Use our CloudVMs for your IMAP/SMTP email. These are fully configured with your own IP, reverse DNS and tools for maximum deliverability. They include standard components such as Postfix and Dovecot along with an easy to use Control Panel so you can add/edit/configure addresses.
Because only your email is sent from your machine, you don’t have to worry about a hosting neighbor spamming or getting hacked. You control your own reputation including DMARC/DKIM and SPF.
There are no limits to how many email addresses or domains you can use. You also don’t have any individual mailbox limits, nor are there any RATE LIMITS when you send out emails. You can send out your newsletter using self-hosted contact management software and save thousands of dollars that otherwise would be spent on Constant Contact, MailChimp et al.
You are only limited by the resources you consume. If one user needs 100GB of disk space for just their email and your system has that storage available that is fine. If you need to expand storage due to increased needs, that is easily accomplished with a simple reboot of the server.
| PixelGate VM Package | DevVM (Micro) | Standard (Small) | Medium |
| Monthly Flat Fee with No Contract or pay a year in advance and get 2 months free | $14.95 | $24.95 | $39.95 |
| Set Up Fee | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 |
| Dedicated RAM for your instance | 2.0 GB | 3.5 GB | 5.0 GB |
| vCPU (Cores) | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Initial vDisk Base Image on SSD storage (Note OS/Panel is going to use 5-10 GB of your initial storage). You can then add additional storage for your Mailboxes on an as needed basis. | 20 GB | 40 GB | 65 GB |
| Initial Available Email Storage with base image | 12 GB | 30GB | 55GB |
| Monthly Data Transfer | 250 GB | 500 GB | 1.0 TB |
| Choice of Control Panel and Free Mailbox Migration Tool |  | | |
| Unique dedicated IPv4 IP with proper reverse PTR | | | |
| Cost for additional mounted Mailbox storage sold in 10GB chunks | 10c/GB | 10c/GB | 10c/GB |
| DKIM/DMARC/SPF for your domains | | | |
| Ability to journal all email (in/out) to archive email folder(s) or a third party auditing service. | | | |
| OffServer backup at Pixelgate. Allows for quick recovery. | 5c/GB | 5c/GB | 5c/GB |
| OffSite Backup using storage such as DropBox, S3 etc that you control. | varies | varies | varies |
Server Sizing
From our experience, the average IMAP mailbox size for a domain is approximately 2GB, with most of the users well below that and a few heavy users who will need 10x or 20x that amount (20-40GB or more).
Because each company’s email usage scenario is different, we put together this chart to give you a feel for what your costs may be. Remember that the top row is an AVERAGE. An individual email mailbox is only limited by the TOTAL disk space available and can be easily upgraded.
Typical Usage Scenarios and Cost.
| Average Mailbox Size | 1GB | 3GB | 5GB | 10GB | 25GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Mailboxes | 10G needed MicroVM $14.95/mo | 30G needed MicroVM+ 20G storage $16.95/mo | 50G needed MicroVM+ 40G storage $18.95/mo | 100G needed MicroVM + 100G storage $24.95/mo | 250G needed MicroVM + 240G storage $42.95/mo |
| 20 Mailboxes. | 20G needed MicroVM+ 10G storage $15.95/mo | 60G needed MicroVM + 60G Storage $20.95/mo | 100G needed StandardVM + 70G storage $31.95/mo | 200GB needed StandardVM + 180G storage $42.95/mo | 500GB needed StandardVM + 480G storage $72.95/mo |
| 30 Mailboxes | 30G needed StandardVM $24.95/mo | 90G needed StandardVM+ 60G storage $31.95/month | 150G needed StandardVM+ 120G storage $36.95/month | 300G needed StandardVM + 270 Storage $51.95/month | 750G needed MediumVM+ 700G Storage $109.95/mo |
| 50 Mailboxes | 50G needed StandardVM+ 20G storage $26.95/mo | 150G needed StandardVM+ 120G storage $36.95/month | 250G needed StandardVM+ 220G storage $46.95/mo | 500G needed MediumVM+ 450G storage $84.95/mo | 1250G needed MediumVM + 1200G storage $159.95/month |
| 100 Mailboxes | 100G needed StandardVM+ 90G storage $23.95/mo | 300 GB needed StandardVM+ 270G storage $51.95/mo | 500GB need MediumVM+ 450G storage 84.95/mo | 1.0 TB needed MediumVM+ 950G storage $134.95/mo | Not recommended as a VM. See Hardware Servers |
| 250 Mailboxes | 250G needed StandardVM+ 240G storage $48.95/mon | 750G needed MediumVM+ 700G storage $739.95/month | 1250G needed MediumVM+ 1200G storage $123.95/month | Not recommended as a VM. See Hardware Servers | Not recommended as a VM See Hardware Servers. |
All Email CloudVMs come with:
- Ubuntu 20LTS/22LTS Operating Systems
- Root/Admin access via SSH and Panel (if installed)
- Control Panel choices include free PixelGate WebPanel or Plesk (additional cost)
- No limits on how your resources are used assuming proper internet etiquette (no spam, warez, etc). Want to run a company mailing list or upload your home media files?. As long as you have the space and data transfer, that is fine. We can even recommend tools to help with that such as OwnCloud and DadaMail
- Courtesy Monitoring to verify instance is up and running
- Courtesy Backups for Disaster Recovery (weekly)
- Courtesy Operating System updates performed (typically monthly)
- Ability to request one or more Full Clone Snapshot(s) for rapidly scaling up behind a loadbalancer or if you need an archive instance at a point in time
Additional Options:
Plesk Panel – $12/month for 10 domains or $18 for 30 domains. Designed for Web Hosting, the advanced Plesk panel offers some additional features including enhanced management and reporting features, migration tools, per user rate limits, and additional built-in spam/virus to complement other antispam services. Some may consider Plesk useful if you have LOTS of email addresses and multiple domains to keep track of. Our shared hosting email runs on Plesk for those reasons. However it is probably not needed for just one or two domains worth of users, unless your MailAdmin is really comfortable with it already.
Nightly or Weekly Archived Backup Snapshots – $0.05/GB for 3,7,15 or 30 day retention
Full copies of the Virtual Server instance which can be restored from a particular date. This is a fully functioning copy of the machine for that time. Cost is per 0.05/GB of the combined Instance’s vDisk image size. So a Standard Instance with 40GB vDisk image is $4.80/mo for a retention of 3 days or once a week for 3 weeks. A Large Image with 100GB would be $5 per archive. Weekly backups combined with offsite File based daily incremental archives are highly cost effective in restoring from an incident.
Additional RAM for your CloudServer – $5/mo per GB
Additional RAM (Memory). Requires reboot to add. Great option if you need more headroom for your application but you don’t need to increase the size of your VM package.
Additional vCPU Core – $10/mo
Additional vCPU cores to help with computing power. Requires reboot to add. It is not recommended to go above 5 cores total as dedicated HW is probably more cost effective at that point.
Managed Monitor, Response, Updates, Backup (MRUB) – $79/mo
PixelGate will monitor with a remote agent to verify system functionality of the application environment and either attempt to resolve any issues or contact and work with you to resolve them. Pixelgate will also ensure that OS updates are applied in a timely fashion and verify functionality. MRUB users are also entitled to support with PCI issues. MRUB includes free 3 day archive backups (or credit if you want more archive days). MRUB does NOT include support for your applications such as WordPress or custom php functionality. Only the server components.
Note: MRUB for a dedicated Email Server is probably not necessary unless you have a really large environment or want to create a cluster type environment.