Mailstead
What you pay, and what you don’t
Mailstead’s software licence is $0. A working custom-domain inbox still has hosting, a mail provider, and usually a domain renewal. This page prices those parts in USD from sources checked on 2026-10-14. Data version 2026-10-14.1.
Cost model
| Component | How it is counted | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Software | $0. MIT licence. No per-seat fee inside Mailstead. | LICENSE |
| Railway Hobby | $5/month, including $5 of usage. The model bills the fee plus usage above that credit, so the credit is not added twice. Checked usage of $3 on Hobby is $$5.00 total, not $8. | railway.com/pricing |
| Railway Pro | $20/month, including $20 of usage, per workspace. | railway.com/pricing |
| Resend | Free: 3,000 emails/month, 100/day, $0. Pro: $20 for 50,000 or $35 for 100,000. Received mail counts toward the same quota. Mailstead calls the send, receiving, and webhook APIs. It does not provision Resend’s hosted Inboxes, so the $1/inbox add-on is not part of this model. | resend.com/pricing |
| Domain | Optional. Enter your registrar’s annual price. The calculator divides it by 12. The same domain cost applies to Google, Microsoft, and Zoho if you did not already own it. | Your registrar. No price is invented here. |
| Backups | Optional monthly amount you type. Mailstead does not sell backup storage. | operations.md |
| Administration | Hours × hourly rate, shown beside the totals and not added into them. | Your assumption. |
Two totals
A. Standalone
Railway plan fee, usage above the included credit, the Resend plan that covers the month, plus optional domain and backups.
B. Incremental
For someone already paying for hosting. Only Mailstead’s resource usage above the unused included credit, plus Resend and the optional add-ons. The plan fee is not charged again.
Illustrative month
Assumptions, not a capacity test: 20 combined sent and received messages per mailbox, daily peak spread evenly over 30 days, Railway Hobby, $3 of measured usage, domain and backups excluded. Subscription columns assume one paid licence per mailbox. A shared address is not automatically another seat; check the vendor before you multiply.
| Mailboxes | Messages / month | Daily peak | Resend plan | A. Mailstead standalone | B. Incremental if $5 credit remains | Workspace Starter, annual | Exchange Online Plan 1, yearly | Microsoft 365 Business Basic, yearly | Zoho Mail Lite 5 GB, annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 | 1 | Free | $5.00 | $0.00 | $7.00 | $4.00 | $6.00 | $1.00 |
| 5 | 100 | 4 | Free | $5.00 | $0.00 | $35.00 | $20.00 | $30.00 | $5.00 |
| 10 | 200 | 7 | Free | $5.00 | $0.00 | $70.00 | $40.00 | $60.00 | $10.00 |
| 25 | 500 | 17 | Free | $5.00 | $0.00 | $175.00 | $100.00 | $150.00 | $25.00 |
| 50 | 1000 | 34 | Free | $5.00 | $0.00 | $350.00 | $200.00 | $300.00 | $50.00 |
Workspace Starter annual list is $7.00/user/month with a one-year commitment ($84.00/user/year). Flexible plan is $8.40/user/month with no annual commitment. Exchange Online Plan 1 at $4 and Business Basic at $6 are the yearly prices shown on Microsoft’s US pages; a month-to-month Microsoft price was not captured, so it is not shown. Zoho Mail Lite is $1/user/month and is yearly-only in Zoho’s price file. These columns are list prices, not a promise that Mailstead is cheaper after your real volume.
Calculator
Results stay in USD. The first paint shows 10 mailboxes, 200 messages, a daily peak of 7, and $3 of Hobby usage: standalone $5.00 on Resend Free. Changing the form needs JavaScript. The table above does not.
Limits of this page
- No plan here is “the cheapest” for every team. A 50-person team can leave Resend Free on message volume alone.
- Free Resend has no overage. Paid overage exists only if you enable it, and this calculator picks a plan that includes the month instead of assuming overage.
- Railway Free is omitted: it includes $1 of usage and zero custom domains, with a 500 MB volume cap. The template path this site documents is Hobby or above when you need a real domain and room for mail.
- Canadian prices are not mixed into these totals. Google publishes Business Starter at C$9.20/user/month on the annual plan and C$11.00 on Flexible. Zoho’s JSON lists Mail Lite 5 GB at C$1.25/user/month, annual only.
- Introductory Workspace discounts are excluded. See the Workspace comparison.