Posteo is a Berlin-based email provider founded in 2009 that collects no personal information at signup, does not log IP addresses, and keeps payment details unlinked from the account. Servers sit in Germany under strict local privacy law, and the service has run on 100% renewable energy since launch.
Posteo
posteo.de/en
Our take
At 1 euro per month, Posteo is one of the most affordable independent email providers that takes privacy seriously by design rather than as a marketing claim. Encrypted mailbox storage and PGP key management in webmail are available, and the option to pay by cash in an envelope makes it genuinely anonymous for those who want that. The honest limitation: it is a traditional hosted provider, not zero-knowledge, so Posteo could in principle be compelled to access mail at rest unless you activate mailbox encryption with your own passphrase. For most people who want a clean break from ad-funded email, that trade-off is entirely reasonable.
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