issue with it, though, is how Proton Mail doesn't let you use a different email client. I'd like to just consolidate everything under Thunderbird, but I have to be constantly running their Bridge app for it to work on PC, and on Android, there is simply no solution available; particularly annoying since the Proton Mail app's notifications don't seem to work on my phone.
I've considered Infomaniak instead, as they provide a similar package and also sell domains and web hosting which I'm going to need soon enough; but I didn't go with it at the time I wanted to switch my main address from Gmail because I was confused about their offers. I might need to look at it again.
I just got a groupware offer from my domain provider for free due to a beta test of said software like a decade ago and use it with my domains. Never had to think about this hassle again. Might be worth looking into different groupware products if you want more features than just a simple imap inbox.