Fastmail for Business review
by Fastmail Pty LtdBusiness email and office suites
Email, calendars and contacts on your own domain from Standard at $5 per user a month on 12-month terms, with 60 GB per user, a JMAP API and a 30-day trial without a card.
- 30-day free trial
- No card needed
- Self-serve
- Per seat
- Public prices
What you're paying for
- Worth the price (main value)
- Easy to adopt
Email, calendars and contacts on your own domain with 60 GB per user for $5 a month on 12-month terms, with open protocols and a documented API.
Fastmail Standard gives each user 50 GB of mail and 10 GB of file storage, custom domains, aliases and catch-all addresses, shared folders and shared addresses, with IMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV and the JMAP API, for $5 a month on 12-month terms. The free import tool and migration support move mail from IMAP servers, Gmail, Outlook.com and Office 365, iCloud and MBOX files. Mail can be stored in the EU or the US, and users can be removed at any time for a pro-rata credit.
- 60 GB per user at $5The US pricing page lists 50 GB of mail and 10 GB of files per user on Standard at $5 a month on 12-month terms, and $4.67 on 36-month terms.Evidence: US pricing page (2026-10-16)
- Open protocols and an APIThe developer page documents JMAP, IMAP and POP for mail, CardDAV and JMAP for contacts, CalDAV for calendars and WebDAV for files, plus an MCP server; API tokens start on Standard.Evidence: Developer page and API token help (2026-10-16)
- Free import and migration supportThe import tool brings mail from any IMAP server, Gmail and Google Workspace, Outlook.com and Office 365, Yahoo, iCloud and MBOX files; the FAQ adds free migration support.Evidence: Import help article and pricing FAQ (2026-10-16)
- Seats and cancellation without penaltyUsers can be added or removed at any time with a pro-rata credit, and the account can be cancelled at any time with no further payments.Evidence: Pricing FAQ and billing help (2026-10-16)
- Best for
- Small teams that want email, calendars and contacts on their own domain at a low price and use other tools for documents and meetings.
- Good to know
- There are no office editors, meetings, SSO or SOC 2 report, the pages describe no admin-enforced 2FA, and unused time is not refunded.
How Fastmail for Business compares
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Business email and office suites: what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Fastmail for Business | Zoho Workplace | Microsoft 365 Business | Google Workspace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Worth the priceEmail, calendars and contacts on your own domain with 60 GB per user for $5 a month on 12-month terms, with open protocols and a documented API. | Worth the priceBusiness mail on your own domain from $1 per user a month, with SSO, audit logs and an online DPA on every paid plan, and a free plan for 5 users. | Worth the priceA 100 GB Exchange mailbox, 1 TB of OneDrive and Office for the web per user from $5.40 a month, with desktop Office apps one plan up. | Easy to adoptGmail on your own domain with Docs, Sheets, Drive and Meet in one per-user plan, with SSO, audit logs and a HIPAA BAA on the entry plan. |
| Overall score | 5.7 | 8.5Best | 7.6 | 6.8 |
| Free option | 30-day free trial | Free plan | 30-day free trial | 14-day free trial |
| Card to start | No card needed | No card needed | Card required | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $3/user/mo | $1/user/mo | $5.40/user/mo | $7/user/mo |
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per seat | Per seat | Per seat |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing unit | Per user per month; cheaper on 12-, 24- and 36-month terms | Per user; Mail plans yearly only, Workplace plans yearly or monthly | Per user per month; up to 300 users across all Business plans | Per user per month; storage pooled across the organization |
| Free option | No free plan; 30-day trial for 5 active users, no card | Mail Free for up to 5 users on one domain; 15-day trial, no card | No free plan; one-month trial for up to 25 users, credit card required | No free plan with Gmail; 14-day trial for up to 10 users, payment method needed |
| Reference scenario (5 users, annual) | $25/mo on Standard ($5 × 5), computed | $6.88/mo on Mail Lite 5 GB + 45 GB add-ons ($1 × 5 + $1.88), computed; $15 on Workplace Standard | $27/mo on Business Basic (no Teams) ($5.40 × 5), computed; $35 with Teams | $50/mo on Business Starter + 100 GB storage ($7 × 5 + $15), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $6 per user on Standard ($4 / $10 for Basic / Professional) | None for Mail Lite and Mail Premium; $4 / $7 for Workplace Standard / Professional | $6.48 per user on Business Basic (no Teams); $8.40 with Teams | $8.40 per user on Business Starter (Flexible plan; $16.80 / $26.40 for Standard / Plus) |
| Storage per user | 6 GB (Basic), 60 GB (Standard), 150 GB (Professional), per user | 5 or 10 GB (Lite), 50 GB (Premium), 30 GB + team drive (Standard), 100 GB + 1 TB team drive (Professional) | 100 GB mailbox + 50 GB archive and 1 TB of OneDrive (1.5 TB archive on Premium) | 30 GB (Starter), 2 TB (Standard), 5 TB (Plus), pooled across Gmail and Drive |
| Domains, aliases and catch-all | From Standard: 100 domains plus 1 per user, 600 aliases plus 15 per user, catch-all | Up to 30 domains and 30 addresses per mailbox on paid plans; catch-all | Up to 5,000 domains, 300 to 400 aliases per user; no catch-all stated | Up to 600 domains, 30 aliases per user, catch-all on every plan |
| Office apps | None; file storage with WebDAV | Writer, Sheet and Show in the browser from Workplace Standard | Office for the web and mobile on Basic; desktop apps from Standard | Docs, Sheets and Slides in the browser on every plan; no desktop apps |
| Video meetings | Not offered | Zoho Meeting with cloud recording from Workplace Standard | Teams for 300 with recording in the plans with Teams | Meet for 100 on Starter without recording; recording from Standard |
| Retention and eDiscovery | Retention archive on Professional ($9); no eDiscovery | Mail Premium ($4) and Workplace Professional ($6) | Litigation hold and eDiscovery export on Premium ($22); archiving add-on $3 | Vault on Business Plus ($22) |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | No SOC 2 certification pursued; ISO 27001 not stated | SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 for all cloud services (report under online NDA) | Office 365 in SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 scope (Service Trust Portal) | SOC 2 Type II reports and ISO 27001 certificates (Compliance Reports Manager) |
| HIPAA BAA | Not offered (not HIPAA compliant) | BAA template on request from Zoho legal | Included in the data protection addendum by default | Accepted electronically in the Admin console |
| EU data storage | EU or US primary storage on every plan; replica, backups and logs in the US | EU data center (Amsterdam, Dublin) chosen by country at sign-up | EU Data Boundary for EU and EFTA sign-ups | Data regions on Business Standard and Plus at no extra cost |
| SAML SSO | Not offered | Every paid plan | Single sign-on for apps with Entra ID on every plan | Every Business plan |
| Mailbox export | ZIP per folder for each user (format not stated); no admin export of all users | Users: EML in ZIP; admins: every mailbox as ZIP or PST on paid plans | PST from classic Outlook per user; admin eDiscovery export on Premium | Admin Data Export tool on every edition; Vault exports PST or mbox (Plus) |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Fastmail is a focused email, calendar and contacts service with 60 GB per user for $5, open protocols and no lock-in. It has no office suite, meetings, SSO or SOC 2 report, and its help articles disagree on a few limits and deletion periods. | From its public pages, Zoho Workplace is the lowest-priced suite here, with SSO, audit logs, shared mailboxes and migration on every paid plan and retention from $4. Mail plans are yearly only, editors and meetings start on Workplace Standard, and a few prices differ between pages. | From its public pages, Microsoft 365 gives a large mailbox and 1 TB of OneDrive per user at a low price, with shared mailboxes, an audit log and a BAA on Business Basic. Retention and eDiscovery sit on Premium or add-ons, and refunds and seat cuts are limited to 7 days. | From its public pages, Google Workspace is a full collaboration suite with SSO, audit logs, export and a self-serve BAA from Business Starter. Starter storage is small, recording and data regions start on Standard, Vault on Plus, and annual plans cannot be cut mid-term. |
Evidence: Fastmail for Business: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Zoho Workplace: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Microsoft 365 Business: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Google Workspace: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Score
- Pricing clarity
- 7.0 / 10, Good
- scenario plan priced; can be bought online; month-to-month price published; no paid AI add-on; the retention article prices Professional at $90 per user a year; the US pricing page lists $108 for 12 months; four different periods for deleting data after an account closes (7 days, within 14 days, 37 days to a year, 180 days if unpaid); the alias limit is "up to 600" in one article and 600 plus 15 per user in another; the domain limit is "up to 100" in one article and 100 plus 1 per user in another
- Free plan and trial
- 4.0 / 10, Fair
- no free plan on your own domain, 30-day trial, no card needed, no money-back guarantee
- Price for 5 users
- 10.0 / 10, Excellent
- $25/mo: Standard at $5 × 5 users, annual terms; no add-on needed: 60 GB per user (50 GB of mail, 10 GB of files)
- Admin and compliance
- 2.5 / 10, Fair
- no SOC 2 Type II stated; no ISO 27001 stated; HIPAA BAA not listed; GDPR DPA on the scenario plan; EU data storage on the scenario plan (chosen by the admin; a replica, backups and logs stay in the US); SAML SSO not listed; admin audit log not listed; required 2FA not listed
- Small-business mail features
- 5.8 / 10, Fair
- several domains on the scenario plan; aliases and catch-all on the scenario plan; shared mailbox without a seat on the scenario plan; retention or archive on a higher self-serve plan; eDiscovery not listed; free migration tool on the scenario plan; browser document editors not listed; meetings with recording not listed
- Data export and exit
- 5.0 / 10, Fair
- no standard-format mailbox export for users stated; no admin bulk export stated; ICS and vCard or CSV; IMAP; documented API; no export period after cancelling stated; refund or no-penalty cancellation stated; seats reducible mid-term
Review
Review from public pages
Written from Fastmail for Business's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
What the public pages show
We read Fastmail's US pricing page and FAQ, the business and security pages, the developer page, the terms of service, DPA and sub-processor list, and help center articles on account limits, trials, plans, storage, retention, domains, aliases, catch-all, shared folders, migration, export, two-step verification, admin tools, data residency, payments, cancellation and the 2024 plan changes on Oct 16, 2026; we did not start a trial or call the API. Fastmail's pricing page picks prices by location, so we read the US page, which shows US dollars.
The pricing page is short and complete: three plans with month-to-month, 12-, 24- and 36-month prices, a 30-day trial without a card, and a FAQ that says unused subscriptions are not refunded. The account limits article spells out domains, aliases and daily sending and receiving limits per plan, and what happens when a mailbox is full.
Some help articles disagree with each other. The retention article prices Professional at $90 per user a year, while the US pricing page lists $108 for 12 months. Four different periods are given for deleting data after an account closes (7 days, within 14 days, 37 days to a year, and 180 days for unpaid accounts). The alias and domain limits are "up to 600" and "up to 100" in one article and grow with the number of users in another. The mail export downloads a ZIP file per folder, and the pages do not say which format the messages inside use.
Strengths
- Large mailboxes at a low price
Standard has 50 GB of mail and 10 GB of files per user at $5 a month on 12-month terms, or $25 for five users.
Compared: Proton Workspace Standard costs $64.95 for five; Google Business Starter needs a storage add-on to reach 50 GB per user.
- Open standards and a documented API
JMAP, IMAP, POP, CalDAV, CardDAV and WebDAV are documented, with API tokens on Standard and Professional.
Compared: Proton states no public mail API and offers IMAP through its Bridge app.
- Seats and cancellation without lock-in
Users can be removed at any time for a pro-rata credit, and the account can be cancelled at any time with no further payments.
Compared: Google reduces licences only at renewal, and Microsoft within 7 days of buying or renewing.
- EU data residency on every plan
The admin can choose EU (Amsterdam) or US storage on Basic, Standard and Professional; the primary copy moves to the EU, while a replica, backups and logs stay in the US.
Compared: Proton states no choice of region; Google offers data regions from Business Standard.
Things to know
- No office suite or meetings
Fastmail has file storage but no document editors and no video meetings; Office attachments get an inline PDF preview.
- Fewer admin and compliance controls
Fastmail states it has not pursued SOC 2 certification, does not state ISO 27001, offers no HIPAA BAA or SSO, and its pages describe no way for admins to require 2FA; the admin log covers logins for four weeks.
Workaround: The GDPR DPA is switched on in the team settings, without a request.
- The Basic plan has no own domain
Basic ($3) cannot use your own domain unless an admin is on Standard or Professional, and has no IMAP, POP or API tokens.
Workaround: With one Standard or Professional admin, Basic users can use custom-domain addresses.
- No refunds
The pricing FAQ says unused subscriptions are not refunded, and removing users gives account credit, not cash.
Workaround: The 30-day trial needs no card.
Pricing reality
Fastmail bills per user, with longer terms cheaper: Standard is $6 month to month, $5 on 12 months, $4.75 on 24 and $4.67 on 36. For our scenario, Standard already gives 50 GB of mail and 10 GB of files per user, so 5 users cost 5 × $5 = $25 a month on 12-month terms (computed), before tax. Professional ($9) adds the retention archive and 150 GB per user; more storage there costs the same as one extra user for each 100 GB of mail and 50 GB of files. There are no paid add-ons for AI, security or meetings, and no enterprise plan. Prices are tax-exclusive, and unused time is not refunded.
Exit path
Each user can download mail as a ZIP file per folder (up to 4 GB at a time; the format inside is not stated), contacts as vCard, CSV or LDIF, calendars as ICS and files as originals or a ZIP, and IMAP and JMAP work from Standard. There is no admin export of all users. After cancelling, the account runs to the end of the billing period and then closes; mail sent afterwards is rejected, and the help center and DPA give different deletion periods.
Compared with
- Pick Fastmail for Business when
- You want IMAP without a bridge app, a JMAP API, EU or US data residency and $25 a month for five.
- Pick Proton for Business when
- You need end-to-end encryption, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, a BAA, or Docs, Sheets and meetings.
- Pick Fastmail for Business when
- You want month-to-month billing on a mail plan, 60 GB per user and a 30-day trial without a card.
- Pick Zoho Workplace when
- You need SAML SSO, required 2FA, eDiscovery or a free plan for up to 5 users.
- Pick Fastmail for Business when
- You want catch-all addresses, open protocols and cancellation at any time without penalty.
- Pick Microsoft 365 Business when
- You need office apps, Teams meetings, SSO or a HIPAA BAA.
Choose it if
- You want email, calendars and contacts on your own domain with 60 GB per user at a low price.
- You value open protocols (IMAP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV) and a documented API.
- You want to cancel or remove users at any time without a contract.
Look elsewhere if
- You need SSO, required 2FA, a SOC 2 report or a HIPAA BAA.
- You want document editors or video meetings in the same subscription.
Bottom line
From its public pages, Fastmail is a focused email, calendar and contacts service with 60 GB per user for $5, open protocols and no lock-in. It has no office suite, meetings, SSO or SOC 2 report, and its help articles disagree on a few limits and deletion periods.
Plan limits at a glance
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per user per month; cheaper on 12-, 24- and 36-month terms |
| Free option | No free plan; 30-day trial for 5 active users, no card |
| Reference scenario (5 users, annual) | $25/mo on Standard ($5 × 5), computed |
| Month-to-month price | $6 per user on Standard ($4 / $10 for Basic / Professional) |
| Storage per user | 6 GB (Basic), 60 GB (Standard), 150 GB (Professional), per user |
| Domains, aliases and catch-all | From Standard: 100 domains plus 1 per user, 600 aliases plus 15 per user, catch-all |
| Office apps | None; file storage with WebDAV |
| Video meetings | Not offered |
| Retention and eDiscovery | Retention archive on Professional ($9); no eDiscovery |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | No SOC 2 certification pursued; ISO 27001 not stated |
| HIPAA BAA | Not offered (not HIPAA compliant) |
| EU data storage | EU or US primary storage on every plan; replica, backups and logs in the US |
| SAML SSO | Not offered |
| Mailbox export | ZIP per folder for each user (format not stated); no admin export of all users |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Fastmail for Business yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Fastmail for Business yet.
Fastmail for Business lists 3 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Basic (12-month terms; no own domain), costs $3/user/mo.
- Fastmail for BusinessBasic$3/user/mo12-month terms; $4 month to month; $2.80 on 36 months
- 6 GB per user (5 GB of mail, 1 GB of files)
- Own-domain addresses only with a Standard or Professional admin
- Web and mobile apps only: no IMAP, POP or API tokens
- Fastmail for BusinessStandard$5/user/mo12-month terms; $6 month to month; $4.67 on 36 months
- 60 GB per user (50 GB of mail, 10 GB of files)
- Up to 100 domains plus 1 per user, catch-all addresses
- IMAP, POP, CalDAV, CardDAV and the JMAP API
- EU or US data residency
- Fastmail for BusinessProfessional$9/user/mo12-month terms; $10 month to month; $8.40 on 36 months
- 150 GB per user (100 GB of mail, 50 GB of files)
- Email retention archive for compliance
- More storage in 100 GB mail + 50 GB file steps at the price of a user
- 80,000 messages received a day
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: fastmail.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.