Email for nonprofits: every volunteer, one flat price

Is there free email hosting for nonprofits?

Yes, if your organization is eligible. Google and Microsoft both offer free email hosting for nonprofits. Google Workspace for Nonprofits costs $0 through the Google for Nonprofits program, for up to 2,000 users. Microsoft gives eligible nonprofits Microsoft 365 Business Basic free as a grant, for up to 300 users. Both put email on your own domain and add office apps, and both need your organization to qualify first.

For a lot of eligible nonprofits, one of those is the right choice. If you qualify and your team wants shared documents and video calls as well as email, apply.

Digismak is for the rest: nonprofits that don’t qualify, or that only need email. It gives every person on your domain an address, plus shared ones like volunteer@ and donations@, for one flat price paid to Cloudflare. Nobody checks your nonprofit status.

Google Workspace for Nonprofits pricing, and Microsoft’s

These are the published nonprofit prices in US dollars, as of September 2026. Only eligible organizations get them.

A few conditions sit behind those numbers. Google’s discounts are for “nonprofits in the Google for Nonprofits program who have activated a Google Workspace subscription and are no longer in their free trial.” You can only get them from Google, not through a Google reseller. Microsoft says nonprofits must register and have their eligibility confirmed, and Microsoft decides who qualifies. Microsoft also sets its nonprofit prices in line with its commercial ones, and nonprofit Business Standard went up when those changed on July 1, 2026.

Past the free plans, the bill grows with each person. Forty people on nonprofit Business Standard cost $140 a month with Google and $140 with Microsoft, both on a 1-year commitment. For the regular prices, see Google Workspace pricing.

Which to pick: Google, Microsoft or Digismak

Pick Google or Microsoft if

You qualify for a free nonprofit plan, and any of these is true:

• Your team shares documents and calendars, or meets on video. Digismak is email only.
• People want to read mail in Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird. Digismak is a browser inbox (it works on phones too) with no IMAP or SMTP access.
• Your domain’s DNS can’t move to Cloudflare. Digismak only works with domains on Cloudflare.

If volunteers make up most of your team, read one line in Microsoft’s eligibility terms before you plan around the grant: “Volunteers, members and program participants of the nonprofit are NOT eligible for nonprofit licenses.” Check how that applies to your volunteers before you count on free seats for them.

Pick Digismak if

• You aren’t eligible for either program, or you’re still waiting to hear back.
• You only need email, and your team already has its own way to share documents.
• Volunteers join and leave often, and you’d rather not keep count of seats.
• You want your mail to run on your own Cloudflare account, set up with a token you can delete any time.

Many volunteers means many addresses

A nonprofit’s team changes all year: board members, a few staff, regular volunteers, and people who help with one event and then step back. Anyone who writes to donors or the public should do it from your domain, where people can see who it’s from.

With per-user email, each of those people is a seat. The free nonprofit plans make seats cost nothing, as long as you qualify and stay on the free edition. Outside them, every new volunteer adds to the monthly bill.

Digismak prices the domain instead. One Cloudflare plan at $5 a month covers every address on the domain. Adding a volunteer for one event doesn’t change the bill, and neither does removing them afterwards.

Shared addresses for roles, free

Plenty of nonprofit mail goes to a role rather than a person: volunteer@ for sign-ups, donations@ for gift questions, info@ for everything else. In Digismak, shared addresses are free and everyone on the team can read and answer them. When your volunteer coordinator changes, volunteer@ and its conversations stay where they are. Google’s free equivalent is a Google Group used as a collaborative inbox, which works too.

No passwords for volunteers

Volunteers already have an email address. Digismak sends a 6-digit sign-in code to it, so there’s no password to create or reset. When someone steps back for a season, an admin suspends them from the admin console, and removes them when they leave.

What Digismak costs a nonprofit

Digismak itself is free during early access. You don’t apply or prove nonprofit status, and the price is the same for every organization.

Receiving works on Cloudflare’s free plan, and receiving is unlimited. Sending needs Cloudflare’s Workers Paid plan: $5 a month per Cloudflare account, paid to Cloudflare, covering every address on the domain. It includes 3,000 sent emails a month, then $0.35 per 1,000. Here’s how that compares as your team grows:

If you qualify for a free plan and it has what you need, it costs less than Digismak. Against either nonprofit Business Standard plan, Digismak costs less once you have 2 or more people. It also costs the same whether or not you qualify for anything.

Two limits to know: each email can go to up to 50 recipients, and each person can email up to 200 people per 24 hours. They’re set for everyday mail between people, so newsletters and appeals to your whole supporter list belong in a newsletter tool.

Set up email for your nonprofit

Your domain’s DNS needs to be on Cloudflare, and moving it there is free. Then setup takes a few minutes, most of it Cloudflare verifying the domain. Digismak doesn’t import old mail, so anything from before the switch stays with your old provider or in an export.

1. Check your domain

   Enter it on Digismak. We read its DNS and current email setup and change nothing until you confirm. If it already gets mail through Google or Microsoft, setup says so and waits for you.

2. Connect Cloudflare

   Create an API token limited to that one domain and paste it in. You can delete the token on Cloudflare any time.

3. Let setup run

   Digismak turns on Email Routing, adds the MX and SPF records and turns on sending with DKIM. It adds a DMARC record if you had none, then sends a test email through the whole path.

4. Add your people

   Give each staff member and volunteer an address, and add shared ones like volunteer@ and donations@. Everyone signs in with a code sent to the email they already use.

Read more about how Digismak works with Cloudflare email, or see how shared inboxes work day to day.