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Reviewed by The Empire Reviews Editorial Team — Product testing & research.
We are a small in-house team that buys, uses and stress-tests every product before it is ranked. We have no sponsored placements: brands cannot pay for a higher position. When a cheaper or unaffiliated product is genuinely better, we say so and rank it first. How we test →
Updated June 2026
Proton Mail: The Best Free Private Email
Proton Mail is a free, encrypted email service from a Swiss privacy company. Honest review of the free vs paid plans.
What it is
Proton Mail provides end-to-end and zero-access encrypted email under Swiss privacy law. The clients are open-source and the company is funded by paid subscriptions, not advertising.
The free tier gives one address and 1 GB of storage; paid plans add more storage, custom domains and extra addresses.
What you get for free
Free tier: one encrypted address, 1 GB storage, no ads, no data mining. Paid plans add storage and custom domains.
Who it is for
Anyone who wants private email without their messages being scanned for advertising.
Our take
The best free private email. We may earn a referral if you choose a paid plan; the free tier we rank first pays us nothing.
Check current priceWe do not currently hold an affiliate link for this product. It is reviewed and ranked purely on merit.
Reviewed by The Empire Reviews Editorial Team — Product testing & research.
We are a small in-house team that buys, uses and stress-tests every product before it is ranked. We have no sponsored placements: brands cannot pay for a higher position. When a cheaper or unaffiliated product is genuinely better, we say so and rank it first. How we test →