Bobby Wilson
Proton Mail is free for a basic account. The paid plans are Mail Plus, at $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99 a month, and Proton Unlimited, at $12.99 / £10.39 / €12.99 a month, both cheaper if you pay for a year upfront. Mail Plus adds private email on your own domain; Unlimited adds the wider Proton suite. Every plan uses the same encryption.
There is also a current introductory deal on Mail Plus, covered below. Prices are shown in US dollars, pounds and euros, the currencies Proton bills in; elsewhere you will see the exact amount charged to your card at checkout.
Is Proton Mail free?
Yes. Proton Mail has a free plan that never expires and needs no card.
Proton Free gives you one email address, up to 1 GB of mail storage, and a limit of 150 messages a day. Storage starts at 500 MB and increases to 1 GB once you complete Proton’s short get-started checklist. It does not include a custom domain.
The important thing to know is that Free uses exactly the same end-to-end and zero-access encryption as the paid plans. You are not getting weaker privacy by not paying. You are getting less storage, one address instead of several, and none of the advanced features.
For a private inbox to test the service, or a light secondary address, Free is genuinely usable. It is tight as a primary inbox, mainly because of the 1 GB storage and the single address.
Proton Mail plans and prices
| Plan | Who it is for | Storage | Key limits | Monthly | Yearly (total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Trying it, or a light second address | 1 GB | 1 address, no custom domain | Free | Free |
| Mail Plus | Private email on your own domain | 15 GB | 10 addresses, 1 domain | $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99 | $47.88 / £38.28 / €47.88 |
| Unlimited | The full Proton suite, not just email | 500 GB | 15 addresses, 3 domains | $12.99 / £10.39 / €12.99 | $119.88 / £95.88 / €119.88 |
The yearly price is charged once, upfront, for the whole year. Mail Plus is billed $47.88 / £38.28 / €47.88, which works out at $3.99 / £3.19 / €3.99 a month. Unlimited is billed $119.88 / £95.88 / €119.88, or $9.99 / £7.99 / €9.99 a month. Storage is shared across Proton Mail and Proton Drive on every paid plan.
Proton also offers Duo and Family plans for two or more people, which cover the whole Proton suite rather than email alone. They are outside the scope of this page.
Proton Mail Plus
Mail Plus is the plan most people mean when they ask what Proton Mail costs. It is the entry paid plan built around private email on your own domain.
It includes one user with up to 10 email addresses, 15 GB of storage shared with Proton Drive, one custom domain, and 10 hide-my-email aliases, which are forwarding addresses that hide your real inbox. You also get a short @pm.me address, unlimited folders, labels and filters, catch-all, auto-reply, dark web monitoring, priority support, and the ability to schedule and snooze messages. It supports desktop email apps like Outlook, Thunderbird and Apple Mail through Proton Mail Bridge.
Mail Plus has three price levels worth understanding:
- Standard monthly: $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99, rolling.
- Standard yearly (about 20% less): $3.99 / £3.19 / €3.99 per month, billed once at $47.88 / £38.28 / €47.88.
- Introductory deal (through our link): cheaper than both to start, shown below.
The introductory deal gives you Mail Plus for $1 / £1 / €1 for the first month, after which it renews at the standard monthly price. Alternatively the 12-month intro is $3 / £2.40 / €3 per month, billed once at $36 / £28.80 / €36, then renewing at the standard yearly price. Whichever you choose, the low price applies to the first term only. The renewal section below sets out exactly what it becomes.
Proton Unlimited
Proton Unlimited is $12.99 / £10.39 / €12.99 monthly, or $9.99 / £7.99 / €9.99 per month billed yearly at $119.88 / £95.88 / €119.88.
It gives you 500 GB of storage, 15 email addresses, three custom domains, unlimited aliases and Proton Sentinel, plus the full paid versions of Proton VPN, Pass, Drive, Calendar and Wallet. Whether that is worth roughly double the price of Mail Plus depends entirely on whether you will use those other services. If you only want email, you are paying for a suite you will not touch.
Our Proton Unlimited review works through whether the bundle is worth it in practice.
Paying for Proton Mail
Paid plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can subscribe, try the paid features, and get a refund within the first 30 days if it is not for you.
Proton accepts credit and debit cards, PayPal, Bitcoin, bank transfer and even cash posted in US dollars, euros or Swiss francs. Two things are worth knowing: Bitcoin cannot be used at signup, so you create a free account first and then buy credits to upgrade, and cash payments cannot be refunded, so the money-back guarantee does not apply to them.
How much does Proton Mail cost on renewal?
This is the part most pricing pages leave out, and it matters more than the headline price.
The introductory deal is a first-term price. After that first term, it renews at Proton’s standard rate, which is higher:
| What you pay first | What it renews at |
|---|---|
| $1 / £1 / €1 first month | Standard monthly: $4.99 / £3.99 / €4.99 |
| $3 / £2.40 / €3 per month (billed $36 / £28.80 / €36 for the year) | Standard yearly: $47.88 / £38.28 / €47.88 per year |
So the $1 first month is a genuine saving on month one, then you are on the normal monthly price. The 12-month deal saves you money across the first year, then renews at the standard annual total. Neither is a permanent price. Set a reminder before the renewal date if the standard price would change your decision.
Two more things worth knowing before you subscribe. First, if you change your plan, switch between monthly and yearly billing, change your payment method, or cancel and return, you lose any promotional or grandfathered pricing and are rebilled at the current standard rate. Second, because storage is shared between Mail and Drive, a full storage allowance stops you sending and receiving email until you free up space or upgrade.