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Proton Mail vs Tuta (2026): an audited comparison

Head to head

Prices from official pricing pages checked October 2026; promotional and renewal rates differ — verify at checkout.

Round by round

Price — winner: Tuta

Tuta undercuts Proton on every comparable tier: Revolutionary (€36/year, 20 GB) beats Mail Plus ($47.88/year, 15 GB) on both price and storage, and Legend (€96/year, 500 GB) is cheaper than Proton Unlimited ($119.88/year, 500 GB). The honest caveat: Proton Unlimited bundles a VPN, password manager, and cloud storage, so if you'd buy those anyway, Proton's effective price flips. For pure email, Tuta wins.

We earn $0 from Tuta — its referral credits don't pay out as cash. This verdict is clean.

Free tier — winner: Tuta

Both give you 1 GB, but the experience differs. Tuta's free tier includes unlimited folders and full-text search; Proton's caps you at 150 messages a day, 3 labels, and no Bridge. If you plan to stay free forever, Tuta is the more functional inbox. Neither free tier is a trap — both encrypt end to end.

Jurisdiction — no clear winner

The internet's favorite framing — “Switzerland good, Germany bad” — collapses on contact with the facts. Germany is inside 14 Eyes, but it's also under GDPR, and Tuta's architecture collects minimal metadata. Switzerland sits outside 14 Eyes, but a Swiss court ordered Proton to log a user's IP address in 2021, and Proton complied. Jurisdiction is one input, not a verdict. If you want the full country-by-country picture, our email privacy jurisdiction guide breaks down Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Encryption & metadata — winner: Tuta

This is the most concrete technical difference between the two. Proton Mail uses OpenPGP, which encrypts message bodies but not headers — subject lines are visible to anyone who can see the traffic. Tuta's AES/RSA-based scheme encrypts subject lines alongside the body. “Encrypted email” marketing rarely mentions this; the metadata is where providers actually differ, and it's countable.

Open source — no clear winner

Both publish their client source code for independent inspection. On the transparency axis that matters most for trust, they tie — and both are ahead of closed-source competitors like Mailfence.

Apps & desktop clients — winner: Proton

Proton's Bridge unlocks IMAP/SMTP on paid plans, so you can use Thunderbird, Outlook, or Apple Mail with full encryption. Tuta has no equivalent — you live inside its own web, desktop, and mobile apps. Add the wider ecosystem (VPN, Pass, Drive under one subscription) and Proton is the clear pick if you want privacy beyond the inbox.

Check Proton Mail's price

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Storage — winner: Tuta (per dollar)

20 GB for €36/year beats 15 GB for $47.88/year, and Legend's 500 GB for €96/year beats Proton Unlimited's $119.88 for the same 500 GB. Again, the caveat stands: Proton's 500 GB is shared with an encrypted Drive and bundled with other services. Pure email storage per dollar goes to Tuta.

Custom domains — winner: Tuta

Revolutionary (€36/year) includes 3 custom domains; Mail Plus ($47.88/year) includes 1. If your own domain is the reason you're paying, Tuta gives you more of it for less.

The third option: StartMail

The head-to-head misses the provider that actually funds this page. StartMail (Netherlands, GDPR) is a PGP-based service at $59.88/year for the Personal plan: unlimited aliases, custom domains, and — unlike Tuta — full IMAP/SMTP support for any mail app. No free tier, but a 7-day trial. Its affiliate program pays 100% of first-year net sales value with a 45-day cookie and explicitly recruits review sites, so it's the honest way to keep comparisons like this one free.

Check StartMail's price

Questions, answered