Mailstead
Home / Compare / Mailstead vs Google Workspace
Mailstead vs Google Workspace
Google Workspace Business Starter is a bundle: Gmail on your domain, storage, meetings, and the rest of the starter suite. Mailstead is a webmail application you run, with Resend carrying mail in and out. If you need the bundle, Starter is the product. If you need mailboxes and already operate a small app, the bundle is a different purchase.
Prices below are Google’s US dollar list, checked on 14 October 2026. The general cost guide explains domains and admin time. This page stays on Workspace.
List price, not the introduction
| Plan | Commitment | Price | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Starter, Flexible | None. Billed monthly for the accounts you have | $8.40 per user per month | 30 GB pooled per user |
| Business Starter, annual | One year for the licences you buy at the start | $7 per user per month, or $84 per user per year | 30 GB pooled per user |
Source: Compare Flexible and annual plans and business editions, checked 2026-10-14. Business Starter, Standard, and Plus stop at 300 users.
workspace.google.com/pricing also showed an introductory price for new customers, limited to the first 20 users and 12 months, with standard pricing afterward. Do not put that introduction in a renewal forecast. Canadian list prices on the same help page are C$11.00 (Flexible) and C$9.20 (annual) per user per month. They are Google’s CAD prices, not a conversion, and they are not subtracted from the USD totals elsewhere on this site.
What the money buys
| Mailstead | Business Starter | |
|---|---|---|
| Inbox | Browser app you host: folders, compose, reply, forward, attachments, search | Gmail |
| Licence | $0 software. Hosting and Resend are separate | Per user, as in the table |
| Docs, Drive, Meet | Not included | Included in the suite |
| Desktop mail protocol | Not provided | Not compared here; this page does not restate client setup |
| Spam handling | Local rules and DMARC-fail routing to Junk. No efficacy percentage | Google markets phishing and spam protection on the pricing page. This site does not repeat an unverified block rate |
| Who operates it | You deploy, back up, and watch quotas | Google operates Gmail |
An illustrative Mailstead month is on the pricing page: 20 messages per mailbox, Hobby hosting, Resend chosen from that volume. For 10 mailboxes that illustration stays on Resend Free and a $5 Hobby minimum if usage is inside the included credit. Ten Starter users on the annual list are $70 per month before tax. The $65 gap is not “savings,” because Starter includes the suite and a vendor-operated mailbox, and the illustration collapses as soon as message volume leaves Resend Free.
Who should pick which
Choose Workspace if several people expect Drive, Docs, Meet, or an admin console Google already runs. Choose Mailstead if the requirement is custom-domain webmail, the team can run one container, and the missing suite is acceptable. A company that wants both mail and the office apps should buy Workspace and ignore the mailbox-only arithmetic.
Mailstead does not include end-to-end encryption, a compliance vault, or a promise that the 10–50 person design target has been load-tested.
Sources
- Google, annual and Flexible prices, checked 2026-10-14.
- Google, business editions, checked 2026-10-14.
- Google, pricing page, introductory offer noted 2026-10-14.
- Resend and Railway figures used only by reference from the pricing model, same check date.