During the last round of fundraising I wanted to buy a Lifetime Account but I was short on money and had other bills to take care of at the time. Please make Lifetime Accounts a permanent feature that people can buy anytime. This will create a steady flow of money for improvements and upgrades on a regular basis. For those that are on a tight budget they can save the money over the course of several months or a year knowing for sure that they can buy their Lifetime Account when they have the money. Presently I don't have any large expenses and could buy a Lifetime Account if they were made available sometime soon.

While offering full price monthly, yearly and Lifetime Accounts all the time ProtonMail could also have a promotion with slightly discounted monthly, yearly and Lifetime accounts for a limited time. Kind of like how Amazon offers reduced Prime Memberships once a year for a limited time, I know a few people that wait until the Amazon Prime promotion to renew their membership.

Even if ProtonMail won't have promotions to encourage more paid subscribers I think offering Lifetime Accounts all the time would help ProtonMail be able to grow and develop faster and become a stronger presence in the secure email market. Thanks

I don't think it's too expensive for Plus accounts, quite reasonable I feel. But I do think the jump from plus accounts to Visionary is way to wide a gap. Also, are family accounts still in the process? Cause yes, while the family may not be super concerned about privacy, thats more people that would actively be using the service, and not yahoo or gmail or something. Would like to see the family multiuser support rolling out so we can put family members together on a single domain and have stuff together.

Exactly, I think for many users there should be a cheaper option. For me the main thing it to be able to use it long-term. Which means more storage or (cheaper for developers) the ability to download and then delete the e-mails. Or forcing all users to pay, let's say 1 euro per moth (at least for students)

Well for the coffee example - maybe in Switzerland, but for many countries it's just too expensive to pay so much for ProtonMail...

I'm not sure if I agree that it's too expensive, but maybe they could add a "Backer" option with none of the added PLUS features and instead something like 1-3GB added storage.

I like Protonmail very much because of it's clear structure and layout, and I support its intention. Till now I've been using Gmail, but I'd like to stop using it. The pricing is holding me back. If I could subscribe to 3 GB for 2 €, I would do so.
Another thing is cloud storage. I guess this service costs money too, or is it just expanding your server a bit for this?

Buffet style seems practical for those on limited budgets but still want to protect their privacy. Rather than the jump to a full package of paid features, there could be a basic minimum paid package with all the other features or increasing them as optional additional costs. Those who want everything will still keep the option to pay for everything. Those who cant afford it, can pay for less features, while still helping to contribute to the cause of privacy for everyone.

I agree with this.

I don't think ProtonMail is too expensive per se, but the gap between the free account and 4€ per month is too wide.

For me, the free account is enough. If there would be a basic plan for 1-2€ per month, I would buy that nevertheless just to support the team. But for 4€/m I won't.

It's rare to find any other email service out there that offers secured mailing without cost. The security level that ProtonMail offers is great. Yes! Improvements are needed. Upgrading for storage? Yes! It's great, but more GB would be nice for those who are using ProtonMail as their primary email for work. However, it does seem a little costly considering that we are limited to adding more addresses, not having any filters or folders, as well as a calendar. I'm sure that improvements are in the works, but having better organization is key and it is making it a little hard to want to stay with protonmail. Nonetheless, looking forward to much needed improvements.

I'd also support a cheaper service and upgrade to Pro then, even for lifetime possibly. I'm currently still paying for a standard provider - considerably cheaper - but I'm also willing to pay the little extra for Protonmails special security.

Encryription has àn incalculable value To me! Lifetime price would certain make it more tolerable To others!

I don't mean to under appreciate the service but there's got to be at least two more paid levels. I guess we all want to get rid of gmail and yahoo, as someone else pointed a 2 dollar -euro a month with 2.5GB 5 accounts maybe 150 messages a day and limited support tickets would be great. I would make the jump right away.

They offered lifetime accounts on Black Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for the next time they do that. I'd start saving now if I were you.

The business model for ProtonMail is secure email, and is the whole point of using their service. You are paying for secure email and that should be the focus; features come secondary to security and privacy. (why searching through the body of an email is such a popular request is beyond me)

If you know what you are doing, maintaining your own mail server on your domain with your hardware in a physical space you can control access to would be the closest you could get; although still imperfect. But with that comes constant maintenance and vigilance, both which take up time. I see it as a good trade to pay a small monthly sum so I can have that time back and free to spend as I please.

A domain, physical server, rack space, electricity, and connection to an ISP all cost money at either a fixed cost (server, storage, memory) or a subscription (domain, rack space, electricity, ISP). If you are using a service that relies on resources that have a subscription cost, it should not be out the question to pitch in.

Services targeted for consumers are not free. Users of mail providers such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, etc. may not be charged with a monthly fee, but they pay for their subscription through a different medium of exchange probably not considered legal tender.

As it is now a free account is really only useful to test drive the service and see if you like it and want to continue using ProtonMail, which I think is fine. Whether ProtonMail wants to create another tier in between a free account and a Plus account is their decision, but I do not think replacing the subscription model for a fixed payment is a viable idea.

Thank you for taking time to read my wall of text.

@Jim and IanMaybe im not promoting tutanota etc.
Even if i pay 4 euros per month i dont think any of my friends would be willing to do so. If anyone uses gmail there is no real benefit to use protonmail.
I tried to convince a couple of my friends that dont use email that often to use protonmail but convincing them to use a free account without filters is really difficult if not impossible. Giving 4 euros per month is out of the question.
I do believe that a free account with filters or a account where you can buy features for life would be more beneficial.
Anyway i no longer plan to move on protonmail so i dont really care about the price.

For all of those talking up Tutanota, why don't you jump over to your Tutanota account and try to search for an email you've tucked away in your archive. I'll wait.....

Right, you can't. I have a Tutanota account too, but only use it as a throw away account because I can't search for an email. I've asked them about this and they've told me it would compromise security to implement a search function. ProtonMail must survive, and to do that they must bring in revenue. You always have the option of a free account, but it has limitations. Why? Because, as I just said, ProtonMail must bring in revenue to survive.

$4/month is cheap. I have one I pay $9/month for because I think my ability to communicate privately is that important. If you're doing a lot of emailing, one would think it was a cheap price for your insurance of safety. If not, then you only need the Basic (free) account. The latter account makes it possible for you to do quite a lot if you're not that active. Sorry, this just sounds like an attempt to something for nothing. I'm willing to pay these guys for the insurance of privacy from nosey governments and their agencies.

I love this thread.

Let's think about it this way.

I'd love to own a VW Golf. But I can't afford one. Instead I drive a 10+ year old car and continue my dreaming.

I don't bitch to VW that their prices are too high. I accept reality and drive what I can afford.

If buying feautures for life isnt possible maybe another option could be 2GB accounts with the current functionality (alias, labels, filters etc) of the plus account for 1 euro or something like that.
4euro per month is way too expensive.

This pricing would make sense if one account was enough for life. But every security-minded individual needs multiple accounts. That's different from multiple e-mail addresses. The point is that multiple identities cannot share the same payment. So the cost of using ProtonMail securely is actually MULTIPLE of 4 euro PM.

To make matters worse, ProtonMail doesn't allow multiple free accounts as far as I can remember. Even though free accounts are unusable for intense use (anything other than throwaway applications) due to restrictive maximum number of labels (and lack of possibility to download whole mail for archiving). Without adequate number of folders or labels, inbox and archive quickly become reduced to a mess. (One workaround is to use <user+sender@protonmail.com> address formula instead of <user@protonmail.com>.)