Rackspace's new pricing for its email hosting services is “devastating,” according to a partner who has used Rackspace as an email provider since 1999.
In recent weeks, Rackspace has updated its email hosting pricing. The Standard subscription now costs $10 per mailbox per month. Businesses can also pay for the Rackspace Email Plus add-on for an additional $2/mailbox/month (for “file storage, mobile sync, Office-compatible apps, and messaging”), and the Archiving add-on for an additional $6/mailbox/month (for unlimited storage).
As recently as November 2025, Rackspace was charging $3/mailbox/month for its Standard plan, and an additional $1/mailbox/month for the Email Plus add-on, and another $3/mailbox/month for the Archival add-on, according to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
Rackspace's reseller partners have mainly spoken out about the consequences of the new prices.
In a blog post on Thursday, web hosting service provider and Rackspace reseller Laughing Squid said Rackspace is “raising our email prices by an astronomical 706 percent, with just a month and a half's notice.”
Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale told Ars Technica that he received the “devastating” news via email on Wednesday. The last time Rackspace increased Laughing Squid email prices was by 55 percent in 2019, he said.
“The price increase has a major impact on our ability to make money because email is now our largest expense and we were only given a month and a half's notice,” Beale told Ars.
There are reports online of Rackspace partners quoting email price increases of 110 percent to nearly 500 percent. The reports say the new, higher per-mailbox quotes do not include discounts on volume pricing. Beale noted that Laughing Squid's quote does not include discounts the company previously received.
