Is Migadu cheaper than Fastmail?

Almost always, yes. Migadu Micro is $19 a year and Mini is $90, both for unlimited mailboxes, against $132 for six people on Fastmail Family or $300 for five on Business Standard. What the extra money buys on Fastmail is apps, a calendar and contacts.

Does Migadu limit how much mail I can send?

Yes, and it is the number to check before you buy. Micro allows 20 outgoing messages a day across the entire account and 200 incoming; Mini raises those to 100 and 1,000. Five people replying normally will pass 20 outgoing on an ordinary day, which is why Mini is the realistic tier for a team.

Does either have a calendar?

Fastmail does, with contacts. Migadu is mail only. If you need a calendar in the same account, that difference decides this comparison on its own.

Can I use my own mail app with both?

Yes. Both speak IMAP, POP3 and SMTP, so Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook or anything else works. Fastmail also speaks JMAP, which makes some clients noticeably faster; Migadu does not.

Comparison

Fastmail vs Migadu

Fastmail is the more finished product: first-party apps, a calendar, contacts, Masked Email, and over twenty years of operating history. You pay per person for it.

Migadu charges a flat price for unlimited mailboxes and unlimited domains and meters something else entirely — messages per day. Micro is $19 a year, Mini is $90, and a working team is usually on Mini.

Nobody switches between these two for features. They switch because one of the two meters — headcount, or daily throughput — stopped fitting.

Skip to the table

Side by side.

A year of email for five people. List prices, read off each provider’s own page on 12 August 2026. Our column is here because leaving ourselves out of our own table would be coy, not because this page is about us.

Fastmail vs Migadu: annual cost and features for 5 people, with FranklyMail as a third column.
Per year, 5 people	Fastmail	Migadu	FranklyMail
Price per year, 5 people	$132 on Family, up to 6	$19 on Micro	$9
The tier a working team usually needs	$300 — Business Standard, $5/user/mo	$90 on Mini	$9
Pricing model	Flat up to 6 on Family, per user on Business	Flat, tiered by messages per day	Flat, plus storage you use
Mailboxes	6 on Family, then billed per seat	Unlimited	Unlimited
Custom domains	Yes, except on Business Basic	Unlimited	Unlimited
Storage	60 GB per person	5 GB on Micro, 30 GB on Mini — soft, mail never bounces	10 GB pooled, then $0.40/GB/yr
Outgoing messages per day	No per-account tier	20 on Micro, 100 on Mini	No per-account tier
Incoming messages per day	No per-account tier	200 on Micro, 1,000 on Mini	No per-account tier
IMAP, POP3, SMTP	Yes	Yes	Yes
JMAP	Yes	No	Yes
Sieve filters	Yes	Yes	Yes
Catch-all	Yes	Yes	Yes
First-party iOS and Android apps	Yes	No	No
Calendar and contacts	Yes	No	No
Masked Email	Yes	No	No

Two products that barely overlap

Fastmail is a finished consumer product. There are apps for both phones, a calendar, contacts, Masked Email, and a company that has been running mail since before most of its competitors existed. If you spend hours a day in email, that polish is the product and it is worth paying for.

Migadu is closer to infrastructure. It gives you unlimited mailboxes and unlimited domains for one flat price and expects you to bring your own client — the web interface is functional rather than delightful, and there is no calendar. What you get instead is that adding an address costs nothing, so `careers@`, `invoices@` and a mailbox for the accountant stop being budget decisions.

A useful way to tell which you are: if the thought of setting up a mail client on a new phone is annoying, buy Fastmail. If the thought of asking permission before creating a mailbox is annoying, buy Migadu.

The meters, and which one bites

Fastmail meters people. Family is flat up to six, which is generous for a household and unavailable to a company in good conscience — a studio buying a family plan is buying the wrong plan. Past that it is $5 per user per month on Business Standard, so the invoice tracks your headcount whether or not the new hire reads their mail.

Migadu meters throughput. Micro allows 20 outgoing and 200 incoming messages a day across the whole account; Mini raises that to 100 and 1,000. Storage is deliberately soft — 5 GB on Micro, 30 GB on Mini, with no hard quota, so your mail does not bounce because a mailbox filled up. That is a kind design decision and worth naming.

The failure modes differ accordingly. Fastmail’s bill surprises you when you hire. Migadu’s tier surprises you on the day a team of five sends a busy afternoon’s worth of replies and hits twenty outgoing messages, which is why the honest Migadu price for a working team is Mini at $90 rather than Micro at $19.

Buy Fastmail if…

You want first-party apps, a calendar and contacts in one account.
Masked Email, or a mature product with twenty years behind it, is what you are buying.
You are a household of up to six: $132 a year for all of you is a fair price.
You would rather pay per person than think about daily message limits ever again.

How Fastmail compares to us →

Buy Migadu if…

You want unlimited mailboxes and unlimited domains without per-seat maths.
You keep a large archive and send lightly — storage there is soft and mail never bounces for a full mailbox.
You already have a mail client you like and do not need anyone’s app.
You run several domains and want addresses on all of them for one price.

How Migadu compares to us →

A third meter, if neither of those fits

We are much closer to Migadu than to Fastmail: flat price, unlimited mailboxes, unlimited domains, no headcount maths. If that model is what drew you to this page, Migadu has six more years of operating history than we do and you should weigh that seriously.

Where we differ is the meter. Migadu bets that throughput is the scarce thing and leaves storage soft; we bet the opposite. $9/yr a year includes 10 GB pooled across every mailbox and domain, more is $0.40/GB/yr, and there is no tier that depends on predicting how much mail you will send next year. We also speak JMAP, which Migadu does not.

Both bets are honest and neither is free. Ours costs you money if you arrive with a 200 GB archive; theirs costs you a tier upgrade the first busy week. Pick the meter that matches how you actually use email, and if that is Fastmail’s apps, buy Fastmail — we have no apps at all.

Get started, $9/yr

Fair questions.

Is Migadu cheaper than Fastmail?: Almost always, yes. Migadu Micro is $19 a year and Mini is $90, both for unlimited mailboxes, against $132 for six people on Fastmail Family or $300 for five on Business Standard. What the extra money buys on Fastmail is apps, a calendar and contacts.
Does Migadu limit how much mail I can send?: Yes, and it is the number to check before you buy. Micro allows 20 outgoing messages a day across the entire account and 200 incoming; Mini raises those to 100 and 1,000. Five people replying normally will pass 20 outgoing on an ordinary day, which is why Mini is the realistic tier for a team.
Does either have a calendar?: Fastmail does, with contacts. Migadu is mail only. If you need a calendar in the same account, that difference decides this comparison on its own.
Can I use my own mail app with both?: Yes. Both speak IMAP, POP3 and SMTP, so Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook or anything else works. Fastmail also speaks JMAP, which makes some clients noticeably faster; Migadu does not.