MailHow vs Migadu
Migadu prices by usage tier and caps outgoing mail at 20/day on its entry plan. MailHow is $29/year flat with a published 100/hour limit and one inbox across every domain.
The short version
Migadu is the honest one in this market — a two-founder Swiss company whose /procon/ page tells you the bad parts up front, which is more than most hosts manage. We respect it, and we copied the idea. The problem is the sending cap: the $19/year plan allows 20 outgoing messages per day, so the plan people actually need is the $90/year one. And Migadu gives you many mailboxes, one per address; we give you one inbox for all of them.
What it costs: one person, five domains
$29/yr flat, unlimited domains, 100 messages per hour (~2,400/day). Free to receive, forever, if you never send.
Micro is $19/yr but allows 20 outgoing messages per day. The first tier with a workable allowance (100/day) is Mini at $90/yr. Domains and mailboxes are unlimited on both.
Side by side
| MailHow | Migadu | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for the persona | $29/yr | $19/yr (20 sends/day) or $90/yr (100/day) |
| Domains | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Mailboxes | One inbox, every domain in it | Unlimited — but one mailbox per address |
| Outgoing limit | 100/hour (~2,400/day), published | 20/day (Micro) · 100/day (Mini) |
| Incoming limit | None | Capped — a burst of inbound can exhaust the day's quota |
| Protocols | IMAP, POP3, SMTP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV | IMAP, POP3, SMTP; CalDAV/CardDAV exists but is buried |
| Public API | Yes (v1) | Yes (beta) |
| Track record | Months | Five years |
| Outbound relay | Amazon SES | Own IPs |
| Hosting | Germany (Hetzner) | France (OVH), despite Swiss registration |
| Deliverability promise | Published limits + DMARC reporting per domain | “We give no guarantees your messages will reach recipient’s inbox” |
A green check marks a row where Migadu beats us. Figures checked 2026-07-08 — they change their prices and we change ours, so verify before you buy.
Where Migadu is better
- Their /procon/ page is the most honest marketing document in this industry. It is why we publish our limits and our status page.
- Unlimited mailboxes, and a per-domain admin with genuinely good DNS diagnostics.
- Five years of operating history. We are months old — that is a real reason to choose them.
Documented friction with Migadu
Every item below links to its source. We list only things that are published and checkable — not rumours, and not our opinion of them.
A 2026 reviewer found the incoming cap works as a receive-side denial of service: 200 password-reset emails in 15 minutes exhausted his daily quota.
muffin.ink, Migadu review (2026-03)A February-2024 migration left mailboxes appearing empty for about a day.
Hacker News 39458167Migadu's own /procon/ page states they give no guarantee that messages reach the inbox.
migadu.com/procon
Which one should you actually buy?
- You want separate, isolated mailboxes per address rather than one merged inbox.
- You send very little and $19/yr with a 20/day cap genuinely fits.
- Track record matters more to you than anything on this page. Theirs is longer.
- You run several domains and are tired of switching between mailboxes to answer mail.
- You send more than 20 messages a day and don't want to pay $90/yr for the privilege.
- You want to see, per domain, whether your mail is actually authenticating — we show you the DMARC reports.
Receiving on your own domains is free on MailHow, with no card — so you can point one domain at us, leave the rest where they are, and see for yourself before moving anything. Start free.
Sources
Checked 2026-07-08. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it — including when the correction favours Migadu.