Protonmail switches to freemium model

Up to this point ProtonMail’s revenue has consisted entirely of donations from its growing community. This support is what has made the project possible in the first place, and allows the start-up to today serve over 1 million users worldwide. However, internet freedom and privacy is not actually free.  As the number of ProtonMail users has grown, so has the costs of running ProtonMail (servers, bandwidth, personnel, and other expenses). Furthermore, the cost of protecting ProtonMail against attackers is very high.

For those who wish to support ProtonMail, and gain access to extra features and storage, it is now possible to upgrade to a paid account. “ProtonMail 3.1 is the beginning of the long term growth of ProtonMail”, comments the team in a blog post.

However the free version will continue to be available. “We are committed to keeping a free version of ProtonMail available for those who need privacy, but do not have the financial means to pay for it”, emphasizes the team.

ProtonMail Plus, the basic paid plan comes with numerous extra features, such as

Sending limit: 300 messages/hour and 1000 messages/day

Labels limit: 200

Storage: 5 GB

Custom domains: 1

Additional addresses: 5

ProtonMail 3.1 will be released to existing users, the waiting list for new users will stay in place until mobile apps are approved.

With the new release users can now use any domain they own as their email domain while maintaining the security and privacy they have come to expect with ProtonMail. Custom domains allows them to use ProtonMail as mail server, receiving and sending encrypted email by default through all domains that use ProtonMail as their mail server.

(SK)