Originally published May 21, 2025. Last updated September 2026 with current Migadu and Greatmail pricing, corrected Migadu plan limits, and cost comparisons by team size and sending volume.
Migadu and Greatmail are both dedicated email hosts. Neither bundles an office suite or funds a free tier with ads; both simply host email for your own domain. On the surface they look like close competitors. Underneath, they price email in opposite ways, and that one difference decides which is cheaper for you.
Migadu charges a flat price per account and lets you create as many mailboxes, addresses and domains as you like. What you pay for is capacity: each plan includes a daily allowance of incoming and outgoing messages, shared by everything on the account. Greatmail charges per mailbox, and each mailbox comes with its own storage and its own sending allowance.
So the useful question isn’t which provider is cheaper. It’s whether your costs are driven by how many addresses you have, or by how much mail your people send. Looking for plan prices? Jump to current Migadu pricing.
How Migadu Works
One account, unlimited addresses
Migadu doesn’t count mailboxes. Add a mailbox for every employee, a dozen role addresses, catch-alls and a handful of custom domains for clients, and the price doesn’t change. That makes it unusually good value for agencies hosting client domains, for families, and for anyone with many addresses but modest traffic. Migadu no longer offers a free plan, though; the annual Micro plan replaced it.
Migadu’s daily limits are shared across the account
Migadu’s plans are defined by daily message capacity rather than mailbox count. Every mailbox and domain on the account draws from the same incoming and outgoing allowance, and Migadu publishes the limits for each plan (see Current Pricing below).
As you approach a limit, Migadu warns you and allows a margin of roughly 25% over it. Beyond that margin, outgoing messages are rejected and incoming messages are deferred: the sending server keeps retrying, usually for up to 48 hours, until the next day or until you upgrade. If an account stays over its incoming limit day after day, messages eventually bounce.
In practice, the plan you need depends on how many active senders and how much incoming mail you have, not how many addresses. Hundreds of rarely used addresses can fit on a small plan. A small team of busy salespeople may not.
Soft, account-wide storage
Migadu’s storage allowances apply to the whole account and are soft limits. Mail never bounces because an account is full. If you go well beyond your plan’s allowance, Migadu asks you to upgrade or clean up. It’s a generous approach, and one of the service’s real strengths.
What else to know
- Company and data location: Migadu is a Swiss company. According to its own disclosures, its servers are in EU data centers in France rather than in Switzerland.
- Support: Email and tickets only, with no phone or chat. Support level varies by plan, and the entry plan receives best-effort support.
- Calendars and contacts: Basic CalDAV and CardDAV are available, though Migadu says plainly that calendaring isn’t its focus.
- Entry plan restrictions: The Micro plan is billed annually only and omits some administrative features, including multi-administrator access and mailbox limit settings.
- Service levels: Standard plans don’t include an SLA.
Migadu also publishes a candid list of its own drawbacks. It’s worth reading before you sign up, and it’s a good sign about how the company operates.
How Greatmail Works
Per-mailbox pricing: pick an edition and a storage size
Greatmail prices by mailbox, and every mailbox on a plan costs the same. You make two choices:
- Edition. Standard Edition provides IMAP, POP3 and SMTP email with webmail and spam and virus filtering. Groupware Edition adds shared calendars and contacts (CalDAV and CardDAV) and Exchange ActiveSync for phones and tablets.
- Storage. Either 10 GB or 25 GB per mailbox, on either edition.
Each plan uses one edition and one storage size, so Standard and Groupware mailboxes can’t be mixed on the same plan. Plans start at five mailboxes. See Greatmail’s email hosting features for the full list.
Storage pools
Instead of a fixed quota on every mailbox, you can pool a plan’s total storage (the number of mailboxes multiplied by 10 or 25 GB) and allocate it where it’s needed, including mailboxes larger than 25 GB. A few heavy users and many light ones share the total. It solves the same problem as Migadu’s soft storage, with a clearly defined ceiling.
Sending limits that grow with your team
Greatmail limits sending too; every responsible email host does. The difference is where the limit sits. Greatmail’s limits apply per mailbox, both daily and per minute, so every mailbox you add brings its own allowance and total capacity grows with your team. There’s no plan threshold to cross as your people send more.
Like most providers, Greatmail doesn’t publish the exact figures, because published limits help spammers calibrate. They’re set for normal business use. Neither service is built for bulk or marketing email; Greatmail offers separate SMTP hosting for high-volume sending.
Support
Greatmail provides US-based support, including by phone, and migration assistance when you switch providers.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Migadu | Greatmail | |
|---|---|---|
| You pay for | Account capacity (daily message volume) | Mailboxes |
| Addresses and domains | Unlimited at no extra cost | Aliases, forwarding and multiple domains included; each user needs a mailbox |
| Sending limits | Published, shared across the whole account | Per mailbox, growing as you add users |
| Storage | Soft, account-wide | Fixed per mailbox, or pooled at the plan level |
| Calendars and contacts | Basic CalDAV and CardDAV | Groupware Edition: CalDAV, CardDAV and ActiveSync |
| Support | Email and tickets | Phone and email |
| Company | Switzerland (EU data centers) | United States |
| Best for | Many addresses, few active senders | Teams where everyone sends and receives regularly |
Migadu and Greatmail Pricing (2026)
Pricing verified September 2026. Prices change, so confirm on each provider’s site before buying.
Migadu pricing (flat rate per account)
| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Incoming/day | Outgoing/day | Storage (soft) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micro | Not available | $19 | 200 | 20 | 5 GB |
| Mini | $9 | $90 | 1,000 | 100 | 30 GB |
| Standard | $29 | $290 | 3,000 | 500 | 100 GB |
| Maxi | $99 | $990 | 10,000 | 2,000 | 500 GB |
Greatmail (per mailbox, per month)
| Edition | 10 GB mailboxes | 25 GB mailboxes |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $1.95 | $2.95 |
| Groupware | $3.95 | $4.95 |
What it costs in practice
| Scenario | Migadu | Greatmail (Standard) | Lower cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer or family: a few addresses, under 20 emails sent per day | Micro: $19/year | $9.75/month (5-mailbox minimum) | Migadu |
| 5 people, light sending (under 100 emails per day in total) | Mini: $9/month ($7.50 billed annually) | $9.75/month (10 GB) | Migadu, narrowly |
| 10 people sending about 30 emails each per day (300 total) | Standard: $29/month ($24.17 billed annually) | $19.50/month (10 GB) or $29.50/month (25 GB) | Greatmail at 10 GB; similar at 25 GB |
| 25 people sending about 30 emails each per day (750 total) | Maxi: $99/month ($82.50 billed annually) | $48.75/month (10 GB) or $73.75/month (25 GB) | Greatmail |
The pattern is consistent. Migadu is the better buy when you have many addresses and relatively little mail, because extra addresses cost nothing. Greatmail becomes the better buy once several people are sending every day, because its capacity grows with each mailbox instead of forcing a jump to the next plan. At 25 GB, the 10-person comparison is close on price, but Greatmail’s pooled storage for that team would total 250 GB against Migadu’s 100 GB soft allowance.
Which Should You Choose?
Choose Migadu if
- You have many addresses or domains relative to the number of people actively sending mail.
- You’re an agency hosting email for client domains under one account.
- You’re an individual or family and want professional email for very little.
- An EU data location matters to you, and email-only support suits the way you work.
Choose Greatmail if
- Most of your mailboxes belong to people who send and receive mail every day.
- You want sending capacity to grow automatically as you hire, without watching a shared daily quota.
- You need shared calendars, shared contacts or ActiveSync on mobile devices.
- You want phone support from a US-based provider.
Conclusion
Migadu and Greatmail are both solid, email-focused alternatives to the big suites, and neither is the better choice for everyone. Migadu’s flat-rate, unlimited-address model is hard to beat when addresses are plentiful and traffic is light. Greatmail’s per-mailbox model costs less and scales more smoothly once a team of people is using email heavily. If you’re looking for a Migadu alternative because your team has outgrown Migadu’s daily limits, per-mailbox pricing is the model to compare. Estimate how much mail your team actually sends and receives each day, and the right choice usually becomes clear.
To see how Greatmail’s pricing compares with other IMAP providers, read Comparing Email Hosting Pricing: 8 IMAP Providers, or explore the full Ultimate Email Hosting Guide.