Fastmail review: plans, pricing and email features for agencies
Fastmail hosts email, calendars and contacts on your agency domain, with no office suite attached. It is a small, independent company that has run its own mail platform since 1999.
It fits small agencies with simple needs. Standard at $5 a person a month billed yearly covers most staff, with Professional for anyone whose mail you must keep.
- Best for
- Small agencies that want simple email and calendars without an office suite
- Price
- From $3 a person a month billed yearly, or $4 month to month
- Free trial
- 30 days. No card needed
- Mailbox size
- 5 GB to 100 GB a person. Extra Professional storage comes in 100 GB steps
- Shared inboxes
- Free shared addresses that deliver to several people
- Legal hold
- None. Professional keeps a tamper-proof copy of mail
- AMS connections
- None built in. Outlook works over IMAP on Standard and up
- Contract
- Month to month, or 1 to 3 years paid up front
Our take
Fastmail is clean, fast email for an agency that doesn't want Microsoft or Google. Shared addresses cost nothing and each person can be on a different plan.
Standard is the plan for most staff, since Basic can't use Outlook or phone mail apps. Put anyone whose mail must be kept on Professional for its tamper-proof archive.
There is no legal hold, no encrypted email and no direct AMS connection, so larger or regulated agencies will outgrow it.
Pros
- Shared addresses and up to 600 aliases at no charge
- Mix plans person by person in one account
- Month to month on every plan
- 30-day trial with no card
- Tamper-proof retention archive on Professional
Cons
- No legal hold or eDiscovery search
- No built-in encrypted email
- Admins can't require two-step sign-in, and there is no single sign-on
- Self-service restore reaches back only one week
Plans and pricing
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Mailbox | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BasicStaff who only use Fastmail's apps | $3 | $4 | 5 GB | Shared addresses, calendars and address book. No Outlook or phone mail apps |
| StandardYour domain and Outlook | $5 | $6 | 50 GB | Your own domain, Outlook and iPhone Mail, scheduled send |
| ProfessionalPeople whose mail you must keep | $9 | $10 | 100 GB | Tamper-proof retention archive and more storage |
Prices are per person each month in US dollars, before tax, as of October 2026, from fastmail.com/pricing. Two- and three-year terms cost less a month.
What it would cost you
Cost per month
First-year cost
Email cost per client a month
Uses the per-person prices in the table. Shared addresses cost nothing, so count people only.
Good to know before you buy
- Each person can be on a different plan in one account.
- Basic people can use your domain only if at least one admin is on Standard or Professional.
- Professional storage grows in 100 GB steps, each priced like one more person.
- Fastmail sells no message encryption or separate backup.
Which plan has it
| Feature | Basic | Standard | Professional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mail storage | 5 GB | 50 GB | 100 GB |
| File storage | 1 GB | 10 GB | 50 GB |
| Your own domain | With an admin on Standard | ||
| Outlook, iPhone Mail and other apps | |||
| Shared addresses and calendars | |||
| Scheduled send, snooze and mute | |||
| Tamper-proof retention archive | |||
| Messages sent a person each day | 4,000 | 8,000 | 16,000 |
| Month-to-month billing |
AMS and CRM connections
| Connects to | Type | How | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Outlook | Mail app | IMAP and CalDAV | Mail, calendars and contacts in Outlook on Standard and Professional |
| YouCanBookMe and SavvyCal | Scheduling | Built in | Clients book time on your Fastmail calendar |
| 1Password and Bitwarden | Security | Built in | Create masked addresses for online sign-ups |
| Dropbox | Files | Built in | Attach files from Dropbox and save attachments to it |
| Fastmail API | Developer access | API | Tokens let outside apps and AI tools read, write or send mail |
No agency system connects directly. Fastmail has no Exchange connection, so Outlook reaches it over IMAP. If your AMS files email from Outlook, test that first.
Phishing and sign-in protection
- Two-step sign-in
- Authenticator app, security key or passkey, with text as a backup
- Can the admin require it
- No. Each person turns it on
- Single sign-on
- Not offered
- Spam and malware
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC results feed the spam score. Risky file types are blocked
- Impersonation and lookalikes
- Shows the full address when a sender doesn't match the saved contact
- Sign-in log
- Four weeks per person, and a combined view for admins
A Report phishing button lets Fastmail pull a message from its systems once enough people report it. Outlook and phone apps use a separate password for each device.
Encryption for client documents
Encrypted email to clients
Not built in. PGP or S/MIME work only if you set them up in another mail app. Use a secure portal for dec pages and Social Security numbers.
In transit and at rest
- TLS 1.3 on every connection to Fastmail
- Stored mail and backups are encrypted
- Messages up to 70 MB
Retention, archive and legal hold
- Archive
- A read-only copy of all mail sent and received, on Professional
- Retention rules
- The admin turns it on per person and picks how long to keep the copy
- eDiscovery search
- Not offered. Admins can export the archive as ZIP files
- Legal hold
- Not offered
- What it covers
- Only mail from the day retention is switched on
Backup and recovery
- Deleted mail
- Restore mail, contacts, calendar events and notes yourself from the past week
- Deleted user
- Gone for good. Mail, contacts and calendars are removed
- Provider backup
- Two live copies plus nightly backups on a separate system
- Independent copy
- Not included. Use the Professional archive or a separate backup tool for anything older
Domain setup and sending limits
- SPF and DKIM
- Set for you when Fastmail runs your DNS. Otherwise the setup wizard shows the records
- DMARC
- A monitor-only record is added when Fastmail runs your DNS. You can tighten it
- Who edits DNS
- Fastmail, or your own DNS host
- Check
- The Domains screen flags a domain that isn't signed yet
- Sending limit
- 4,000 to 16,000 messages a person each day, by plan
Fastmail's terms bar bulk and automated sending. Send newsletters from an email marketing tool on its own authenticated domain.
When a producer leaves
Disable the login
The data stays and mail keeps arriving. A disabled person is still a paid user.
Export what you need
Download mail folder by folder as ZIP files, or copy it over IMAP on Standard and up.
Delete the user
This can't be undone and removes their shared folders and calendars. You get a credit for the rest of the term.
Keep the address working
Recreate the old address as an alias that delivers to a colleague.
A person can block admin access to their mailbox with a privacy setting, so set expectations in your employee handbook.
Getting started
Start the 30-day trial
No card needed. Trials cover up to 5 people and 120 messages sent a day, with no forwarding.
Add your domain
The wizard has guides for GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, Squarespace and other hosts.
Create people and aliases
Set up service@ and other shared addresses before you switch.
Import old mail
Each person imports from Gmail, Outlook.com, Microsoft 365 or any IMAP host. It can take up to 24 hours.
Switch your mail over
Move everyone at once, or one person at a time to avoid missed mail. Then reconnect phones and Outlook.
Fastmail's support team helps with migration at no charge.
Admin and support
- Admin console
- Settings, then Users and Sharing
- Admin roles
- Admin or regular user. You can have several admins
- Activity log
- Combined sign-in log for the past four weeks
- Data location
- US or EU, chosen by an admin for the whole account
- Support
- Email and support form, around the clock except holidays
- Where you buy it
- Online from Fastmail or through a Fastmail reseller
Fastmail is an Australian company and runs under Australian law.
Contract and your data
- Billing
- Monthly, or 12, 24 or 36 months paid up front
- Renewal
- Renews on its own. Fastmail emails a reminder two weeks before
- Canceling
- Any time. The account runs to the end of the paid period
- Refunds
- None for unused time. Removing a person gives a credit
- Getting your mail out
- Mail as ZIP, contacts as vCard, calendars as iCal and files as ZIP. Notes have no export
- After you cancel
- With immediate deletion, new mail bounces at once and data is erased after 7 days
From Fastmail's terms of service and pricing help, checked October 2026.
Fastmail alternatives
- Zoho Mail and WorkplaceFree for 5 people. Paid from $1 a user a monthLower prices, with eDiscovery and legal hold on Mail Premium
- Proton Mail for BusinessFrom $6.99 a user a month billed yearlyPassword-protected email to any client and encrypted storage
- Google WorkspaceFrom $7 a user a month billed yearlyFull office suite with EZLynx and HawkSoft links
- Microsoft 365Email only from $4, full suite from $7, a user a month billed yearlyOutlook and Exchange, with Applied Epic's Outlook add-in
See every option in business email providers.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Fastmail cost for a business?
Billed yearly, Basic is $3, Standard $5 and Professional $9 a person a month. Month to month it runs $4 to $10.
Does Fastmail work with Outlook?
Yes, on Standard and Professional, over IMAP for mail and CalDAV and CardDAV for calendars and contacts. There is no Exchange connection.
Can several people share service@ on Fastmail?
Yes. An alias can deliver to several people at no charge, and mail folders can be shared.
Does Fastmail have legal hold or an archive?
Professional keeps a tamper-proof archive of mail. There is no legal hold or eDiscovery search.
Can I send encrypted email from Fastmail?
Not from Fastmail's own apps. You would need PGP or S/MIME in another mail app, or a secure portal.
How we researched this review. We based this review on the pricing, terms and product pages published by Fastmail, reviewed in October 2026, together with our team's experience working with insurance agents and agency owners since 2008.
Corrections
Vendors change their pricing all the time and they don't email us when they do. So if you see a price on here that's gone up, a plan Fastmail quit selling or a contract term that reads different now, let us know and send the link to the page where Fastmail has it. Somebody here pulls up that page and checks it before we change anything on ours.