# Forward Email review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Open-source email forwarding and hosting for custom domains Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Forward Email is an open-source service for email on your own domain. The free plan forwards incoming mail, and paid plans add mailboxes, outbound SMTP, a developer API and team controls, all with unlimited domains and aliases. It is mainly a mailbox and forwarding service, with sending included from the Enhanced Protection plan. - **Category:** Email Sending Services - **Made by:** Forward Email LLC (since 2017) - **Website:** https://forwardemail.net/en - **Runs on:** Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you need to send mail on the free plan, because it only forwards. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Forward Email has a free plan, and paid plans start at $3 per month for unlimited domains. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** Unlimited inbound forwarding, catch-all addresses and webhooks for unlimited domains. It cannot send mail or store mail. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | Email forwarding only: unlimited inbound mail, spam protection, 50 MB attachments, catch-all addresses and regex filtering. No sending. | | Enhanced Protection | $3 per month for unlimited domains | Adds unlimited aliases, 10 GB pooled storage, outbound SMTP with reputation-based limits, DMARC reporting and API access. | | Team | $9 per month for unlimited domains | Everything in Enhanced, plus unlimited team members, permission management and priority support. Outbound starts at 900 a day. | | Enterprise | $250 per month for unlimited domains | Adds unlimited API requests, a dedicated support chatroom, a contract by DocuSign and onboarding help. | Read from https://forwardemail.net/en/private-business-email on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Forward Email before buying. ## Key features - **Forwarding on custom domains:** Receive mail at your own domain and forward it to an existing address, with catch-all aliases, multiple recipients per alias and regex filtering. - **Outbound SMTP:** Enhanced Protection and above send through SMTP, with unlimited outbound on a reputation basis and 900 a day at the start of Team. - **Mailboxes with IMAP storage:** Paid plans include 10 GB of pooled storage; extra storage is $3 a month per 10 GB. The site says mailboxes are encrypted with your password. - **Developer API and webhooks:** A developer API comes with paid plans, and mail on any plan can be sent to webhooks. - **Open source and self-hosting:** The software is open source and a self-hosted Docker version is listed among the features. ## Good for - People who want email on their own domain without paying per mailbox - Developers who want an open-source service they can also self-host - Anyone who only needs inbound forwarding for free ## Worth knowing - The free plan cannot send mail, so it does not work as a sending service. - Sending limits on Enhanced Protection are reputation-based rather than a fixed monthly count. - The site says that if you forget your mailbox password you lose the mailbox unless you have offline backups. - Prices are listed per month for unlimited domains; no yearly billing is shown on the page. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.8 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Forward Email is open-source email forwarding and hosting for your own domain, with sending and an API added from $3 a month for unlimited domains. The free plan only forwards incoming mail, so it is not a sending service until you pay, and sending limits on the $3 plan depend on your reputation rather than a published number. - **Value for money: A.** $3 a month for unlimited domains and aliases, under the $6 that is 60% of the $10 where the cheaper quarter of sending services starts. It is mostly a mailbox and forwarding service, so the comparison is rough. - **Free plan and trial: C.** The free plan forwards unlimited inbound mail with catch-all addresses, but it cannot send or store mail, so for the sending job nothing free works. - **Features: C.** Forwarding, IMAP mailboxes, outbound SMTP and an API on paid plans, but sending is an add-on to a mailbox service and the listing names no tracking, templates or dedicated IPs. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You point your domain's DNS at the service and create aliases, and the site warns that a forgotten mailbox password loses the mailbox. - **Platforms and integrations: A.** Apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android plus the web, and a developer API with webhooks. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Forward Email's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among email sending services - Forward Email's GPA of 2.8 is higher than 23 of the 26 other email sending services we grade, and level with 3. - It stands best on platforms and integrations (A, above 26 of 26) and worst on features (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $3 a month, against a middle price of $13.73 for the category: 0 of the 25 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4, and no tool on the category's chart scores higher without costing more. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/email-sending ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** Nothing Forward Email does is plain enough to make in a weekend. The 2 things listed below take a company. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.8 is higher than 23 of the 26 other email sending services we grade. It costs $36 a year. Forward Email is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself. - You could not: Apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android that stay in step with each other. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo among them, and has an API. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo **Tags:** Open source, Self-hostable, Public API ## Alternatives - [MailPace](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mailpace): EU-hosted transactional email API and SMTP, without open tracking. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/forward-email-vs-mailpace) - [SMTP2GO](https://toolgpa.com/tools/smtp2go): SMTP relay and email API priced by emails a month, with a free plan. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/forward-email-vs-smtp2go) - [Mailgun](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mailgun): Email API and SMTP relay for developers, with list validation. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/forward-email-vs-mailgun) - [turboSMTP](https://toolgpa.com/tools/turbosmtp): SMTP relay and email API on European infrastructure, with a free plan. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/forward-email-vs-turbosmtp) - [Postmark](https://toolgpa.com/tools/postmark): Transactional email API and SMTP, with broadcasts on a separate stream. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/forward-email-vs-postmark) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://forwardemail.net/en/private-business-email - https://forwardemail.net/en/about Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/forward-email Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).