$49 against $48. 25 capped mailboxes on 2 GB each against unlimited mailboxes on 10 GB, at within a dollar of the same annual price
IONOS Business Email · $4 per month at renewal, USD · checked 24 September 2026
IONOS bundles mailboxes with hosting and domains. At renewal it costs within a dollar of us, so the question is not price — it is whether 25 mailboxes capped at 2 GB is enough.
JustEmails is $49 a year for unlimited mailboxes on unlimited domains, pooling 10 GB across all of them. IONOS Business Email is $48 a year at renewal — a dollar less — and that dollar buys a hard cap of 25 mailboxes at 2 GB each with one bundled domain. So this is not a price comparison, it is a ceiling comparison. Note also that IONOS advertises $2 a month rather than $4: that rate requires a three-year term and doubles on renewal, which is why $48 is the figure worth planning around. Under 25 people, one domain, light volume and happy to sign for three years, IONOS is a perfectly good buy. Past any one of those, the caps are what you run into and a flat fee is what you wanted.
| Plan | Price | Storage | Outbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| JustEmails | $49/yr | 10 GB | 500 emails/day |
| IONOS Basic Email | $24/yr | 2 GB | not published |
| IONOS Business Email | $48/yr | 2 GB per mailbox | not published |
IONOS pricing: $4 per month at renewal, USD. Checked against their published pricing on 24 September 2026. If it has changed since, the comparison above is out of date and we'd rather you told us than took our word for it. Renewal price. IONOS advertises Business Email at $2/month, but that rate requires a three-year term and doubles to $4/month on renewal. The promotional figure is a floor, not the long-run cost.
What $49 a year buys
Free migration from IONOS over IMAP — folders and read state intact. DNS records written and verified for you, per domain. Keep IONOS running while you test it.
Feature by feature
| JustEmails | IONOS | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49/yr flat, no term | $48/yr at renewal ($2/mo promo, 3-year term) |
| Mailboxes | Unlimited | 25 maximum |
| Storage | 10 GB | 2 GB per mailbox |
| Domains included | Unlimited | One bundled |
| Contract | Annual, no lock-in | 3 years for the advertised rate |
| Unified inbox across domains | Yes | No |
| Auto-DNS per domain | Generated and verified automatically | Manual |
Who should pick what
Who this is for
More than one domain, or more than 25 mailboxes, or mailboxes that need more than 2 GB. Any one of those three turns the dollar difference into a structural one.
Deliverability, and the 2 GB ceiling nobody plans for
Both services authenticate correctly, and at small-business volume inbox placement comes down to authentication and sending behaviour rather than infrastructure. There is no meaningful reputation gap between us at the volumes either product is sold for.
The operational difference is monitoring. IONOS will not tell you that a domain you own has drifted — that DKIM went missing, or that the nameservers moved and SPF now authorises somebody else's mail server. We re-check every verified domain every six hours and email you the first time a record stops resolving.
The ceiling is the more likely problem in practice. 2 GB per mailbox sounds generous until a role account starts receiving PDFs, invoices or design files; at that point the mailbox stops accepting mail and each one has to be managed individually. Our 10 GB covers the whole account, so a quiet address subsidises a busy one automatically and there is nothing to administer.
The 25-mailbox cap is worth checking against your next two years rather than today. Aliases, department addresses and per-client mailboxes accumulate faster than headcount does, and the cap is a hard stop rather than an overage.
Where the dollar goes
At renewal the two prices are within a dollar, so it is worth being specific about what changes hands. IONOS gives one bundled domain, 25 mailboxes, 2 GB each, on a three-year term to hold the advertised rate. We give unlimited domains, unlimited mailboxes, 10 GB, billed annually with no term.
For a single business under 25 people that never adds a second domain, those are close enough that convenience decides it, and having hosting, domain and email on one invoice is genuine convenience.
For anyone holding domains — an agency, a portfolio, a business with several brands — the bundled domain is the tell. Every additional domain is purchased separately with its mailboxes, and that is where a flat fee stops being a rounding difference and starts being the reason to switch.
Common questions
Why do you quote $4/month when IONOS advertises $2?
Because $2 is the promotional rate on a three-year term and it doubles at renewal. A comparison built on the promo would be wrong the day a reader opens their own renewal notice, so we quote what the service actually costs to keep.
Is 2 GB per mailbox really a limit in practice?
It depends entirely on attachments. A role mailbox handling text enquiries may never reach it; anyone receiving PDFs or design files will. The difference from our 10 GB is that a quiet mailbox subsidises a busy one, whereas per-mailbox caps do not move.
Can I run several domains on IONOS email?
Yes, but each additional domain is bought separately rather than included. One is bundled with the plan. That is the point at which a flat fee stops being a rounding difference.
Do I have to sign a three-year term with you?
No. We bill annually and there is no term. That is worth as much as the dollar in either direction, depending on how confident you are about the next three years.
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