Free or paid email: what each plan includes

What the free plans of Proton Mail and Tuta include and where they end, what Posteo and Hushmail cost, what paying adds, and how you can pay without giving your name.

Key points

Proton Mail and Tuta have free plans with up to 1 GB of storage and one address. Tuta can close free accounts after six months without use, and Proton after 24 months.
Posteo costs 1 euro a month and has no free plan. Hushmail costs 59.99 US dollars a year for personal use.
Posteo, Proton, and Tuta accept cash in some form, so you can pay without giving your name.

The free plans

	Proton Mail Free	Tuta Free
Storage	500 MB, up to 1 GB after a few setup steps	1 GB
Addresses	1	1
Sending	150 messages a day	at most 100 emails an hour, on every plan
Unused account	may be suspended or deleted after 24 months	may be closed after six months

Proton sends reminders 30, 15, and 7 days before it deletes an inactive account. Tuta’s terms allow one free account per person.

The cheapest paid plans

	Price	Storage	Own domain
Hushmail Personal Basic	59.99 US dollars a year	15 GB	no
Posteo	1 euro a month	4 GB, up to 75 GB for 0.25 euros per extra GB a month	no
Proton Mail Plus	4.99 euros a month, or 47.88 euros a year	15 GB, shared with Proton Drive	1
Tuta Revolutionary	3.60 euros a month, or 3 euros a month paid yearly	20 GB	3

Prices as the providers state them in November 2026. Proton’s pricing page also showed a lower price for the first year, after which the regular price applies.

What paying adds

More addresses: 10 with Proton Mail Plus, 15 extra with Tuta Revolutionary, and 3 aliases with Posteo.
Your own domain at Proton and Tuta. What it is good for is explained in the guide Email aliases and your own domain.
No daily sending limit with Proton Mail Plus.
Importing old mail at Tuta, but only on its Legend and Unlimited plans.

Paying without your name

Posteo separates payments from accounts. You pay with a one-time code, and once the code is deleted, Posteo states, “it is no longer possible to tell which account you transferred funds for.” Besides bank transfer, PayPal, and credit card, Posteo accepts cash sent by registered letter.
Proton accepts cash in US dollars, euros, or Swiss francs, and Bitcoin, which you can choose after sign-up. It does not refund subscriptions paid in cash.
Tuta sells gift cards for cash, Bitcoin, or Monero through its partner Proxystore.
Hushmail names payment by credit card.

Refunds

Proton offers refunds within 30 days. Hushmail gives a 60-day money-back guarantee on the first paid subscription and renews subscriptions automatically at the end of each billing period.

Next step

Which courts can demand your mail, and what the providers’ transparency reports show, is explained in the guide Who can demand your emails?.