Zoho Mail is the closest thing to a direct competitor: a genuine free tier for custom-domain email. There is one restriction on that free plan worth knowing about before you commit to it.
Choose Zoho Mail if you want the wider Zoho suite. If you are already using Zoho CRM, Books or Projects, keeping mail in the same account is a real advantage, and their paid mail tiers are competitively priced and mature.
Choose WS Mail if you want free shared inboxes and a verified identity. Our free tier adds five @wshealthmail.com inboxes on top of your domain and a credential-checked sender badge. Neither free plan connects to Outlook or Apple Mail; with us, IMAP, POP and SMTP start at Starter, $1 per user.
| Dimension | WS Mail | Zoho Mail |
|---|---|---|
| IMAP / POP / SMTP | From Starter, $1 per user | Not on the free plan — upgrade required |
| Verified sender identity | Credential-checked badge, public verification page | Not offered |
| Free shared-domain inboxes | Five @wshealthmail.com inboxes on top of your domain | Not offered |
| Free plan user cap | Two on your domain plus five shared | Five users on one custom domain |
| Free plan storage | 5 GB per user | 5 GB per user |
| Wider product suite | Mail, calendar, tasks, notes | Large suite — CRM, Books, Projects and more |
| Maturity | Newer platform | Long-established, very large install base |
Zoho's forever-free plan is a legitimately good offer: five users on a custom domain with 5 GB each. The restriction that catches people out is that IMAP and POP access are not included. In practice that means Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and third-party mobile clients cannot connect to a free Zoho mailbox — you use Zoho's own apps or nothing.
For some teams that is fine. It becomes a problem in two situations: when someone insists on the mail client they have used for a decade, and when you later want to leave, because a mailbox you cannot connect a standard client to is a mailbox that is awkward to migrate out of.
Ours works the same way on the free tier, and we would rather say so plainly. IMAP, POP and SMTP start at Starter, $1 per user a month, with a separate app password for each device, so the upgrade that unlocks your own mail app costs about the same on either side.
Competitor capabilities described as published by the vendor at the time of writing. Check their current plan comparison before deciding.
No. IMAP and POP access are not included on Zoho’s free plan, which means Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and third-party mobile clients cannot connect to a free Zoho mailbox — you use Zoho’s own web and mobile apps until you upgrade to a paid tier.
Not on the free plan. IMAP, POP and SMTP start at Starter, $1 per user a month: each device gets its own app password, and Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and phone mail apps connect normally.
They are close. Zoho offers five users on one custom domain with 5 GB each. We offer two mailboxes on your own domain plus five free @wshealthmail.com inboxes, also with 5 GB per user — so more addresses in total, but fewer on your own domain.
The free tier has no expiry and no card, so evaluating us costs nothing but the signup.
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