MailHow vs Purelymail
Purelymail is $10/year for unlimited domains and unlimited users. It is a third of our price. Here is what the difference actually buys.
The short version
Purelymail is the cheapest credible host in this market: $10/year, unlimited domains, unlimited users, real IMAP. We are not going to pretend that isn't a good deal, and if $19/year matters more to you than everything below, buy theirs. What you get for our $29 is a modern inbox instead of Roundcube, DNS set up in one click instead of seven records copied by hand, EU hosting, and outbound through Amazon SES rather than their own IPs. They also allow 3,000 sends a day to our 100 an hour — if you send in volume, that is a real point in their favour.
What it costs: one person, five domains
$29/yr flat, unlimited domains, free to receive forever with real IMAP — no card, no phone number.
Flat $10/yr with a soft resource cap, unlimited domains and unlimited users. A usage-based 'Advanced' plan exists at $4/yr plus $0.56/GB-year. There is no free tier — the trial is a small credit balance and requires an SMS-capable phone number.
Side by side
| MailHow | Purelymail | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for the persona | $29/yr | $10/yr |
| Domains | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Sending allowance | 100/hour (~2,400/day) | ~3,000/day |
| Webmail | Purpose-built unified inbox | Roundcube |
| Protocols | IMAP, POP3, SMTP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV | IMAP, POP3, SMTP; “basic” CalDAV/CardDAV, no JMAP |
| Inbox model | One inbox, every domain in it | Standard mailboxes |
| DNS setup | One click on Cloudflare; guided elsewhere | 7 records by hand — their docs answer automated setup with “Unfortunately, no” |
| Free tier | Free to receive, forever, with IMAP | Trial credit; SMS-capable phone required |
| Outbound | Amazon SES | Own IPs (docs admit historic Outlook deliverability problems) |
| Hosting | Germany (Hetzner) | US (AWS us-east-1); EU hosting “under consideration” |
| Two-factor auth | TOTP + app passwords | TOTP + WebAuthn + app passwords |
| At-rest encryption | Full-disk | Password-derived keys |
A green check marks a row where Purelymail beats us. Figures checked 2026-07-08 — they change their prices and we change ours, so verify before you buy.
Where Purelymail is better
- $10/year. It is a third of our price and it is not a trick — unlimited domains, unlimited users, real IMAP.
- A far bigger sending allowance than ours: around 3,000/day against our 100/hour.
- WebAuthn and at-rest encryption with password-derived keys — both stronger than what we ship.
- Genuinely honest marketing: they list their own weaknesses (“no 24/7 support staff”, UI “not always intuitive”) on their own site.
Documented friction with Purelymail
Every item below links to its source. We list only things that are published and checkable — not rumours, and not our opinion of them.
Four incidents between November 2025 and March 2026 — an EC2 failure, an emergency database migration, DKIM problems and a brute-force attack.
Purelymail news / statusAutomated DNS setup does not exist. Their documentation answers the question with “Unfortunately, no”, leaving seven records to add by hand.
Purelymail domain docsThe founder sold the company in March 2025 for health reasons; users on Hacker News regularly note the bus factor and that $10 “can't last”.
Hacker News 46748155
Which one should you actually buy?
- Price is the whole decision. $10 is $10.
- You send in volume and our 100/hour cap would get in your way.
- Roundcube is fine by you and you would rather not pay for a nicer inbox.
- US hosting is fine, or preferable.
- You want one inbox across all your domains rather than a mailbox per address.
- You want your DNS configured for you instead of pasting seven records.
- You want EU hosting — which their own users have asked them for and not got.
- You want to try a real mailbox before paying, without handing over a phone number.
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 Purelymail.