Mailo vs Posteo (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Mailo grades higher than Posteo: 3.0 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 6, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 10, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Mailo grades higher on the free plan, features and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Mailo
French webmail with a free tier, ad-free paid plans and calendar
Which one is for you
Pick Mailo if
- Fits if you want a free mailbox hosted in France, with IMAP
- Works for people who'll pay for a multi-year term to remove ads
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if banner ads bother you, as free accounts show them
- Watch out: free accounts are deleted after 12 months of inactivity
- Watch out: Premium is sold for 1 to 5 years, and the billing basis of the monthly price isn't stated
- Tight if you stay free: 1GB mailbox and 5 aliases
- Watch out: larger Premium+ mailboxes and Mailo Pro are priced on pages not read, and prices are in euros
Pick Posteo if
- Fits if you want an ad-free mailbox that you pay €1 a month for directly
- Works for people who'd rather sign up without a name, address or phone number
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want email at your own domain, because custom domains are not supported
- Not for you if you like to try before you pay, as there's no free plan and no trial account
- Too light for anyone who wants cloud storage with their mailbox, since Posteo offers none
- Watch out: you prepay in euros with a €12 minimum top-up, and extra storage is €0.25 per GB a month
- Tight if you want an app of its own: there's no phone or desktop app, so you set up IMAP yourself
How we grade them
| 3.0GPAMailoVery good | 2.0GPAPosteoFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | APremium is €1.50 a month, under 60% of the category's cheaper quarter of $3.99. The page doesn't say how that figure is billed, and Premium is sold for 1 to 5 years. | A€1 a month, prepaid, for 4 GB of storage, 3 aliases, 3 calendars, an address book and notes, where this category's middle is $8 and its cheapest quarter starts at $4. Extra storage is €0.25 per GB a month, and the minimum top-up is €12, about a year's fees. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree with a 1GB mailbox, 500MB of cloud, 5 aliases and IMAP4. One person could live on it, with banner ads. | FNothing is free. There's no free plan and no trial account, so you pay before you see the inbox. Credit is refunded in full if you cancel within the first month, but a refund isn't a trial. |
| Features | BMail with aliases, calendar, contacts, cloud storage, standard protocols and hosting in France. The pages show no gap in the core email work. | CThe private basics: everything you store can be encrypted, PGP and S/MIME work in webmail through plug-ins, calendars and contacts sync over CalDAV and CardDAV, and login takes passkeys. The gaps are its own, though: no custom domains at all, no cloud storage, and 4 GB to start. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. A web mailbox with apps, and you connect your own devices over IMAP. | CNo rating on record. One account at one price means nothing to choose and no name or address to hand over, but PGP in webmail means installing the Mailvelope plug-in, and using your own mail app means setting up IMAP yourself. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb, iOS and Android, with OnlyOffice. No desktop app is listed. | CWebmail and a web app, and no phone or desktop app of its own on record. It does open in Thunderbird or Outlook over IMAP and POP3, with CalDAV and CardDAV for calendars and contacts and notes that sync with Apple Notes. |
| Best for | a French mailbox with a small free plan | a private mailbox for €1 a month |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Mailo and Posteo. How we grade
Price against what you get
Mailo starts at about $1.68 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Posteo starts at about $1.12 a month and scores 2.0.
Mailo scores higher, and starts $0.56 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other email apps on the chart, 2 score higher than Mailo for less, and 10 score higher than Posteo for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Posteo is open source and end-to-end encrypted, according to its own site.
- Mailo also covers file sharing.
- Posteo also covers notes.
At a glance
| Mailo | Posteo | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Paid |
| Starts at | €1.50 per month, for a 1 to 5 year term | €1 per month, prepaid (minimum top-up €12) |
| Free plan | Mailo Free: 1 GB mailbox, 500 MB for documents and photos, 5 aliases, IMAP4, and advertising banners. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Mail Object | Posteo e.K. |
| Price read from | mailo.com | posteo.de |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Mailo
- Free accounts show banner ads and are deleted after 12 months of inactivity.
- Premium is sold for terms of 1 to 5 years, and the page does not state the billing basis of the €1.50 monthly figure.
- Larger Premium+ mailboxes up to 500 GB and Mailo Pro are priced on pages not shown here.
- Prices are in euros.
Posteo
- Custom domains are not supported; addresses use Posteo's own domains such as posteo.de, posteo.net or posteo.com.
- There is no free plan and no trial account, though credit is refunded in full if you cancel within the first month.
- Payment is prepaid in euros, with a minimum top-up of €12, which is about one year's fees.
- It is used through webmail and a web app or through other mail apps over IMAP or POP3, and it offers no cloud storage.
Key features
Mailo
- Mail with aliases
- Free accounts get 5 aliases and Premium gets 100, with filters, forwarding and collection of mail from external accounts.
- Calendar, contacts and cloud
- Every account includes a calendar, address book, storage for documents and photo albums, and sharing tools.
- Standard protocols
- Free accounts use IMAP4 and ActiveSync; Premium adds POP3. iOS and Android apps are also offered.
- Hosted in France
- Messages are stored on servers in France, and Mailo says it does not read or sell them.
- Family, school and business offers
- Mailo Junior, Mailo Edu and Mailo Pro are separate offers for children, schools and organizations.
Posteo
- One flat-priced account
- €1 a month covers email with 4 GB of storage, 3 aliases, 3 calendars, an address book and notes. Storage can grow to 75 GB and aliases to 25 for small monthly add-on fees.
- Encryption of stored data
- Crypto mail storage encrypts saved email, attachments, metadata and notes, and the address book and calendar can each be encrypted with your own password at the press of a button.
- End-to-end encryption in webmail
- PGP through the Mailvelope plug-in and S/MIME through Posteo's own plug-in work inside the webmail interface, and incoming mail can be encrypted with either.
- Sign-up without personal details
- Registration asks for no name or address, payment data is kept separate from email accounts, and credit can be added by bank transfer, PayPal, credit card or cash.
- Calendar, contacts and notes
- Calendars sync over CalDAV and can be shared read-only by ICS link, contacts sync over CardDAV, and notes can be synchronized with Apple Notes.
- Passkeys and login protection
- Login supports two-factor authentication (TOTP), up to 5 passkeys and up to 5 app passwords. An extra protection mode blocks access from external programs over IMAP.
Plans
Mailo
Mailo Free€0
1 GB mailbox, 500 MB cloud, 5 aliases and ads; account expires after 12 months of inactivity.
Mailo Premium€1.50
per month, activated for 1 to 5 years
20 GB mailbox, 5 GB cloud, 100 aliases, no ads, an address for life, and POP3 and IMAP4.
Posteo
Email account€1
per month, prepaid from account credit
4 GB of storage, 3 aliases, 3 calendars, address book and notes. Extra storage costs €0.25 per GB a month and extra aliases or calendars €0.10 each.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Mailo or Posteo?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Posteo is cheaper to start with: about $1.12 a month, against about $1.68 a month for Mailo. Mailo starts at €1.50 per month, for a 1 to 5 year term, and Posteo starts at €1 per month, prepaid (minimum top-up €12).
Which has a free plan, Mailo or Posteo?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Mailo has a free plan. Posteo does not.
Which platforms do Mailo and Posteo run on?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Mailo lists iOS and Android apps. Both list a web app. A platform missing from a listing is one its maker's pages did not mention.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.