Rackspace Email vs Greatmail: An Insider’s Perspective on Two Decades of Email Hosting

Greatmail and Rackspace Email share more history than most realize. Both platforms trace their roots back to the early 2000s – Rackspace through their acquisition of Pat Matthews’ Webmail.us (later rebranded as MailTrust, then Rackspace Email), and Greatmail as an independent email hosting pioneer.

After Rackspace’s acquisition, Greatmail became a reseller partner, allowing us to offer Hosted Exchange and provide our customers with vendor diversification. Today, we maintain a significant presence with Rackspace while simultaneously competing in the email hosting space – giving us a unique insider’s perspective on both platforms.

This comparison comes from over 20 years of hands-on experience with both solutions, serving thousands of customers across different business needs. We’ll tell you when Rackspace is the better choice and when Greatmail makes more sense for your organization.

Quick Comparison Overview

Feature	Rackspace Email	Greatmail
Starting Price	$3.00/user/month (3 user min)	$1.95/user/month (5 user min)
Storage	25GB	10GB
Setup Time	Few hours to 2 days	Few hours to 2 days**
Support	Phone, ticket, chat	Phone, email
Account Manager	Reseller accounts only	All accounts
Migration Assistance	Available	Free included
Mobile Apps	Basic	Native apps
Calendar Integration	Basic webmail + Email Plus	Basic webmail + Groupware
Spam Filtering	Standard controls	Advanced user controls

** Orders manually reviewed for fraud prevention

Pricing and Value Analysis

Rackspace Email Pricing

Rackspace Email starts at $3.00 per user per month with 25GB storage and a 3-user minimum. Their enterprise focus means pricing scales significantly for advanced features, with Office 365 Exchange starting at $5+ per user monthly. Volume discounts are available but typically require annual commitments and minimum user counts.

Greatmail Pricing

Greatmail starts at $1.95 per user per month with 10GB storage included, with a 5-user minimum to start. All plans include full IMAP/POP3/SMTP access, mobile sync, and calendar integration without additional fees. Advanced storage and groupware options are available, and migration assistance is included at no extra cost.

Value Comparison

From our experience serving customers on both platforms, Rackspace’s strength lies in enterprise-grade infrastructure and compliance certifications. Greatmail offers superior value for small to medium businesses seeking modern email features and US based dedicated admin support.

Feature Comparison Deep Dive

Email Infrastructure and Reliability

Both platforms offer enterprise-grade infrastructure with robust uptime performance. Rackspace leverages their global data center network and has extensive compliance certifications (HIPAA, SOC 2, etc.). Greatmail operates on modern cloud infrastructure with redundant systems and automated failover.

Storage and Limits

Rackspace provides 25GB per user with options to purchase additional storage. Greatmail includes 10GB per user with generous attachment limits and options to upgrade to 25GB mailboxes. Greatmail can also provide flexible, total plan storage allowing admins to specify custom and variable mailbox sizes.

Mobile and Desktop Access

Both Rackspace and Greatmail provide mobile and desktop client access through standard protocols like IMAP, POP3 and SMTP. Both services also offer advanced protocols like ActiveSync, CalDAV and CardDAV with upgraded plans.

Calendar and Contacts Integration

Both platforms provide basic webmail calendar functionality in their standard plans. For advanced calendar integration and mobile sync capabilities, Rackspace Email Plus and Greatmail Groupware Edition offer similar synchronization options across mobile devices and desktop clients. While there are technical differences in the sync protocols each platform supports, these distinctions have minimal impact on day-to-day business operations.

Spam and Security Features

Both platforms provide effective spam filtering with account and domain-level safelisting and blocklisting capabilities. Rackspace implements solid spam protection with standard filtering controls. Greatmail offers more granular spam filtering settings, giving administrators greater control over filtering sensitivity and user-specific configurations.

Setup and Migration Experience

Rackspace Setup Process

Rackspace Email setup can typically be completed within a few hours to a couple of days, depending on the complexity of your configuration and number of mailboxes. The process involves creating an account, setting up mailboxes, configuring your domain DNS settings, and optionally migrating any email data. Rackspace provides user-friendly interfaces, comprehensive guides and setup wizards to help users manage their email hosting setup.

Greatmail Setup Process

Greatmail follows a similar timeline with setup typically completed within a few hours to a couple of days. One key difference is that Greatmail manually reviews all orders before granting access to the admin panel as a fraud prevention measure. Once approved, the process includes dedicated admin to admin support related to questions using the admin panel, configuring email clients or mobile devices and DNS updates.

Customer Support Comparison

Rackspace Support

Rackspace is renowned for their “Fanatical Support” with 24/7 phone, chat, and ticket support. Their support team includes email specialists with account managers assigned to resellers. Response times are typically excellent, though basic plan users may experience longer queues. Most of the support ticket operations for Rackspace Email are managed through offshore call centers with escalated issues receiving US based tech support.

Greatmail Support

Greatmail provides 24/7 support via phone and email with email hosting specialists. Our support team understands both platforms (since we resell Rackspace), allowing for comprehensive guidance regardless of your current setup. Greatmail phone and email support is 100% US based.

When to Choose Rackspace Email

Choose Rackspace Email when you need:

• Strict compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2, government contracts)
• Large enterprise deployments (500+ users)
• Complex integration needs with existing Rackspace infrastructure
• Dedicated account management for enterprise customers
• Proven track record with Fortune 500 companies

When to Choose Greatmail

Choose Greatmail when you need:

• Business email infrastructure built for redundancy and reliability
• Modern email experience with native mobile apps and desktop clients
• Large deployments available with path to dedicated email server hosting
• Standard email protocols with upgrade options for groupware
• Flexible, responsive support from email hosting specialists
• Dedicated account manager and phone support for administrator

Migration Considerations

Moving from Rackspace to Greatmail

Common reasons customers migrate from Rackspace to Greatmail include cost reduction, better mobile webmail experience, and US based phone and email support. Migration is straightforward with free guidance and assistance as needed to manage DNS settings, admin panel questions and configuring email accounts. Most customers complete the transition within 24 hours.

Moving from Greatmail to Rackspace

Customers typically move to Rackspace for specific compliance requirements or when integrating with existing Rackspace cloud infrastructure. Additionally, customers may prefer Rackspace if there is a possibility of migrating to Office 365 Exchange which can be considerably cheaper working directly with Rackspace.

Real-World Performance Insights

Having managed thousands of accounts across both platforms, we’ve observed:

Rackspace Email excels at:

• Enterprise compliance and security requirements
• Integration with complex IT environments
• Handling large-scale deployments
• Meeting specific industry regulations

Greatmail excels at:

• Business model built around high availability email
• Flexibility in storage allocation and mailbox size limits
• Options for resellers and scalability
• Cost-effective feature sets
• Dedicated admin phone and email support

The Bottom Line

Both Rackspace Email and Greatmail are excellent email hosting solutions with over 20 years of proven reliability. Of all the email providers we’ve compared in our series, Greatmail and Rackspace are actually quite similar in terms of high-end availability, overall features, options to scale, and competitive pricing. The main difference between the two is that Rackspace may be more attractive to larger enterprise customers while Greatmail’s platform is more focused on small and medium size businesses – though this doesn’t necessarily mean either provider would be better or worse for SMBs or enterprise customers.

As both a Rackspace partner and player in the same space, we’re uniquely positioned to recommend the best solution for your needs. Contact us to discuss which platform aligns with your business requirements and budget.

Frequently Asked Questions