If your organisation is looking for an email service that has low setup, subscription and support costs, our Zimbra Mailbox Hosting service could be just what you need.
Not only is it an effective alternative to Hosted Exchange (or Exchange in Microsoft 365) it’s a cheaper and more ethical solution to invest in.
Whatever type or size of organisation you work in, Zimbra can work well for you. Across the world, Zimbra is used by millions of users every day in every industry and in every corner of the world. This page provides real life examples of how Zimbra works in banking, finance, healthcare, education, government and more.
Key Features
Zimbra has all of the features your users will expect in a modern email platform:
- Mail Server – The Zimbra mail server stores your Zimbra Mailboxes, and handles delivery of all inbound and outbound email.
- Exchange Alternative – Zimbra is a drop in replacement for Exchange – it even allows users to keep the desktop versions of Outlook you may have already paid for.
- Email – Compatible with any email client that supports IMAP, POP3 and SMTP – Zimbra also supports Microsoft Outlook using the Zimbra Connector for Outlook.
- Calendaring – Schedule meetings, track attendance and collaborate with ease. Share calendars, make appointments and check a colleagues availability.
- Task Lists – Keep yourself organised with lists of one off or recurring tasks and to do lists, organise by date, priority, subject and assign to other users.
- Contacts – Keep track of your contacts just like you would on any other platform. Organise into groups, add contact pictures and setup your own distribution lists.
- Webmail – For when you are out of the office or have a problem with device – open a browser from anywhere and do work from the webmail interface.
- Security – Benefit from regularly patched servers and mailboxes protected with 2FA whether you’re using them using on desktops, mobiles or webmail.
- Mobile – Automatically sync your Zimbra Mailbox with a mobile or tablet. Perform remote lock and wipe. Works with any modern device that supports ActiveSync.
- Archiving – Copy all sent and received mail to a secondary, legally compliant archive for up to 10 years – users can be granted read only access if required.
- Dumpster – Users are able to restore emails after they’ve been deleted for up to 90 days – even after the trash has been emptied.
Your Zimbra Mailbox service has these following global features included and configurable to your needs:
- Global Distribution Lists – Have a single email address deliver to multiple mailboxes, e.g. staff@
- Email Aliases – Have one mailbox receive email for multiple email addresses, e.g. bill@ billy@ william@
- Spam Detection – Enabled by default with configurable thresholds.
- Unknown Sender Delay – Enabled by default to cut out significant amounts of inbound spam.
- Virus Detection – Blocks inbound emails with known viruses.
- Attachment Blocking – Blocks harmful types of inbound file attachments.
- Whitelists & Blacklists – Block or allow emails from specific senders or domains.
- Anti Spoofing – Detects impersonated mail from your domain and even similar domains.
- Email Disclaimer – Set up a global email disclaimer that’s added to all outbound mail.
- Domain Aliases – Ideal if you have multiple domain names to be treated in the same way. e.g. @itnorwich.co.uk and @itnorwich.uk
- Spam & Virus Notifications – Send a notification to your users or an administrator when malicious email is blocked.
Competitive Pricing
With mailbox prices starting from as little as 99p, even the most cash strapped organisations can benefit from a professional grade email hosting solution.
| Mailbox Type | Commercial 1 | Nonprofit 2 | Mailbox Quota 3 | Collaboration 4 | Outlook & Mobile Services 5 | Archiving | Dumpster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | £ 1.10 | £ 0.99 | 1 GB | – | IMAP Only | – | 7 Days |
| Standard | £ 3.00 | £ 2.70 | 10 GB | Included | IMAP Only | – | 7 Days |
| Standard Plus | £ 4.75 | £ 4.28 | 10 GB | Included | Included | – | 7 Days |
| Professional | £ 5.75 | £ 5.18 | 30 GB | Included | Included | Optional | 7 Days |
| Business | £ 7.75 | £ 6.98 | 50 GB | Included | Included | 1 Year | 7 Days |
| Enterprise | £ 13.60 | £ 12.24 | 100 GB | Included | Included | 1 Year | 30 Days |
- Price per mailbox per month excluding VAT ↩︎
- Price per mailbox per month excluding VAT, discounted for non-profits and councils who take up our Community Technology Programme ↩︎
- This is the amount of storage space included with the mailbox, it can be increased for a small optional charge. ↩︎
- Adds features to collaborate with your internal and external team members including group calendars, company directory and email delegation features. ↩︎
- Adds full Zimbra Mailbox functionality for use with Outlook (on Mac or Windows), on Mobile and other apps. ↩︎
A Zimbra Mailbox for Everyone
Whatever your users roles and needs, there’s a mailbox type that’s suitable:
- The Basic Mailbox is best suited to users that need only the basic email features, either via webmail, or a desktop and mobile configured to use IMAP.
- The Standard Mailbox offers extra space alongside features that help mailbox users to collaborate with internal and external team members
- Our Standard Plus Mailbox is the most popular for users that want to use a Zimbra mailbox with Microsoft Outlook and a compatible mobile device.
- The Professional Mailbox adds significant extra mailbox quota and allows you to enable the optional email archiving service.
- The Business Mailbox offers extra mailbox quota and includes 1 year of email archiving enabled as standard.
- The Enterprise Mailbox is the largest mailbox size offered with an upgrade to the dumpster.
Mailbox Add-ons
Depending upon your needs, mailboxes can be individually upgraded with these options for a small monthly fee:
| Add-on | Commercial | Nonprofit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 GB Additional Storage | £ 0.75 | £ 0.68 |
| Upgrade Dumpster to 30 Days | £ 1.85 | £ 1.67 |
| Upgrade Dumpster to 60 Days | £ 3.30 | £ 2.97 |
| Upgrade Dumpster to 90 Days | £ 4.80 | £ 4.32 |
| Upgrade Professional to 1 Year Archiving Service | £ 2.50 | £ 2.25 |
| Upgrade Professional / Business / Enterprise to 10 Year Archiving Service | £ 4.50 | £ 4.05 |
One Off Services
We also offer the following services for a fixed one off charge:
| Service | Commercial | Nonprofit |
|---|---|---|
| Mailbox Migration | £ 55.00 | £ 49.50 |
| Mailbox Restoration | £ 55.00 | £ 49.50 |
Collaboration Features
Although Zimbra Mailboxes do include certain features that allow users to upload and share file sand collaborate on documents, we don’t enable them by default, we think Zimbra is best suited to being an Exchange like email server. If you adopt Zimbra now but think you’ll need advanced collaboration features in the future, we can help you to integrate Zimbra with Nextcloud, a truly ethical and open source platform for sharing , collaborating and communicating with internal and external users.
Ongoing Support Costs & Options
After initial setup and provisioning, all Zimbra Mailbox users will be granted access to our Service Desk Portal. They’ll be be able to access our knowledge-base and training materials. If you don’t have your own IT support provider to help users with day to day support tasks, you’ll also be able to access our Ad-Hoc IT Support or Block Hours IT Support services. For further details, please see our IT Support & Maintenance Services page.
While the Zimbra Mailboxes are managed by us, they are hosted on a Zimbra Server which is supported and maintained by our upstream provider In-Tuition Networks Limited. Specialists in cloud hosting Zimbra servers, they have been European Zimbra partners since 2006 and the first ever to achieve Zimbra Gold Partner status.
The ongoing support costs for Zimbra Mailboxes are very low because – like Hosted Exchange – the platform requires very little setup or oversight from us. Our upstream provider (a Gold Level Zimbra Business Service Partner) handles all of the server hosting and the support and maintenance tasks leaving us free to handle the day to day support tasks such as adding and removing mailboxes, or supporting your users with email sharing, mailbox quotas and setup.
Mail Assure Compatible
Our Zimbra Mailboxes are fully compatible with our optional but highly recommended N-Able Mail Assure service. This helps safeguard against phishing, spam, viruses, ransomware, and other email-borne threats. It blocks 99.90% of all malware and adds redundancy to inbound email that most providers simply don’t offer.
Our Experience with Zimbra
We wouldn’t offer Zimbra Mailboxes if we did not use them ourselves. We’ve been using Zimbra Mailboxes for email since January 2021 and since that time have migrated a number of customers to the same platform.
While customers on other platforms (both Exchange and Microsoft 365) have had occasional outages, the consequences of which have last for days, we’ve never had a single email outage.
Our staff all use Zimbra Mailboxes on their desktops and laptops (with Microsoft Outlook) and mobiles and tablets. As a result of our experience, we have no concerns about deploying Zimbra Mailboxes at any site that is moving from Exchange.
A Good Fit for Councils
Did you know that all councils in the UK should use the UK Technology Code of Practice in their decision making processes? Councils are obliged to try and “Be open and use open source” and “Make use of open standards”. As the Zimbra system is built around a core of open source software and uses open standards, it’s a great fit.
Need a Demonstration?
We want you to be 100% sure that Zimbra Mailboxes are right for your users, which is why we’re happy to show you exactly what you’ll be getting. Whether you prefer the convenience of a web-based demonstration or would like to visit our office for a hands-on session, we’ll walk you through Zimbra’s features and capabilities and help you to decide if Zimbra meets your needs: choosing an email platform is an important decision you should feel completely confident before making the switch. To arrange a demonstration, simply get in touch. We can either give you a general feature demonstration or can show you specific features you have questions about.
Also Available in the Private Cloud
Zimbra Mailboxes are hosted transparently alongside hundreds of other organisations mailboxes, this is what is known as being in the “Public Cloud”. For organisations that require it, we can provision and support a Zimbra Server on a “Private Cloud” – a privately rented internet hosted server that’s used only by you. This does require a higher upfront and ongoing investment, but could be right for you if you have specific privacy or security requirements, or can be more cost effective if you have lots of mailboxes. If you are interested in this service please contact us, pricing starts at around £495 per month.
The Ethical Choice?
While the functionality and price point of a given IT solution might be at the front of your mind, we are seeing an increasingly loud voice questioning the ethics around certain technology providers. While it’s not our job to decide what systems or providers you should use, we do like to shine a light on the ethics of certain solutions to help mindful organisations make purchase decisions.
Any organisation (but especially charities and publicly funded government) might want to think about the ethics of the technology stack they use. Donors are increasingly looking to donate to causes that are mindful of the services and suppliers it uses while local councils have a moral responsibility to spend their taxpayers money in an ethical way. Even in the corporate sector, businesses that do the right thing can experience increased customer acquisition and retention in the long term.
In a recent article, Ethical Consumer magazine reviewed 13 free and paid-for email providers. The article (here, but you need to subscribe to see it) looked at a number of factors including each organisations position on climate, company ethos, digital privacy, tax conduct and how workers were treated. It found Google and Microsoft to be the very worst offenders scoring just 2/100 and 0/100 retrospectively. In that same article, GreenNet Ltd (a charity owned UK non profit) scored the highest rank of 88/100 and won the Ethical Consumer Best Buy. Although GreenNet Ltd don’t currently host our Zimbra Mailboxes, we’ll will order our dedicated Zimbra Servers from them if you prefer to host in a green private cloud.
While Synacor (the developers of Zimbra) did not feature in the article, we can tell you that investing in our Zimbra Mailboxes diverts funds away from large US tech firms and into the hands of UK taxpayers that you actually know and collaborate with. Zimbra was also historically a fully open source software tool, and while it is no longer fully open, the core of the software continues to be open source.