Comparison
Jan 7, 2026
CEO and co-founder
Best Google Workspace (Gmail) Alternatives for Cold Email 2025
Why agencies leave Google Workspace for cold email
The per-seat pricing trap
Google Workspace Business Starter costs $8.40 per user monthly on monthly billing or $7 per user on annual plans. That pricing works fine for 10 employees checking email and collaborating on docs.
It becomes a liability when you need 50, 100, or 200 sender accounts for cold outreach.
The math is simple but painful:
Inbox Count | Monthly Cost (Annual Plan) | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
50 inboxes | $350/month | $4,200/year |
100 inboxes | $700/month | $8,400/year |
200 inboxes | $1,400/month | $16,800/year |
Every new client you sign means adding more inboxes. Every inbox adds $7-8.40 to your monthly infrastructure bill. Your costs scale linearly while your margins compress.
Google Workspace Business plans cap at 300 users for Starter, Standard, and Plus tiers. Beyond that limit, agencies must migrate to Enterprise pricing with higher per-seat costs.
The suspension risk nobody talks about
Google aggressively monitors sending behavior across Workspace accounts. According to Google's bulk sender requirements, senders pushing more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts must follow strict authentication and spam complaint rate requirements.
Here's the critical risk: penalties are at the domain level. If your cold email account gets flagged, it can suspend every address associated with that domain. Mix cold outreach with your main business communications and you risk losing access to client contracts, invoices, and internal team threads.
Google's enforcement happens without warning. An agency managing cold email separately from primary business domains avoids this concentrated risk. The recovery process after suspension can take weeks and cost significant churned revenue while campaigns sit frozen.
The DNS configuration time sink
Setting up cold email infrastructure on Google Workspace requires manual DNS configuration for every domain. According to Google's SPF authentication documentation, it can take up to 48 hours for SPF authentication to start working after configuration.
For each domain, you need to:
Access your domain registrar's DNS panel
Configure MX records for Google routing
Create SPF records authorizing Google's servers
Generate and add DKIM keys (copy-paste from Google Admin, paste into DNS panel)
Set up DMARC policies
Wait 24-48 hours for propagation
Test deliverability with Mail-Tester
Troubleshoot when records don't propagate correctly
Industry estimates for manual DNS setup range from 15-30 minutes per domain for experienced users to 1-2 hours per domain for those less familiar with DNS panels. For 50 domains, that's potentially 25-100 hours of manual work, plus 48-hour waiting periods between batches. Our Ultimate Cold Email Infrastructure Guide breaks down why this bottleneck kills agency growth velocity.
Criteria for evaluating cold email infrastructure alternatives
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Headline pricing is marketing. TCO is what hits your P&L.
A complete TCO calculation for cold email infrastructure includes:
Platform subscription: Monthly or annual fee for the email service
Domain costs: Registration and annual renewals for sending domains
Warmup tools: External services to build sender reputation (required regardless of provider)
Sending platform: Tools like Instantly or Smartlead for campaign execution
Standard .com domains cost $10-20 per year at reputable registrars. Cloudflare offers at-cost pricing around $10.26/year, while GoDaddy charges $18.99+ at renewal.
Email warmup tools add another layer of cost. According to warmup tool comparisons, per-inbox pricing ranges from $15-29 per inbox per month for services like Warmbox and Lemwarm. Flat-rate alternatives like TrulyInbox offer unlimited accounts starting at $29/month, dramatically reducing warmup costs at scale.
Setup automation and DNS management
The question isn't whether you can configure DNS manually. The question is whether you should spend 40+ hours per month doing it instead of closing deals.
Automated DNS setup means the platform handles SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration when you add a domain. No logging into GoDaddy. No copy-pasting TXT records. No waiting 48 hours to verify propagation.
Our SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup tutorial demonstrates the difference between manual configuration and automated provisioning. Manual setup for 10 inboxes can take several hours. Automated setup takes under 2 minutes.
IP reputation: dedicated vs. shared pools
With a dedicated IP, your reputation depends only on your sending behavior. No other senders affect your deliverability.
Shared IP pools work differently. As Litmus explains, when you share an IP address with other senders, their behavior affects your reputation. If a sender on your shared IP purchases email lists or triggers spam complaints, your inbox placement rate drops alongside theirs.
This "noisy neighbor" effect creates unpredictable deliverability. One bad actor in your shared pool can tank your client campaigns overnight with zero warning.
The trade-off: dedicated IPs require consistent sending volume to maintain reputation. Industry guidance suggests sending at least 250,000-300,000 messages monthly to properly maintain a dedicated IP. For agencies managing multiple active clients, this threshold is typically easy to clear.
Top 5 Google Workspace alternatives for cold email
Inframail: Best for flat-rate scaling and automated setup
We built Inframail specifically for agencies running high-volume cold email who need cost predictability and setup speed.
How it works: Purchase domains through our platform or transfer existing domains. We auto-configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records without requiring any DNS panel access on your part. Create unlimited Microsoft email inboxes under dedicated US-based IPs. Export IMAP/SMTP credentials to CSV and import directly to Instantly or Smartlead.
Pricing structure:
Unlimited Plan: $99/month ($79.20/month annual) with 1 dedicated IP
Agency Pack: $249/month ($199.20/month annual) with 3 dedicated IPs
Setup speed: Our Inframail 3.5 demo shows the complete workflow from domain purchase to inbox provisioning. Our users set up 10 inboxes in under 2 minutes on average. For a step-by-step walkthrough, check our InfraMail Setup Tutorial.
What you get:
We provide unlimited inbox creation at a flat monthly rate
We handle automated DNS configuration (SPF/DKIM/DMARC)
Dedicated US-based IP addresses (1-3 depending on plan)
Blacklist monitoring with 68.3% auto-delisting success rate
Priority support with 16-hour daily availability
Migration tools and cost transparency
We built two tools specifically to reduce switching risk:
Google Workspace migration assistant: Our domain transfer guide walks through automated domain verification, bulk inbox provisioning, and pre-migration checklists showing which domains need DNS updates versus full transfers, estimated downtime windows (typically 24-48 hours for DNS propagation), and warmup schedules per inbox.
Sending capacity calculator: Our help documentation helps you calculate email sending capacity based on your client count and campaign volume to choose the right plan.
For warmup requirements after migration, our warmup migration guide covers the 3-4 week process to establish sender reputation on new infrastructure.
Mailscale: Best for tiered growth
Mailscale offers automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration with domain warming capabilities and IP rotation features. The platform focuses on making inbox setup straightforward while providing deliverability controls.
Pricing structure:
According to Mailscale's pricing documentation, the platform uses tiered pricing:
Business/Agency Plan: $119/month for up to 50 email accounts ($95/month on annual billing)
Enterprise Plan: Higher tiers for larger volumes
Key features:
Automated configurations for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (setup time varies)
IP rotation for deliverability management
Campaign analytics tracking send rates and bounce metrics
Email deliverability monitoring (limited per-inbox health visibility according to user feedback)
Known limitations:
According to user reviews, the platform lacks clear visibility into domain health scores and inbox status. Users cannot easily track whether specific inboxes face spam flags, bounces, or other deliverability issues until problems surface in live campaigns.
Microsoft 365: Best for direct enterprise replacement
If you're comfortable with Microsoft infrastructure and want to cut per-inbox costs without changing email providers, Microsoft 365 offers lower per-seat pricing than Google Workspace.
Current pricing (until July 2026):
According to CNBC's reporting on Microsoft's pricing announcement, Business Basic costs $6 per user monthly when billed annually.
New pricing (effective July 1, 2026):
Microsoft announced Business Basic will increase to $7 per person monthly, and Business Standard will rise from $12.50 to $14 monthly.
Cost comparison for 50 inboxes:
Provider | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
Microsoft 365 Business Basic (current) | $300/month | $3,600/year |
Google Workspace Business Starter | $350/month | $4,200/year |
Savings | $50/month | $600/year |
The DNS problem remains:
Microsoft 365 still requires manual DNS configuration for each domain. PowerShell automation can speed up bulk domain addition, but according to Microsoft documentation, you still need to manually add verification TXT records at your registrar. The hours of setup time for 50 domains doesn't disappear just because you switched from Google to Microsoft.
Sending limits:
Outlook allows up to 10,000 recipients per day with a 30 emails per minute rate limit. This compares to Gmail's 2,000 emails per day per user limit.
Mailforge: Best for shared IP infrastructure
Mailforge positions itself as a deliverability-focused entry point for cold email infrastructure, using shared IP pools with monitoring and warmup features.
The shared IP trade-off:
Shared IP infrastructure means your sending reputation depends partly on other users' behavior. According to deliverability research, sharing an IP with senders using purchased lists or triggering spam complaints affects your inbox placement rates.
For agencies where client campaigns need predictable deliverability, shared IP pools introduce an uncontrollable variable. Your campaign could perform well for weeks, then see sudden drops because another user in your pool started aggressive sending.
Instantly Email Infrastructure: Best for integrated sending + infrastructure
Instantly offers both sending platform and email infrastructure in a combined package. For agencies already using Instantly for campaign execution, their infrastructure option removes the need to coordinate separate vendors.
Pricing: Bundled with Instantly's sending plans starting at $37/month for up to 1,000 active contacts and 5,000 monthly emails. Infrastructure adds incremental cost based on inbox count.
Key consideration: Tightly coupled infrastructure and sending platform means switching costs increase if you later want to test alternative sending tools like Smartlead or Apollo.
Pros/Cons:
Pro: Single vendor simplicity, integrated dashboard
Con: Less flexibility to mix-and-match best-of-breed infrastructure and sending platforms
Head-to-head comparison: cost, features, and deliverability
The following table summarizes the key differences across platforms for agencies managing 50+ cold email inboxes:
Factor | Inframail | Mailscale | Microsoft 365 | Google Workspace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cost (50 inboxes) | $99/month flat + ~$69/month domains | ~$119/month | $300/month per-seat | $350/month per-seat |
Annual Cost (50 inboxes) | ~$2,000 | ~$1,400 | $3,600 | $4,200 |
IP Type | Dedicated (1-3 IPs) | Shared/Rotation | Shared | Shared |
DNS Automation | Full automation | Automated setup | Manual (PowerShell bulk) | Manual |
Built-in Warmup | No | No | No | No |
Support Response | <4 hours (priority, 16hr/day) | Chat available | Standard Microsoft support | Google Workspace support |
Daily Send Limit | Varies by sending platform | Platform-dependent | 10,000 recipients | 2,000 per user |
Key differentiator analysis:
Flat-rate vs. per-seat economics: Our unlimited model means adding inboxes doesn't increase your infrastructure bill. At 200 inboxes, Google Workspace costs $1,400/month versus our fixed $99/month.
Dedicated IP advantage: With dedicated IPs, your sender reputation depends only on your sending behavior. Shared pools (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace) expose you to other users' mistakes.
Setup automation: Manual DNS configuration at 50 domains can require significant labor hours. Our 1000+ cold emails per day tutorial shows how automated setup reduces this to minutes.
According to 2025 deliverability benchmarks, cold email campaigns achieve 98.16% delivery rates on average, but inbox placement remains challenging. Gmail leads with 87.2% inbox placement, while Outlook trails at 75.6%. The global average inbox placement rate hovers around 83.1%.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis: 50 vs. 200 inboxes
Scenario A: 50 inboxes for 12 months
Infrastructure costs only (platform + domains):
Provider | Platform Cost | Domain Cost (50 @ ~$11/yr) | Total Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|
Google Workspace | $4,200/year | $550/year | $4,750/year |
Microsoft 365 | $3,600/year | $550/year | $4,150/year |
Mailscale | $1,428/year | $822/year | $2,250/year |
Inframail | $1,188/year | $822/year | $2,010/year |
Annual infrastructure savings with Inframail vs. Google Workspace: $2,740
Important note on warmup costs: All providers require external warmup or careful manual reputation building. Per-inbox warmup tools like Warmbox ($15-29/month per inbox) or Lemwarm ($29/month per inbox) add $9,000-17,400 annually for 50 inboxes. Flat-rate alternatives like TrulyInbox ($29/month for unlimited accounts) reduce this to ~$350/year regardless of inbox count.
Margin impact: For an agency billing $2,500/month per client across 5 clients ($150,000 annual revenue), Google Workspace infrastructure at $4,750/year represents 3.2% of revenue. Inframail at $2,010/year drops that to 1.3%, freeing 1.9 percentage points for hiring, tools, or profit distribution.
Scenario B: 200 inboxes for 12 months
Infrastructure costs only:
Provider | Platform Cost | Domain Cost (200 @ ~$11/yr) | Total Infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|
Google Workspace | $16,800/year | $2,200/year | $19,000/year |
Microsoft 365 | $14,400/year | $2,200/year | $16,600/year |
Inframail | $1,188/year | $3,288/year | $4,476/year |
Annual infrastructure savings with Inframail vs. Google Workspace: $14,524
At 200 inboxes, the flat-rate model creates substantial cost separation. Google Workspace's infrastructure cost alone ($16,800) exceeds our entire platform plus domain cost ($4,476) by over $12,000.
Hidden costs to budget for
Both paths require investment beyond the primary platform:
Sending platform: Instantly starts at $37/month for 1,000 contacts and 5,000 monthly emails. Smartlead starts at $39/month. These costs apply regardless of infrastructure provider.
Domain portfolio management: Some domains will age out or hit reputation issues over time. Budget for periodic domain replacement as part of long-term infrastructure maintenance.
Setup labor: Even with automation, onboarding new clients requires campaign configuration, list imports, and testing.
Our FAQ documentation covers additional cost considerations and platform compatibility questions.
How to migrate from Google Workspace without pausing campaigns
Step 1: Export your data and credentials (do this first, before touching DNS)
Google Takeout allows you to download all Workspace data including Gmail, Contacts, and Calendar. Navigate to takeout.google.com, deselect unnecessary products, and export what you need. This runs in the background without affecting live campaigns.
Time estimate: Data export typically takes 72 hours but can extend to 14 days for large accounts.
For cold email specifically: Historical email archives from burner domains are unnecessary. Fresh inboxes on new domains actually benefit from clean sending history. Focus on exporting contact lists, campaign templates, and any sequence documentation rather than old email threads.
Step 2: Domain transfer or DNS update
You have two options:
Option A: DNS record update (faster) - Keep domains at your current registrar and update DNS records to point to new infrastructure. Changes propagate within 24-48 hours in most cases. This approach avoids transfer delays.
Option B: Full domain transfer - Move domains to new registrar or infrastructure platform. According to GoDaddy's documentation, transfers typically take 5-7 days with brief service interruption during cutover.
Our domain transfer guide covers both paths with registrar-specific instructions.
Step 3: Warmup strategy for new infrastructure
You cannot blast cold email immediately on new infrastructure. Building sender reputation takes 2-4 weeks minimum, regardless of platform.
According to Lemwarm's warmup guidance, achieving healthy sender reputation follows this progression:
Week-by-week warmup schedule:
Days 1-5: 2-5 emails per day
Days 6-14: Gradually increase volume while monitoring metrics
Weeks 3-4: Continue scaling if metrics stay healthy (open rates >20%, bounce rates <2%)
Industry standards from ActiveCampaign consider spam complaint rates above 0.1% excessive. Any single mailbox provider showing 0.1%+ spam complaints creates deliverability risk across your entire domain.
For detailed warmup protocols, our post-migration warmup guide covers the specific steps for Inframail infrastructure.
Step 4: Connect to your sending platform
We integrate with major cold email sending platforms including Instantly and Smartlead. Check our platform compatibility documentation for the full list.
The workflow: export IMAP/SMTP credentials as CSV from your infrastructure dashboard, then import directly to your sending platform. Jasper Aiken's full cold email setup walkthrough demonstrates the Instantly + Inframail integration in detail.
Choosing the right infrastructure for your margin goals
Google Workspace remains the right choice for your primary business inbox. The collaboration features, document integration, and professional domain email justify the per-seat cost for employees who need robust productivity tools.
For cold email infrastructure, the math tells a different story.
Choose Inframail if:
You manage 50+ cold email domains and per-inbox costs are compressing margins
DNS configuration consumes hours weekly that should go toward client work or sales
You want dedicated IP reputation isolated from other senders
Microsoft infrastructure works for your target audience
Choose Mailscale if:
You're scaling gradually and tiered pricing matches your current volume
Your inbox count stays under 20
Stay with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 if:
You send under 25 cold emails per day per account
Your clients specifically require Google infrastructure for brand trust
You have technical staff to manage DNS configuration efficiently
The decision ultimately comes down to unit economics. Calculate your current infrastructure costs as a percentage of client billings. If that number exceeds 20-25%, switching to flat-rate pricing frees margin for hiring, tools, or profit distribution.
Start with a pilot batch: Create your account and test our automated DNS setup with a small group of domains before committing your full portfolio. Month-to-month billing means you can validate inbox placement rates and setup time savings across 30-45 days of real client campaigns before scaling to your full 50-200 domain infrastructure.
Frequently asked questions
What are Mailscale's main features?
Mailscale offers automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configuration.
How does Mailscale pricing compare to alternatives?
Mailscale uses tiered pricing at approximately $119/month for up to 50 accounts according to their pricing documentation. Flat-rate alternatives like Inframail charge $99/month regardless of inbox count, making flat-rate more economical for agencies scaling beyond 50-75 inboxes.
What are the best alternatives to Mailscale?
Top alternatives include Inframail (flat-rate unlimited inboxes with dedicated IPs), Microsoft 365 (lower per-seat costs than Google), Instantly (integrated sending + infrastructure), and Mailforge (shared IP with deliverability focus). The right choice depends on scale, budget, and whether dedicated IP reputation matters for your use case.
Does Inframail include email warmup?
No. We integrate with dedicated warmup services like Warmbox ($15-29/month per inbox) and Lemwarm ($29/month per inbox) rather than building warmup in-house. This keeps your infrastructure costs transparent and lets you choose warmup services optimized specifically for reputation building.
What's the deliverability difference between Google Workspace and alternatives?
Gmail maintains approximately 87.2% inbox placement rate according to 2024-2025 benchmarks. Third-party cold email infrastructure typically achieves 83-88% inbox placement. The gap is a known trade-off for cost savings and dedicated IP control.
Key terminology for cold email infrastructure
Cold Email Infrastructure: Dedicated servers, IP addresses, domains, and authentication protocols purpose-built for high-volume 1:1 sales outreach. Separated from business email and transactional systems to protect primary domain reputation when running prospecting campaigns at scale.
Domain Management: Purchasing, configuring, and maintaining sending domains including DNS setup, authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and health monitoring to maintain deliverability.
Inbox Placement Rate: The percentage of sent emails landing in recipients' primary inbox rather than spam, promotions tabs, or being blocked. Global average hovers around 83.1% according to 2025 benchmarks.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Email authentication that specifies which IP addresses can send on behalf of your domain. Helps receiving servers verify legitimate senders.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Cryptographic signatures added to emails that verify message integrity and confirm the email originated from the claimed domain.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance): Policy layer that tells receiving servers how to handle emails failing SPF or DKIM checks. Combines both authentication methods with reporting mechanisms.
TCO (Total Cost of Ownership): The complete annual cost including platform subscriptions, domain registrations, warmup tools, and sending platforms. Reveals true costs beyond advertised pricing.
Warmup: The process of gradually increasing sending volume on new inboxes to build sender reputation with email service providers. Typically takes 2-4 weeks before full-volume sending for mailboxes on established domains.
