Home › Email hosting › Fastmail

Fastmail

Independent paid email since 1999

verified 2026-07-02Proprietary (funds JMAP/Cyrus OSS)

Arete score

4.5 / 5

Autonomy4

Return5

Efficiency4

Transparency5

ἀρετή “AH-reh-tay” — excellence: a thing being good at what it’s for. Mean of the four principle scores. How we score →

Visit site ↗

Plain outbound link — no affiliate parameters, no tracking redirects.

✓ Verified by a human against the public rubric on 2026-07-02 · see the evidence ↓

Why it's listed

Written by the ValueIndex editor, from the verification pass of 2026-07-02.

Fastmail has sold email for money for 25 years — the entire business model is that you're the customer. It funds development of the open JMAP protocol and the Cyrus mail server that anyone can self-host. Employee-owned, public pricing, real data export. The archetype of sustainable, ad-free SaaS.

Facts

License: Proprietary (funds JMAP/Cyrus OSS)
Pricing: From ~$5/mo, public
Funding model: Bootstrapped, employee-owned
Self-hostable: No
Replaces: Gmail
Verification: Verified against the rubric on 2026-07-02

Evidence notes

You-are-the-customer model; funds open JMAP standard + Cyrus server; 25yr track record

Recorded during the rubric pass — every score must carry evidence a stranger could re-check.

Also in email hosting

Migadu (4.5) — Email hosting priced by usage, not mailboxes
Tuta Mail (4.5) — E2EE email, post-quantum crypto
Proton Mail (4.0) — E2EE email at scale, non-profit owned

Spotted a problem — trackers added, dark patterns, abandonment? Report a violation. Scores change when evidence does.