Frequently asked questions

AXO is professional business email on your own domain — as easy as Gmail, but private. You get a fast, modern inbox with calendar, contacts, file hub, shared team inboxes, and an admin console: everything you'd expect from Gmail or Workspace, without the ads, the scanning, or the data mining. One flat per-mailbox fee, your mail stays yours.

Free email services make money by scanning your mail for ad targeting or AI training. If the product is free, you are the product. AXO charges a fair per-mailbox fee so we work for you: your mail stays yours, no ads, no surprise policy changes.

Business email on your own domain also looks more professional to customers than [email protected], and it keeps your brand consistent as your team grows.

• vs. Google Workspace: We don't scan your content, we don't require a Google account for every team member, and at $5–$10 per mailbox there are no per-seat upsells or storage tiers to manage.
• vs. Microsoft 365: Dramatically simpler admin console, no Exchange complexity, no licensing-bundle traps.
• vs. Zoho Mail: Same core features, less bloat (we cut Streams, Notes, in-app chat, etc.) and a faster web client.
• vs. Proton: Built for teams that actually live in their inbox. Faster search, shared mailboxes, no per-message ceremony.

Small businesses, startups, agencies, nonprofits, and teams of 2–200 who want professional email on their own domain without the complexity of Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Enterprise customers (100+ seats with compliance needs) are also welcome — we have a dedicated plan and success manager.

We monitor uptime continuously and surface live status on our status page. We're early enough that we won't put a number on an SLA we can't yet prove; we'd rather earn that claim with a year of real data than promise it on day one.

100% bootstrapped. No VCs, no exit pressure. Our job is to keep paying customers happy, not to hit growth metrics for a board.

• Starter — $5/mailbox/month (or $3.50 billed yearly). 1 domain, 10 GB per mailbox.
• Business — $10/mailbox/month (or $7 yearly). Unlimited domains, 50 GB per mailbox, shared inboxes, priority support, migration assistance.
• Enterprise — custom. Dedicated success manager and bespoke data-handling agreements.

Full comparison on the pricing page.

Yes — upgrade or downgrade anytime from Settings → Billing. Upgrades take effect immediately and are prorated on your next invoice. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period (to keep accounting clean).

Yes. Switching to yearly applies the 30% discount immediately for the remainder of your term. Switching from yearly back to monthly takes effect at the end of your current annual period.

50% off for registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits and accredited schools/universities. Send us your documentation through our support form — pick "General" priority and mention you're applying for the nonprofit/student discount.

All purchases are final, so we keep the risk low instead: there's no contract, you can cancel auto-renewal anytime in one click, and you keep full access through the end of the period you've already paid for. After you cancel, you also get 30 days of read-only access to export everything. We don't pro-rate refunds for unused time, and domain registration, email subscription (monthly or annual), WHOIS privacy, and concierge setup are non-refundable. See Terms for the full policy.

Your service continues until the end of your current billing period (no further charges). After that, mailboxes stop receiving new mail and you have 30 days of read-only access to export data. After 30 days, everything is permanently deleted.

Yes — during the cancellation flow we offer a Pause option. Your mail and aliases stay intact for up to 3 months with no charges. Resume anytime before the pause expires.

US: sales tax in states where we have nexus. EU/UK: VAT added based on your billing address (we validate VAT IDs for B2B customers). Canada: GST/HST. Australia: GST. Add your tax ID in Settings → Billing.

Credit card is the default. Business and Enterprise customers can request annual invoicing with NET-30 terms — open a ticket through our support form.

No, but it depends what you signed up for. AXO is email on your domain, not a free @axoemail.com address. If you don't own one yet, you can register a .com during signup for $19.95/year (same price at renewal). Optional WHOIS privacy is $7/year. Or use a domain you already have from any registrar.

Yes. The Domain Only plan is $19.95/year, renews at the same price — no surprises. You get a portal for auto-renew and WHOIS privacy, renewal reminders before anything lapses, transfer-out auth code on demand if you ever leave, a real human to call when something needs sorting, and the ability to add email on the same domain any time later without a migration. (.com today; more TLDs coming.)

No. ICANN rules require that a transfer adds +1 year on top of your current expiration date — you don't lose anything you've already paid for. So if your domain was set to expire in 8 months and you transfer to us, the new expiration becomes 20 months out. The $19.95 transfer fee covers that extra year.

Typically 10–15 minutes if you've configured DNS before. Most of that is waiting for propagation. If you've never touched DNS, the Concierge option ($49 one-time) has us do it for you within 24 business hours.

• MX (2): mx1.axoemail.com priority 10 and mx2.axoemail.com priority 20.
• SPF (TXT): v=spf1 include:_spf.axoemail.com ~all
• DKIM (TXT): we generate a per-customer key; the record appears in your setup panel.
• DMARC (TXT): v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:[email protected]

Step-by-step with copy buttons for your registrar: setup guide.

DNS propagation can take up to 48 hours, depending on your registrar's TTL and the sender's resolver cache. You can check propagation with tools like dig or nslookup. If it's been more than 24 hours, contact support with the output of dig acme.co MX.

A $49 one-time service where our team does everything: configures DNS on your registrar, migrates mail from your old provider, sets up mail clients on up to 3 of your devices. Typically completed within 24 business hours. The $49 is separate from your subscription.

Business and Enterprise plans support unlimited domains. Starter is limited to 1 domain per account.

Yes. Add the domain in Admin → Domains and we'll show the DNS records for that subdomain. Some registrars have quirks with MX records on subdomains — contact support if you hit issues.

Starter: 10 GB. Business: 50 GB. Enterprise: unlimited. Attachments count against storage. You can buy add-on storage per mailbox if needed — contact support for pricing.

50 MB per file, 100 MB per message total. Enterprise: 200 MB per file, 500 MB per message. Larger files send better as shared links, so they don't bounce off recipients' size limits.

Yes. After you click Send, a toast appears with an Undo button for 5 seconds. Click it and we reopen the compose with your exact content — the message was never actually sent.

Click the caret next to Send. Pick a preset (Tomorrow morning, This weekend, Monday morning) or choose a custom date/time. The message stays in Drafts until the scheduled time, then sends automatically. You can cancel or reschedule from Drafts anytime before it fires.

Compose with full formatting — bold, italic, underline, lists, links, and inline images, just like you'd expect. Shortcut keys: ⌘B, ⌘I, ⌘U. Plain-text-only mode is on the roadmap.

An alias is an extra address that delivers to your mailbox. One mailbox can have unlimited aliases (e.g. jamie@, billing@, hello@). Send from any alias using the From picker in compose. Aliases never cost extra.

Folders are exclusive (a message lives in one folder at a time). Labels are additive (a message can have many labels, all at once). Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Archive, Spam, Trash are folders; anything you create in the sidebar is a label.

Snoozing moves a message out of your inbox with a wake time you choose (Later today, Tomorrow morning, Next week, or custom). At wake time it reappears at the top of your inbox with a "woken" indicator. Until then you can find snoozed messages in the Snoozed folder.

Full Gmail-style shortcuts. Press ? in the webmail app for the complete list. Highlights: j/k navigate, c compose, e archive, r reply, / focus search, g i go to inbox.

Yes. Messages with the same normalized subject group into a thread. Toggle threading on/off in Settings → Account → Appearance → Conversation view.

Yes — we support IMAP and SMTP. Setup details for every client: setup guide.

You can install AXO straight to your phone's home screen on iOS or Android from your browser's "Add to Home Screen" menu (Chrome prompts automatically). It opens full-screen like any app. Native apps are on the roadmap for 2026. In the meantime, AXO also works great with the default iOS Mail, Android Gmail, and any other IMAP client.

Yes: {name}, {first_name}, {my_name}, and {date} get substituted when you insert the template. Create templates in Settings → Templates, assign a shortcut like /intro, and type the shortcut in compose to expand.

Only for abuse prevention (spam, malware, phishing). We never use message content for advertising, AI training, or selling to third parties. Full details in our privacy policy.

In transit: yes — every connection uses modern TLS, both for the webmail/admin/API layer and for SMTP relay. Daily off-site backups are encrypted before they leave our infrastructure. See the security page for the full picture.

TOTP-based — compatible with any authenticator app (we recommend Bitwarden or iCloud Keychain). Enable it in Settings → Security. You'll get one-time recovery codes when you enroll; save them somewhere safe in case you lose your authenticator.

We don't scan your mail to train AI models, target ads, or sell data. Our support team only sees message content if you explicitly share it with them in a ticket. For legal compulsion (subpoenas, court orders), we comply only as required by law.

Use "Forgot password?" on the sign-in page. We email a reset link to the address on file. If you've lost access to that and don't have your recovery codes, open a ticket through our support form — we'll verify identity through the billing details on file. This takes 1–3 business days.

As many as you pay for. Adjust seat count in Admin → Users. Prorated on your next invoice when you add seats; credits issued when you remove.

• Owner — full control including billing. One per org.
• Admin — everything except billing. Can invite users, manage domains.
• Member — uses their own mailbox, can't access admin console.

No. Admins manage mailboxes (create, suspend, change passwords, view storage usage) but don't have a way to read mail content from the admin console.

Shared inboxes with assignments, SSO/SCIM, legal hold, and eDiscovery are on the roadmap. We'll announce each in our changelog as it ships. If your team needs one of these now, open a ticket through our support form so we can prioritize accordingly.

From Admin → Mailboxes, pick a mailbox and run "Import." We copy your mail straight across from Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook, Microsoft 365, Fastmail, Zoho, or any other provider, with nothing deleted or changed on the old side. You'll enter your old account details (or an app password if it uses 2FA); we handle the rest in the background while you keep working. Lots to move? Concierge setup does it all for you.

Your mail and your full folder structure come over, with read/unread state preserved — so your inbox arrives looking like the one you left. Drafts, signatures, contacts, and calendar events aren't copied automatically yet; we can move those for you with Concierge setup, or point you to a quick export/import if you'd rather DIY. Either way, you won't lose them.

Yes. Migration is read-only at the old provider — nothing is deleted or changed there. We recommend setting up forwarding from your old account so you don't miss replies while you update senders.

Most providers (Google, Microsoft, etc.) let you generate an "app password" specifically for IMAP access — that's what we need, not your primary password. Each provider has docs on how to create one.

Mostly dependent on source provider rate limits and mailbox size. Rough guide: 10 GB in under an hour, 50 GB in a few hours. We throttle to avoid being temp-banned by the source.

Open a ticket through our support form and we'll help — Concierge setup ($49/mailbox) is the easiest path if you don't want to do the credentials/IMAP dance for each one.

Usually one of:

• DNS not configured — check Admin → Domains for a green "Verified" chip on each record.
• Rate limit — your domain has an outbound rate limit set by the platform; very high volume during a single hour can hit it. Open a ticket through our support form if you need more.
• Recipient is blocking us — some corporate filters are aggressive with new sending domains. We can help with a warming plan; contact support.
• Content flagged — certain keywords and high link counts trigger spam filters. Try with plain text to isolate.

• MX records — check they point to mx1.axoemail.com and mx2.axoemail.com. dig mx yourdomain.com should return these.
• Sender being rejected — we reject senders with broken SPF/DKIM. Check the bounce message they received for the reason.
• Message in Spam — check Spam folder; if legit, move it back and add the sender to Safe Senders.

Triple-check caps lock and your email. If you just reset your password, wait 30 seconds for propagation. If it still fails, use "Forgot password" or contact support.

Use one of your recovery codes to sign in, then disable and re-enroll 2FA in Settings → Security. If you don't have recovery codes either, contact support — we can verify identity via billing info (1–3 business days).

Try these in order:

1. Hard refresh (⌘⇧R / Ctrl+Shift+R).
2. Sign out and sign back in.
3. Clear site data in your browser.
4. Try another browser to isolate.
5. Check our status page for incidents.

• Use imap.axoemail.com (port 993, SSL/TLS) and smtp.axoemail.com (port 465, SSL/TLS).
• Username = your full email address.
• Password = your AXO mailbox password (the same one you use to sign in to webmail).
• Some corporate firewalls block ports 993/465. Ask IT to whitelist them.

Search indexes rebuild on migration and take a few hours for large mailboxes. If it's been over a day, the message might be in Trash/Spam — toggle "Show all folders" in the filter builder. If still missing, contact support with the approximate date and sender.

Open a ticket through our support form and select a high priority — it routes straight to us. Please include reproduction steps. We treat responsible disclosure seriously and don't sue researchers acting in good faith.

Still stuck? Search the full documentation or message a real person on our support team — we reply within 2 hours during business hours, no bots, no tiers.