Plainmail vs Purelymail

Prices checked November 6, 2026

Purelymail and Plainmail solve the same problem: real mailboxes on lots of domains without per-user pricing. Purelymail is cheaper at about $10 a year. Plainmail costs $5 a month and writes your DNS for you, lets an AI agent run setup and mail through MCP, and shows delivery stats for every domain.

Side by side

	Plainmail	Purelymail
Price	$5 a month, flat	About $10 a year on the simple plan; usage-based above that
Domains and mailboxes	Up to 50 domains, 100 mailboxes	No hard limits; heavy use moves to usage pricing
Storage	25 GB shared	No hard limit on the simple plan
DNS setup	Written for you on Cloudflare, Vercel and Porkbun; exact records and checks elsewhere	You copy the records to your DNS host
AI agent access	MCP server for Claude and other clients, plus a REST API	REST API
Mail apps	Any IMAP/SMTP app	Any IMAP/SMTP app, plus webmail

When Purelymail is the better pick

Price is what matters most. $10 a year is hard to beat.
You're comfortable adding DNS records by hand for each domain.
You need more than 50 domains or 100 mailboxes.

When Plainmail is the better pick

You add domains often and want each one working in a minute, with DNS written for you.
You want Claude or another agent to set up addresses, check DNS and answer mail through MCP.
You want delivery, bounce and complaint rates for your mail in the dashboard.

Switching to Plainmail

Add your domain in Plainmail and create the same addresses you have today.
Copy your old mail over with your mail app or any IMAP migration tool. Both sides speak IMAP.
Let Plainmail write the new MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, or copy them at your DNS host. New mail starts arriving at Plainmail within minutes to a few hours, depending on DNS caching.
Cancel the old plan once nothing new arrives there.

Get started$5 a month for up to 50 domains and 100 mailboxes