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Mailotte vs Posteo
Posteo is built to know as little about you as possible, and it is very good at that. Mailotte is built to do work for you. Those are different products, and here is the trade, sourced.
Posteo is a Berlin provider run by Posteo e.K., and it is the most consistent data-minimisation story in European email. It keeps mail on servers in a German data centre, runs on power from Green Planet Energy, and is ad-free with no tracking tools and no IP logging on its website. Most unusually, it lets you register without personal details and pay anonymously, with no link between your payment and your account.
That design is also what it costs. Posteo declines to support your own domain at all, on the grounds that holding a domain in your account would be user information it would rather not have. It advertises no AI features. Mailotte goes the other way: it knows who you are, and in exchange the inbox sorts itself into what needs you and what is handled, searches by meaning, and pulls receipts and bookings out of your mail — with the AI running on Mailotte's own servers in Europe and never trained on your mail.
Side by side
| Mailotte | Posteo | |
|---|---|---|
| Where mail is stored | Servers in the EU only, for every account. | Servers in a German data centre. |
| Who operates it | MAILOTTE LTD, registered in England & Wales (no. 17119010). | Posteo e.K., Berlin, Germany. |
| Ads | None. Mailotte has no advertising business, so there is nothing to profile you for. | None — ad-free webmail, no tracking tools, no IP logging. |
| Anonymity at sign-up | No. Sign-up takes an email address, and payment runs through Paddle as merchant of record. | Registration without personal details and anonymised payment, with no connection between payment data and the account. |
| Encryption model | No. Mail is encrypted in transit, and attachments and stored files are encrypted at rest with a key Mailotte holds — but Mailotte's servers can process your mail. That is what makes search and triage possible. | Crypto mail storage encrypts all saved email data (content, attachments and metadata), once you switch it on, tied to your password. End-to-end encryption in the webmail comes from the Mailvelope PGP plugin and a Posteo S/MIME plugin. |
| Desktop & phone mail apps | Native IMAP, SMTP and POP3 with an app password. Apple Mail, Thunderbird and phone mail apps connect directly — no bridge, no desktop helper. | IMAP and POP3 directly, no bridge. |
| Free plan | Yes — 5 GB and 3 aliases, with your own @mailotte.com address. | No free plan — Posteo sells a single paid account. |
| Aliases | 3 on Free, 10 on Zen, unlimited on Haven. | 3 included, on Posteo's own domains. |
| Custom domains | Custom domains on Haven. | Not supported. Posteo states: “We are an email provider with a particular, privacy-oriented model — and this is not compatible with incorporating own domains.” |
| Beyond email | Email-first: triage, meaning-based search, and receipt and booking extraction. | Calendar and contacts over CalDAV and CardDAV, and two-factor sign-in with TOTP. |
Where Posteo is clearly ahead
Anonymity, and it is not close. You can register without personal details and pay in a way Posteo cannot connect to your account; Mailotte knows your address and bills you through Paddle. Posteo's crypto mail storage also encrypts everything it stores, metadata included, where Mailotte's message bodies are not encrypted at rest. It is a German company with German servers, a simpler jurisdictional story than a UK company with EU storage. It runs on renewable power and says so on its features page. If your threat model is “my provider should not be able to identify me”, Posteo is the better answer and this page will not pretend otherwise.
Where the difference is real, not marketing
Posteo will not host your own domain, by stated policy, and Mailotte will on Haven — for anyone who wants an address that outlives the provider, that alone decides it. Mailotte has a free plan and Posteo has none. And Mailotte's inbox does some of the work: two-pile triage, search by meaning, and receipts and bookings pulled out of your mail, with the AI on Mailotte's own servers in Europe and never trained on your mail. On mail apps the two are level — both speak IMAP and POP3 directly. This page makes no claim about AI at Posteo; its features page does not describe any.
So which one should you pick?
Mailotte, if: You want an inbox that sorts itself, a free plan to test it with real mail, or your own domain on your email.
Not Mailotte, if: You want to sign up and pay without being identified, you want everything in storage encrypted including metadata, or you want a German company under German law only.
Every new account gets 14 days of the top plan with no card, and Mailotte imports from Gmail or any IMAP provider — so you can run both for a fortnight and decide with your actual mail rather than a table.
Questions
Can I use my own domain with Posteo?
No. Posteo declines to support custom domains as a matter of policy, saying its privacy-oriented model is not compatible with incorporating own domains, because the domain would have to be stored in your account as user information. Mailotte supports custom domains on Haven.
Does Posteo have a free plan?
No. Posteo sells a single paid account with no free tier. Mailotte's Free plan includes 5 GB and 3 aliases with your own @mailotte.com address.
Is Posteo end-to-end encrypted?
Not by default. Posteo offers end-to-end encryption in its webmail through the open-source Mailvelope PGP plugin and its own S/MIME plugin. Separately, crypto mail storage encrypts everything stored — content, attachments and metadata — which protects mail at rest but is not end-to-end encryption.
Can I sign up for Posteo anonymously?
Posteo allows registration without personal details and offers anonymised payment, stating there is no connection between payment data and an account. Mailotte cannot match that: sign-up takes an email address and payment runs through Paddle as merchant of record.