Yet another component in the massive ecosystem that is Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon WorkMail is a fairly competitive email hosting solution, though it still has room for improvement. It offers 50GB of storage per email box and a web client that's much improved since the last time we tested it. However, you'll still miss several of the niceties you'll get with the leaders in this space, such as our two Editors' Choice award winners Google Workspace Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium.Amazon WorkMail Pricing and PlansWhile Microsoft seems intent on making its pricing as complex as possible, Amazon does better because it goes the other way. WorkMail costs $4 per user per month, including 50GB of mailbox storage per user. That's it—a flat rate with no other options other than user count. Strangely, Amazon's WorkMail web page has a link to a pricing calculator, but if you click it you'll see calculators for a very long list of AWS products, not just WorkMail. Taking the $4 base price, however, we can still compare WorkMail to our most affordable competitors, especially IceWarp Cloud. That platform starts at $2.50 per user per month, though that tier offers only 5GB of email storage per user. Step up to its next level and IceWarp delivers 100GB per user and 1TB of file storage, along with collaboration and productivity tools for $3.90 per user per month. Measured against that yardstick, Amazon has a way to go before it can compete on a price basis. But if you want to test WorkMail for yourself, there's a free 30-day trial. Getting StartedTo get started, you'll need to create a new organization in Amazon WorkMail. This organization can have one or more domains associated with it, but you'll get a temporary default subdomain off awsapps.com. Once you're ready, you can click into the organization and add a domain. You'll be presented with a checklist of things that need to be done in order to confirm that you own the domain and that its MX and CNAME records are set up properly. After that, you can add some users.Adding users is a straightforward operation—click Create User and provide a name, the domain you want to associate it with, and an initial password. While the interface lacks a good way to import a list of users, the manual method is painless enough to keep this from being a major complaint unless you've got a really big list. Also handy is that Amazon put the Reset Password button front and center on the user list. That's a common enough request that it's nice not to have to hunt for it. You can also establish groups similar to Microsoft 365's. These are essentially distribution lists that can go to one or more addresses. Groups are super-handy for support-style addresses where you don't want to pay for a particular box but it's inadvisable to hand out a specific individual's contact info. While that may be standard fare, one of Amazon's more oddball features is a resources list that's applied in meetings. While this only makes sense in the context of WorkMail, you can book specific rooms or equipment necessary for a meeting.Other settings include access control rules which allow you to define, with some significant detail, what is and isn't allowed within WorkMail. For instance, you can set up allow or deny rules for specific protocols, IP addresses, or origins. While it takes a minute or two to wrap your mind around the concept, it's a powerful feature that lets you ensure you're only exposing WorkMail to specific kinds of access. Retention policies are the opposite. They lack proper granularity: You can choose to delete or permanently delete items in the Inbox, Deleted Items, Sent Items, Drafts, and Junk Email after a set period of days. But you only get one policy without a way to define retention for specific groups (different rules for the accounting department than the IT department, for example). It would make sense for this to be fleshed out in the future.When you get ready to start using email, you have the ability to use third-party clients such as Outlook or your mobile devices. WorkMail provides instructions for setting these up, and you'll likely want to use them: While the WorkMail web app works well enough, it lacks many features found in options like Gmail or Fastmail. One of these is email labels, which are practically mandatory for good email organization these days. Also missing is the ability to send an encrypted email, which ProtonMail Professional, Microsoft 365, Google, and Zoho Mail have had for a long time. Fortunately, WorkMail does support the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol and you can fully sync your mail, contacts, and calendars. So if you stick to your favorite mobile device or third-party email client you'll hardly notice anything is missing. One oddity I did spot is that the Drafts folder doesn't sync, so that might catch some folks by surprise. That said, there are some familiar features. Email rules are present, as well as automatic responses for when you're out of the office. There is also a calendar app that works well enough but lacks the ability to define a segmented workday like Microsoft 365, so it will have limited benefit for work-at-home folks who struggle to keep a balanced schedule. Contacts are also familiar and easy to manage.Amazon WorkMail Security and IntegrationThis is one area where the platform is strong. WorkMail falls under the same enterprise cloud security that the rest of AWS is known for. Third-party regulators frequently test and verify their security as part of AWS compliance programs. SOC reports are available for AWS and WorkMail.  The platform supports multifactor authentication, encryption in transit, encryption at rest, and a variety of other mechanisms for safeguarding your organization's data. With all of the auditing and regulation involved, it's easy to feel safe storing your data here. That said, if you need to go a step further or outside of U.S. legal jurisdiction, you might want to take a look at ProtonMail.On the integration side, Amazon does very well with its own products, including Amazon WorkDocs and CloudTrail. It also communicates nicely with Microsoft, including Active Directory as well as Outlook email and calendaring. If your needs extend beyond that, Amazon certainly offers a wealth of developer tools if you're comfortable rolling your own. But smaller businesses looking for an easier integration path should start by searching through Amazon's extensive list of value-add partners. A Nice Price, But a Bit Bare-BonesAmazon WorkMail is a good basic email service, but it lacks the features of similarly priced solutions unless you pay extra for WorkDocs. Moreover, its user experience is far from seamless and lags considerably behind Zoho and Google. Ultimately, WorkMail is a solid and secure service that doesn't quite justify its price tag, though it's definitely well on the way.

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