--- title: "Fastmail vs Migadu: Apps or $19/yr? | Digital Hosting" url: https://digitalhosting.com/articles/fastmail-vs-migadu description: "Fastmail Standard at $5/user/mo against Migadu Micro at $19/yr for unlimited addresses. Polished apps and per-seat billing, or a 20-mails-a-day cap." lang: en --- Versus Head-to-head # Fastmail vs Migadu Fastmail and Migadu solve the same problem — email on your own domain without a Google or Microsoft suite — from opposite directions. Fastmail sells a polished, per-seat product with genuinely fast apps; Migadu sells raw capacity at a price per year that per-seat vendors structurally can't touch. Prices below were verified on both vendors' sites in September 2026. Last updated: September 16, 2026 By: W. Miller (https://digitalhosting.com/about#authors), Editor, Digital Hosting — reviewed independently by the Digital Hosting editorial team. Disclosure: No link on this page earns us a commission. Where we do have a paid link elsewhere on the site, the page says so. Summary verdict ## Short answer Pick Migadu if you're consolidating several domains under one person and can live with the Micro tier's 20-outgoing-messages-per-day cap — $19/yr is the cheapest credible own-domain email anywhere. Pick Fastmail if you'll actually live in the interface: at $5/user/mo (Standard, the tier where custom domains start) you get the best mail apps outside Gmail, masked email, and calendars — you're paying roughly 3× Migadu's Micro for software quality, not capacity. Top pick Fastmail from $3/user/mo Verified September 2026 Check current pricing (https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/) At a glance ## Comparison table ### Fastmail: https://digitalhosting.com/providers/fastmail Independent business email Premium Pick Starting price from $3/user/mo Basic, billed annually Verified September 2026 Ease 5 of 5 Performance 5 of 5 Support 4 of 5 Migration Included Email Included See current pricing: https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/ ### Migadu: https://digitalhosting.com/providers/migadu Flat-rate unlimited mailboxes Starting price from $19/yr Micro — 5 GB, unlimited domains/addresses renews at same price at renewal Verified September 2026 Ease 3 of 5 Performance 4 of 5 Support 4 of 5 Migration Included Email Included See current pricing: https://migadu.com/pricing/ | Provider | Best for | Starting price | Ease | Performance | Support | Migration | Email | Get it | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Fastmail (https://digitalhosting.com/providers/fastmail)Solo operators and small teams that want a great IMAP/JMAP client | Independent business email | from $3/user/mo Basic, billed annually Verified September 2026 | Ease of use: 5 of 5 | Performance: 5 of 5 | Support: 4 of 5 | Included | Included | See current pricing (https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/)Non-affiliate recommendation | | Migadu (https://digitalhosting.com/providers/migadu)Power users who want unlimited domains/mailboxes at a flat rate | Flat-rate unlimited mailboxes | from $19/yr Micro — 5 GB, unlimited domains/addresses renews at same price at renewal Verified September 2026 | Ease of use: 3 of 5 | Performance: 4 of 5 | Support: 4 of 5 | Included | Included | See current pricing (https://migadu.com/pricing/)Non-affiliate recommendation | Providers in this guide ## The two contenders Best indie business email Solo operators and small teams that want a great IMAP/JMAP client 4.7 Editor score Pricing from $3/user/mo Verified September 2026 #### Pros - + Excellent web and mobile clients - + Custom domains from the Standard plan up - + Independent and privacy-focused #### Cons - − Entry Basic plan excludes custom domains and third-party IMAP clients - − No bundled office suite - − Calendar and contacts thinner than the giants Confirm current pricing on the provider's site. Visit Fastmail (https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/) Power users who want unlimited domains/mailboxes at a flat rate 4.5 Editor score Pricing from $19/yr renews at same price at renewal Verified September 2026 #### Pros - + Flat pricing, no per-mailbox costs - + Unlimited domains on all plans - + Privacy-respecting Swiss operator #### Cons - − Volume-based limits instead of seats can surprise you - − Self-serve support style Visit Migadu (https://migadu.com/pricing/) ## Pricing, decoded (verified September 2026) Fastmail's headline $3/user/mo Basic tier does not include custom domains or third-party IMAP clients — for email on your own domain the real entry point is Standard at $5/user/mo, billed annually, with no intro-vs-renewal split and cheaper 24/36-month terms. One user is $60/yr; each additional seat adds the same again. Migadu doesn't sell seats at all: Micro is $19/yr for 5 GB of pooled storage with unlimited domains and unlimited addresses, capped at 20 outbound messages per day; Mini is $90/yr for 30 GB with substantially higher limits. Renewal equals the entry price on every tier. The math: a single user with light sending pays $19/yr at Migadu versus $60/yr at Fastmail — Migadu wins on cost by 3×. A two-person working setup is $120/yr at Fastmail versus $90/yr at Migadu Mini — closer than the headline prices suggest, and at that point you're choosing on product, not price. ## What Fastmail's premium actually buys Fastmail's webmail and mobile apps are the closest thing to Gmail-grade software you can get from an independent: fast search, snooze, scheduled send, and a built-in importer that pulls mail, contacts, and calendars straight from Google. Masked email — unique throwaway addresses generated per signup — is the standout feature Migadu has no equivalent for. Migadu's webmail is functional, not delightful, and that's a deliberate trade: it assumes you'll connect your own IMAP client. Its admin console, though, is excellent for multi-domain setups — per-domain mailboxes, aliases, and rewrites are all first-class, which is exactly the workload its capacity pricing attracts. Both support proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration. We have not independently measured deliverability for either provider, and anecdotal forum reports run in both directions. ## Who should pick which Choose Migadu Micro for multi-domain personal setups, side projects, and receiving-heavy archival domains — the sending cap is the honest cost of the $19 price. Step up to Mini ($90/yr) when daily sending volume becomes real. Choose Fastmail when the interface is the product: you check email dozens of times a day, you want masked email for signups, and calendars and contacts should sync without a second vendor. At one or two seats the total cost difference is a few dollars a month for meaningfully better software. If you're weighing Fastmail against a full suite instead, that's a different comparison — see our Fastmail vs Google Workspace piece for the three-year math. ### Best fit for - + One person deciding between paying for polish (Fastmail) or capacity (Migadu) - + Owners with several personal or side-project domains weighing cost against apps - + Anyone leaving Gmail who wants their addresses on a domain they control ### Consider another option if - − Your team needs shared documents or video calls — both are email-first; that's suite territory - − You send bulk or marketing email — both prohibit it; use a transactional service - − You want Fastmail's $3/user/mo Basic tier for a custom domain — own-domain email starts at Standard, $5/user/mo Questions readers ask ## FAQ No. Basic excludes custom domains and third-party IMAP clients (verified September 2026). For your own domain, Fastmail starts at Standard, $5/user/mo billed annually — that's the tier every price in this comparison uses. Ready to move forward? ### Fastmail is our top pick for this category. Check current pricing on the provider's site — promos and renewal rates change frequently. Check current pricing: https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/ Keep reading ## Related on Digital Hosting - Fastmail Review → The full standalone take on the polished side of this matchup.: https://digitalhosting.com/articles/fastmail-review - Migadu Review → A deeper look at the capacity-priced side.: https://digitalhosting.com/articles/migadu-review - MXroute vs Migadu → Migadu against the other flat-fee independent.: https://digitalhosting.com/articles/mxroute-vs-migadu - Cheap Email Hosting: What $19–$59 a Year Buys → Both hosts on the full budget ladder.: https://digitalhosting.com/articles/cheap-email-hosting Written and reviewed by W. Miller (https://digitalhosting.com/about#authors) — Editor, Digital Hosting W. Miller is the founder of TetraCore, LLC, the software company that owns and publishes Digital Hosting, and has spent 35 years in software development, technology and related services, including cloud and hosting. The uptime monitoring and price-collection infrastructure behind this site's original research is built and run in-house. See our affiliate disclosure (https://digitalhosting.com/affiliate-disclosure) and how we test and score providers (https://digitalhosting.com/how-we-test). ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "WebSite", "name": "Digital Hosting", "url": "https://digitalhosting.com" }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "name": "Digital Hosting", "url": "https://digitalhosting.com", "logo": "https://digitalhosting.com/og-image.png", "email": "hello@digitalhosting.com", "description": "Independent hosting review site — comparisons for web hosting, VPS, WordPress hosting, business email, and domain registration. 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