Migadu vs Fastmail (2026): Flat-Account Budget Host or Polished Per-Person Mailbox

Migadu and Fastmail bill for different things. Migadu charges one flat price per account — unlimited domains and unlimited addresses on every tier — with the tier set by daily message volume, starting at $19/year. Fastmail charges per person — $60/year for one person on the Individual plan — and includes a finished product: calendar, contacts, files, fast search, and native mobile apps. If you host many domains and mainly need reliable SMTP/IMAP, Migadu is the cheaper fit. If you want one polished daily mailbox with a few custom domains attached, Fastmail is the stronger product.

Disclosure up front: we make SuperMailOS, a multi-domain email host priced per person with unlimited free aliases. It is a third option in this comparison, and the tables below include a case where we are not the cheapest. The mechanics apply no matter who you pick.

Migadu vs Fastmail at a glance

Migadu figures are from migadu.com's pricing page checked September 6, 2026. Fastmail's page renders region-specific prices (our fetch showed INR), so the USD figures here follow its July 2026 US list prices — verify on fastmail.com before committing.

How each one counts your usage

Migadu counts messages and storage, not people. Its tiers are flat per account: Micro at $19/year, Mini at $90/year, Standard at $290/year, Maxi at $990/year. "The plan prices are flat, per Migadu account," their pricing FAQ reads. "Forget now the idea of paying per mailbox." The meter is daily volume — Micro allows 200 incoming/20 outgoing messages per day, Mini 1,000/100, Standard 3,000/500, Maxi 10,000/2,000 — plus storage from 5 GB up to 500 GB. A support-heavy operation can hit 20 outgoing messages by lunch, which is the real cost of the $19 tier.

Fastmail counts people. Individual is one person at $60/year with 60 GB; Duo covers two people at $96/year; Family up to six at $132/year. Business plans bill per user — Basic at $3/user/month, Standard at $5, Professional at $9 — and add admin controls plus a retention archive on Professional. Ten humans on Fastmail Standard means ten fees, every month, forever; ten humans on Migadu Maxi still means one $990/year account.

This is the same pricing-unit decision we broke down in flat rate vs per user email pricing: find what gets counted before comparing stickers.

What Fastmail includes that Migadu doesn't advertise

Fastmail ships a complete personal information manager: calendar and contacts sync (CalDAV/CardDAV), shared calendars on Duo/Family and Business tiers, Masked Email, Scheduled Send, and first-party iOS and Android apps. Its search is a long-standing strength.

Migadu's public marketing focuses on the mail transport layer — SMTP, IMAP, POP3, aliasing, catch-all — without advertising a calendar or contacts product. Its own FAQ notes investment in "a new open source webmail" after a 2020 infrastructure rebuild, which tells you where the product effort goes: the plumbing, not the furniture. For a developer who lives in a desktop client anyway, that is a fair trade. For anyone who wants their mail host to also be their calendar, it is not.

Catch-all and aliasing behavior — where Migadu is generous and the big suites are stingy — matters more than it seems when you run several domains; we compared the patterns in catch-all vs email aliases.

The multi-domain operator: where neither is perfect

The buyer both vendors underserve slightly: one person running several products, each with its own domain and role addresses.

Honest reading: Migadu wins raw price if the daily quotas fit. SuperMailOS Business at $5/mailbox/month (annual) buys something different — unlimited domains and aliases with managed deliverability: SPF, DKIM and DMARC verified per domain, new-domain warm-up, and a DMARC report dashboard. Fastmail Individual sits between: a far more finished mailbox than Migadu for one person, with custom domains supported but no published cap on how many.

Every domain still needs its own MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records before it can send safely, regardless of host — the primer is in our SPF, DKIM and DMARC explainer, and the consolidation pattern is covered in email hosting for multiple domains.

Frequently asked questions

Is Migadu cheaper than Fastmail?

For many domains under one account, usually yes — Migadu's price is set by storage and message volume, not people, and starts at $19/year. For a single person who wants calendar, contacts, search, and apps included, Fastmail's $60/year is competitive once you count features, not sticker price.

Does Migadu have a calendar like Fastmail?

We could not find a calendar or contacts product advertised on Migadu's public pages as of September 2026. Fastmail documents full calendar and contacts sync on every plan.

Can you host unlimited domains on Fastmail like on Migadu?

Fastmail supports custom domains on every plan but does not publish a numeric cap the way Migadu explicitly advertises "unlimited domains." If you need a large number of domains, confirm current limits with Fastmail support before committing.

Which is better for a small team?

Fastmail's Business tiers (Basic/Standard/Professional, billed per user) are purpose-built for teams, with shared calendars and admin controls. Migadu has no team-specific plan; its flat account pricing works for a team only if you are comfortable managing shared mailboxes yourself. SuperMailOS Business takes unlimited domains per person at $5/mailbox/month — the right shape when address count grows faster than headcount.

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Prices checked September 6, 2026 on migadu.com and supermailos.com; Fastmail USD figures follow its July 2026 US list pricing as compiled by folioinbox.com's comparison, sourced from fastmail.com. Vendor prices change — verify before you buy.