Custom domain email without monthly per-user pricing

Quick answer for custom domain email without per user pricing

Use a delivery layer when the public job is identity and routing. Customers write to hello@yourdomain.com. MX points at a forwarder. The copy lands in the Gmail or Outlook inbox you already search. Paid send-as lets replies leave as the domain. You are not renting a hosted mailbox for hello@, billing@, and every teammate who only needed a copy. That is custom domain email without per user pricing in the suite sense.

MailerZ is one product in that class, operated by Secuno LLC. Free is $0: one domain, three aliases, one seat, a 14-day store, send-as disabled, SMTP and API disabled, and unrouted mail held or rejected only. Solo is $40 per year only — no monthly Solo card — with 15 aliases, 90-day store, 100 outgoing per month, and 5 send-as per hour. Starter is $8 monthly or $80 yearly. Business is $19 or $190. Agency is $39 or $390. Unlimited is $99/month or $990/year. Confirm numbers on MailerZ pricing. Those numbers are plan limits, not an inbox-placement promise.

“Without monthly per-user pricing” does not mean “without any monthly option.” Starter, Business, and Agency can be billed monthly. The shape is still not “one invoice line per human mailbox.” A MailerZ seat is someone who can operate the dashboard. It is not IMAP. It is not a new Gmail login. If you need hosted mailboxes, Calendar, and admin, buy the suite. Google’s current packaging lives on the Google Workspace — product overview page and changes. Do not treat this article as Google’s price list.

Transport follows IETF RFC 5321 — Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Envelope commands are not the header block people see. MailerZ may rewrite only the envelope return path with Sender Rewriting Scheme. Header From, Subject, Date, Message-ID, body, and MIME are never rewritten. If a cheap rewriter changes the visible From, you saved a seat and spent it on broken threads. Role addresses are routes; see aliases and catch-all.

Annual Starter, Business, and Agency billing includes two months free relative to paying monthly for a year. Solo has no monthly option. Free cannot finish outbound send-as. Unauthorized or unhosted send gets SMTP 550. MailerZ is not an open relay and not a campaign engine.

The user problem and the decision criteria

The usual invoice shock is simple. A five-person company prints six addresses. A suite vendor quotes five seats, then a sixth when someone adds jobs@. Finance asks why a stamp costs the same as a human. The founder already lives in Gmail. Nobody asked for Drive. They asked for a domain that looks like a company.

The opposite mistake is also common. A team needs shared calendars, device management, and a mailbox they can lock on exit. They buy a forwarder to avoid seats, then spend a year pretending aliases are HR. Custom domain email without per user pricing is the right cheap only when the store already exists and you will keep operating it.

A third mistake is counting MailerZ seats as mailbox seats on a spreadsheet. One Solo operator can map fifteen aliases into existing Gmail accounts. That is not fifteen hosted users. If three people must administer the dashboard, that is a seat-ceiling question on Starter and up — still not three new IMAP stores.

Decide with criteria you can test.

This path fits when the domain is an identity, the archive already lives in consumer or existing suite inboxes, and you can tolerate published send limits. It fails when legal hold requires a vendor mailbox you control, when every teammate must have a lockable hosted store, or when you want a forwarder to promise Primary-tab placement. No delivery layer controls that last hop.

Contractors change the spreadsheet again. A designer needs studio@ for three months. A suite seat is a monthly user you must remember to cancel. A named alias into the founder’s Gmail is a row you delete when the contract ends. That is the operational meaning of custom domain email without per user pricing: the printed string is cheaper to retire than a hosted login.

Shared inboxes work the same way. Three founders can all receive hello@ as destinations on one alias. That is not three mailbox SKUs. If those three people also need private legal hold and Calendar, they may still need suite seats for themselves — and still should not buy a fourth seat for the role address.

If you are comparing the suite itself rather than the invoice shape, the send-as product surface is on send and reply as your domain. This page stays on how you pay.

Technical mail flow

Billing shape does not change SMTP. A sending server looks up MX, offers MAIL FROM, names RCPT TO, and transfers content. IETF RFC 5321 — Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the transport standard. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authorize sending; they do not create a seat. See IETF RFC 7208 — Sender Policy Framework (SPF), IETF RFC 6376 — DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and IETF RFC 7489 — Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC).

Inbound without a new store

A customer writes to a named alias. MailerZ MX answers. The edge checks verification and the recipient. The message is stored, then forwarded to the destination you verified. Header From stays the original sender. The envelope may use SRS. Delivery history records the destination response. Gmail or Outlook can still hide the copy. That is their filter, not a refund event and not a reason to buy another seat.

Unknown local-parts are held on Free. Paid plans can forward unknown recipients when you enable catch-all. Holding unknown mail is the safer default and does not add a per-user line. Catch-all forward is a policy, not a directory of employees.

Outbound without a mailbox SMTP login

Suite mailbox SMTP means you authenticate as a hosted user and send as that mailbox. Delivery-layer SMTP means you authenticate as an approved domain identity on a paid plan. MailerZ checks the From, applies hourly and monthly limits, and submits. Invalid credentials stop here. Unhosted or unauthorized recipients get 550. You are not buying an IMAP password for hello@.

Gmail Send mail as attaches that credential; see Google Gmail Help — Send mail from a different address. Outlook uses a manual SMTP identity; incoming mail stays at the destination mailbox. Labels vary by Outlook version. Do not let a wizard create a second Exchange mailbox for a domain that is not hosted.

What the recovery store is

Fourteen days on Free, ninety days on paid plans. That window is for failed hops and evidence. It is not a per-user archive and not a compliance vault. Legal hold stays in the destination mailbox or another archive you already run. Paying for more MailerZ seats does not lengthen that window. Paying for a higher plan that includes the 90-day store does. Do not confuse operator count with retention.

Plus tags on Gmail — you+invoices@gmail.com — are a mailbox feature, not a cheaper custom domain. See Google Gmail Help — Using an address alias (plus addressing) and IETF RFC 5233 — Sieve Email Filtering: Subaddress Extension. Printing hello+vip@yourdomain.com does not create a MailerZ alias and does not avoid a seat. The public string still needs a named route if it must land on your domain.

Step-by-step setup and decision path

Do this in order. Buying yearly Solo before leftover MX is gone is how “no per-user pricing” becomes two invoices and no mail.

1. Separate stores from printed names

   Write who already has an inbox. Write every local-part on the website and invoices. Stores are people. Printed names are aliases. If those two lists are the same length and every person needs a lockable hosted mailbox, stop and buy the suite.

2. Add one domain you control

   Root domain, not a mailbox, not https://. Publish the verification TXT. Receiving stays off until verify passes. This step is $0 on MailerZ.

3. Create named aliases into existing inboxes

   Map hello@ and role addresses to Gmail or Outlook accounts that already exist. Complete destination verification if asked. Free allows three aliases. Solo allows fifteen. Starter, Business, and Agency raise the ceiling. If the list does not fit Free, that is a plan question, not a reason to buy five suite seats.

4. Publish MX and delete leftover MX

   Copy dashboard hosts and priorities. Remove leftover Google, Microsoft, or registrar MX. Split records lose mail whether you pay yearly or per user.

5. Prove inbound from a different mailbox

   Unique subject, unrelated provider, each printed alias. Confirm Header From and delivery history. Open spam and junk. Do not rely on Gmail self-send. If history shows 250 and Gmail hid the message, paying for a suite seat will not move a copy the destination already accepted. Fix the client filter or the probe method before you change the invoice shape.

6. Stay on Free if inbound was the job

   You now have custom domain email without per user pricing and without a paid card. Put the addresses on the site.

7. Pay for send-as, not for seats

   Solo at $40 per year is the usual one-operator next step. Create the SMTP credential. Do not paste a Google or Microsoft password into that form. Attach Gmail Send mail as or Outlook manual SMTP. Send to a second external inbox.

8. Raise the plan only when ceilings bite

   More domains, more aliases, more dashboard seats, higher send limits: Starter, Business, Agency. Monthly exists on those three. That is still not a mailbox seat per human. Quote the cards, not a guess.

Failure modes and proof

Most “we still pay per user” reports are leftover MX, a suite trial that never lost its records, or a spreadsheet that mapped aliases to seats. Work the evidence.

Proof is a sanitized destination screenshot or header block plus the MailerZ event. Do not send SMTP passwords to support. Do not publish verification tokens. Inbox tabs are not SLAs. If you need DNS reads, use troubleshooting and DNS diagnostics. Those tools are DNS-only.

A leftover Workspace MX after you “cancelled seats” is still a per-user hangover. The suite invoice can go to zero while Google hosts still steal inbound. Delete the records. Pricing shape does not override DNS.

MailerZ workflow and product boundary

MailerZ is a custom-domain email delivery layer operated by Secuno LLC. Point MX at MailerZ. Mail for a hosted, verified domain can land in Gmail or Outlook. Paid plans add authenticated SMTP. The live site is mailerz.net. The app is mail.mailerz.net.

What MailerZ does in this billing path

• Accept inbound mail for verified domains and named aliases.
• Preserve Header From on the forward.
• Hold unknown recipients on Free; optional paid catch-all forward.
• Store messages 14 days on Free or 90 days on paid plans.
• Send through authenticated SMTP from approved identities on paid plans.
• Charge by plan capacity — domains, aliases, seats, send limits — not by hosted mailbox.
• Record delivery history for inbound and outbound hops.

What MailerZ does not do

• Replace Gmail or Outlook with IMAP or webmail.
• Rewrite header From, Subject, Date, Message-ID, body, or MIME.
• Offer send-as on Free.
• Sell a monthly Solo SKU. Solo is $40 per year only.
• Turn a dashboard seat into a hosted inbox.
• Promise inbox placement, uptime SLAs, or review counts.
• Claim SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA. Controls live on Security and Trust Center.
• Act as an open relay. Unauthorized send gets 550 / 550 5.7.1.
• Send newsletters or purchased lists.
• Match Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 price cards.

Free is one domain. Solo is three domains. Starter 5 domains / 50 aliases / 5 seats. Business 25 / 200 / 25. Agency 100 / 500 / 50. Unlimited is $99/month or $990/year. Outgoing and send-as-per-hour rise with those plans. Quote the live pricing page if a number must go on a contract.

Cost, alternatives, and trade-offs

Put the shapes on one table. Suite: monthly per hosted user, current card on the vendor site. MailerZ Free: $0 inbound proof. MailerZ Solo: $40 per year for one operator who needs send-as and more aliases. MailerZ Starter / Business / Agency: monthly or yearly capacity, two months free on annual versus twelve monthly payments. Registrar: separate. Gmail consumer store: $0 if you already have it.

Cloudflare Email Routing is inbound routing. It is not MailerZ leftover-MX handling, stored failed hops, or authenticated send-as because it is free. ImprovMX is the closest commercial forwarding class; compare live plans. Neither vendor’s card is a MailerZ claim.

Agencies sometimes want “no per-user” across a hundred client domains. That is Agency capacity, not twenty Free accounts. Free is one domain. Cheap for your own brand is Free or Solo. Cheap for a roster is the published Agency card.

Two months free on annual Starter, Business, and Agency is arithmetic against monthly, not a coupon stacked on Solo. If cash-flow wants monthly, Starter at $8 is the published door. That $8 is still a capacity card: five domains, fifty aliases, five seats, 200 outgoing, 10 send-as per hour. It is not five hosted humans.

Campaign mail is never the way to “save seats.” Purchased lists and cold blasts belong on a campaign platform. Putting that traffic on MailerZ SMTP burns the domain you just made look professional. Unauthorized send still gets 550. That refusal is cheaper than a burned identity and a suite you bought to look legitimate.

FAQ

Key takeaways

• Custom domain email without per user pricing means routes and a From identity, not a hosted seat per printed name.
• Keep Gmail or Outlook as the store. MailerZ is not IMAP.
• Free proves inbound at $0. Solo is $40 per year and has no monthly SKU.
• Starter, Business, and Agency can be monthly. They still are not mailbox seats.
• A dashboard seat is an operator, not a new inbox.
• Header From stays original on inbound. Envelope SRS is the allowed rewrite.
• Leftover suite MX wastes every billing model.
• Buy the suite when you need the suite. Quote vendor pages, not this blog, for their prices.
• MailerZ is not SOC 2 and not a bulk sender.

Conclusion and next action

If you came here for custom domain email without monthly per-user pricing, the honest path is sequential. List stores versus printed names. Keep the inboxes you already open. Verify the domain. Publish one MX set. Delete leftover hosts. Prove inbound on Free. Pay Solo yearly — or another published plan — only when the From identity must travel or the alias ceiling bites. Buy Workspace when every person needs a hosted mailbox, not when billing@ needed a route.

MailerZ fits that split with delivery history and a recovery window you can see. It does not fit lockable hosted mailboxes for every user, certified compliance reports, or campaign-scale sending. Start on Free if receiving is the job. Move to Solo when replies must show the domain without opening a per-user suite row.

Next action: add one domain, create the aliases you already print, and send a uniquely titled message from a mailbox that is not the destination. When that lands, decide whether $40 a year is due. The register path is one domain, not a seat migration.

Review quarterly, or sooner if MailerZ plan cards, Gmail Send mail as, or suite packaging changes. Author: MailerZ editorial, Secuno LLC.