How we check facts

Where facts come from

Prices come from each provider's pricing page. Encryption and ads come from its privacy policy and security pages. IMAP, apps and features come from its help centre and app store listings. Ownership and incidents link to the company's own pages or to reputable reporting.

We gathered them with AI-assisted research: a model with live web search read the providers' pages in batches and returned each fact with its source. We then checked the consequential claims against the provider's page ourselves and corrected what didn't hold up. Facts without a direct link cite that research batch and say so.

Who can read your stored mail

• Only you: the provider's documentation says stored mail is encrypted with keys derived from your password, so the provider can't read it.
• Only you, if you switch it on: encrypted storage exists but is off by default.
• The provider can: mail is encrypted on disk with keys the provider holds. This is the norm, including at Gmail, Outlook and iCloud.
• Mail sent to you from another provider arrives readable and is encrypted on arrival. No provider can change what the sender's provider keeps.

When a provider doesn't say

We write "Not stated". That's different from "No". Filters never count it as a match, the setup finder lists those providers separately with the reason, and a missing renewal price is never filled in with a guess.

How prices are compared

• Prices are per year, as the provider lists them, in the provider's own currency. Monthly-only plans show 12 times the monthly price, labelled.
• Prices in different currencies are never ranked against each other. Each currency gets its own list.
• "Renews at" is what the provider says you'll pay after the first term. If it doesn't say, we show "Not stated".
• Where your own domain needs a business plan (Gmail, Outlook), that plan is shown and marked as a business plan.
• Prices change and differ by country and tax. Always check the checkout page.

What we don't do

• No scores, stars or "editor's rating". Guides explain their picks instead.
• No speed or deliverability claims. We haven't measured them, so we don't publish them.
• No affiliate links or sponsored placements. Nobody pays to be listed or ordered.