# Riseup review (2026): is it any good? > Donation-funded email and VPN for activists and organizers Checked Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Riseup provides free email, mailing lists and a VPN for people and groups working on social change. Mail is stored encrypted under the user's password, accounts are opened with invite codes instead of phone numbers, and the service says it does not log IP addresses. It is funded by donations, not by ads. - **Category:** Email Apps - **Made by:** Riseup - **Website:** https://riseup.net - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you want to sign up without an invite, as you can't. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 13, 2026, Riseup is free to use. - **Pricing model:** Free - **Free plan:** Accounts are free; Riseup asks for voluntary donations and suggests $5 to $15 a month for people who can afford it. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Riseup account | $0 | Free email with 1 GB of storage, funded by donations; the donate page suggests $5 to $15 a month for individuals who can. | Read from https://riseup.net/en/donate on Nov 13, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Riseup before buying. ## Key features - **Individually encrypted mail storage:** Stored messages are encrypted and can only be unlocked with the user's password, so Riseup says it cannot read them. - **Hidden user ID and no IP logging:** The sender's account ID is hidden in outgoing mail, IP addresses are not put in headers, and the service says it does not log them. - **Webmail, IMAP and POP:** Read mail at mail.riseup.net or in a client such as Thunderbird over IMAP; POP lets you download and delete messages from the server. - **Tor onion services:** Every service has a Tor onion address, and mail to other activist providers can be delivered over Tor. - **Account tools:** Email aliases, filters, per-service passwords, a quota setting and a one-click data purge in the account system. - **Mailing lists and VPN:** The same group runs mailing lists, a VPN, a pad, file sharing and group wikis. ## Good for - Activists and organizers who want an ad-free, privacy-focused email provider - People who prefer not to give a phone number to open an account - Groups needing mailing lists from a movement-aligned host ## Worth knowing - Accounts need an invite code, so you cannot simply sign up. - Email storage is capped at 1 GB, and Trash and Spam folders are emptied after 21 and 7 days. - Mail is not end-to-end encrypted unless you add Mailvelope or your own OpenPGP; a stolen password exposes all mail. - A lost password with no recovery code means the account and its mail cannot be recovered. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.4 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Riseup gives free, donation-funded email with 1 GB of storage, aimed at activists and organisers. You need an invite code, mail isn't end-to-end encrypted unless you add it, and a lost password can't be recovered. - **Value for money: B.** Accounts are free and the donate page asks $5 to $15 a month from those who can afford it. A donation isn't required. - **Free plan and trial: B.** A free account with 1 GB of storage that one person can live on, though you need an invite code to get one. - **Features: C.** Webmail, IMAP and POP, mailing lists, a VPN and Tor services. No custom domains or calendars in the listing, and 1 GB is small. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You need an invite code to sign up and you set up your own mail client. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** A web service with IMAP and POP, plus Thunderbird, Mailvelope and Tor. No apps of its own. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Riseup's own pages on 13 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among email apps - Riseup's GPA of 2.4 is higher than 54 of the 122 other email apps we grade, and level with 19. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 69 of 122) and worst on features (C, above 1). - Riseup has no paid plan. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.0 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/email ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** Riseup is free, so making your own would save you nothing. And it is not the kind of software a weekend replaces. - You could not: An email client: sending, receiving, threading and searching years of mail. - You could not: Servers in dozens of countries, kept fast and private. - You could not: Sharing with other people, which means accounts and invitations. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Thunderbird, Mailvelope, Tor **Tags:** Email client, VPN ## Alternatives - [Posteo](https://toolgpa.com/tools/posteo): Ad-free, green-powered email from Berlin for €1 a month. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/posteo-vs-riseup) - [mailbox](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mailbox-org): Paid, ad-free email with cloud storage and office tools from Germany. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/mailbox-org-vs-riseup) - [Proton Mail](https://toolgpa.com/tools/proton-mail): End-to-end encrypted email service based in Switzerland. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/proton-mail-vs-riseup) - [Tuta Mail](https://toolgpa.com/tools/tuta-mail): End-to-end encrypted email and calendar from Germany. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/riseup-vs-tuta-mail) - [Mailfence](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mailfence): Private email from Belgium with built-in OpenPGP encryption. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/mailfence-vs-riseup) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://riseup.net/ - https://riseup.net/en/email - https://riseup.net/en/donate Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/riseup Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).