Fastmail

Paid email hosting with custom domains, calendar and contacts, run without ad-based revenue

As of 1 September 2026, Fastmail starts at $3/month. A subscription mail host, not a client layered over Gmail or Outlook. Softwr lists it under Productivity. Fastmail is made by FastMail Pty Ltd, available on Web, iOS, Android, macOS.

Visit siteVisit Fastmail

Overview

What Fastmail does

Fastmail provides the actual mailbox: storage, the mail server, spam filtering, calendar and contacts, plus web, desktop and mobile apps. It supports custom domains, unlimited aliases and masked email addresses, and it has run as an independent, subscription-funded company since the 1990s rather than monetising attention or data. The category difference matters for comparison. Spark, Canary and Bluemail are clients that connect to an account you already have somewhere else; Fastmail is where the account lives. That means switching to Fastmail is a migration, not an app install: you move your address, your history and, if you use a custom domain, your DNS. In exchange you get a provider whose business model is the subscription fee rather than advertising or data use, comparable in that respect to Proton Mail and Tuta, which are already catalogued as encrypted-first alternatives. Buyers are people who want to own a custom domain for email long-term, people leaving free ad-supported providers on principle, and small businesses wanting hosted mail without running their own mail server. The trade-off against Proton Mail or Tuta is that Fastmail does not do end-to-end encryption by default the way those do; its privacy pitch is about business model and jurisdiction rather than zero-knowledge encryption.

What people use it for

Someone who wants their email address tied to a domain they own rather than a free provider they do not
A small business wanting hosted mail on its own domain without running mail server infrastructure
A person leaving Gmail specifically to stop an ad-funded provider processing their mail
A household migrating several accounts to one paid provider with shared billing

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Fastmail.

It does not provide end-to-end encryption by default, so users specifically wanting zero-knowledge mail should compare it against Proton Mail or Tuta rather than assume parity.
Moving to Fastmail is a real migration with DNS changes for a custom domain, unlike installing a client such as Spark or Bluemail over an existing account.
There is no free tier at all, so a user just wanting to try it commits to a paid trial rather than a permanently free option.
Storage limits on the entry Basic plan are modest next to the free allowance Gmail gives, and heavy attachment users will need Standard or above.
Being based in Australia means it falls under Australian data access law, which some privacy-focused buyers weigh differently from Swiss or German jurisdictions used by Proton Mail and Tuta.

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Fastmail

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Fastmailvs
Proton Mail
Proton Mail: If end-to-end encryption by default matters more than JMAP speed or migration tooling
Fastmailvs
Tuta
Tuta: If you want a European, zero-knowledge encrypted host rather than a subscription-funded conventional one
Fastmailvs
Spark Mail
Spark Mail: If you want to keep your existing Gmail or Outlook account and just add a better client on top

Pricing

What Fastmail costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Basic

$3 /mo

6GB storage
No custom domain support
Core mail, calendar and contacts

Standard

$5 /mo

60GB storage
Custom domain support
Masked email and aliases

Professional

$9 /mo

150GB storage
Multiple custom domains
Priority support

Capabilities

Features

Custom domain hosting
Bring your own domain with full DNS and alias support
Masked email
Generate disposable forwarding addresses per signup
Unlimited aliases
Multiple addresses routing into one mailbox
Integrated calendar and contacts
CalDAV and CardDAV alongside mail, no separate app needed
Migration tools
Import from Gmail or other providers with mail history intact
JMAP support
Open protocol Fastmail helped develop as a faster alternative to IMAP

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Is Fastmail a client like Spark, or does it host my email?

It hosts the mailbox itself; there is no separate provider underneath it the way Spark sits over Gmail.

Does Fastmail offer end-to-end encryption?

Not by default in the way Proton Mail or Tuta do; its privacy position rests on being subscription-funded rather than ad-funded.

Can I use my own domain?

Yes, from the Standard plan up, with full alias and masked email support.

Keep looking

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Fastmail, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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