AegisAI Perspectives · 090
Email security costs about $2 to $8 per user a month on top of your email plan, and this worksheet adds seat floors and admin hours to show the real cost.
A vendor-neutral price index puts email security at $2 to $8 per user a month, with about $4 as the typical figure3. That sits on top of the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace plan you already pay for. AegisAI's evaluation needs an admin to approve the API connection, which takes about five minutes21, so the cost to add is the licence plus the admin hours that follow.
A business email plan costs $7 to $22 per user a month before any add-on14, and every plan already filters spam and phishing. Google Workspace lists Business Starter at $7.00, Business Standard at $14.00 and Business Plus at $22.00 per user per month. Phishing and spam protection is included in every Workspace edition. The same page prints a 50% introductory price from Nov 19, 2026 to Feb 19, 2027, then the list price. Budget on the list price.
Microsoft 365 Business Standard is $14.00 and Business Premium is $22.00 per user per month, billed yearly11. Microsoft also sells its own add-on ladder:
Read the ladder as a price floor. On Business Standard, adding Plan 1 means paying $14.00 plus $2.00 per user. Business Premium at $22.00 already carries Plan 1.
Two neutral guides give $2 to $8 and $3 to $8 per user a month. The first is the Security Tooling Price Index 2026, which names about $4 as typical. A 2026 small business pricing guide from a managed IT provider lists email security at $3 to $8 per user a month5.
Ask whether the quote bills per licensed user or per mailbox, since shared mailboxes change the count. Ask for the minimum seat count and the contract term, because contract floors move invoices outside published ranges. Negotiated pricing lands 20 to 40% below published list rates on multi-year deals24.
AegisAI's demo page lists a proof of concept of under 5 days with zero manual tuning27.
Follow these steps once per quote, with the worksheet table open.
Export the active user list from the Google Admin console or the Microsoft 365 admin center, and list shared mailboxes on a separate line.
Write down your plan's list price per user from the platform pricing page, ignoring introductory offers.
Record what the plan already includes: phishing and spam protection in every Workspace edition, built-in security for every Microsoft 365 cloud mailbox.
Price the platform's own add-on: Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 at $2.00 or Plan 2 at $5.00 per user a month.
Ask each vendor for a written quote that states the per-user price and seat floor, plus the term and any implementation fee.
Log admin hours on email security for two weeks: held mail review, releases, reported phishing and rule edits.
Multiply monthly hours by your loaded hourly cost. Add the licence and setup lines, then divide by billable mailboxes.
Set the result next to the neutral $2 to $8 range and the $2.00 or $5.00 platform add-on.
| Line | What to enter | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Billable mailboxes | Active users plus shared mailboxes the quote counts | User export from the admin console |
| 2. Platform plan per user | List price per user a month | Platform pricing page |
| 3. Protection already in the plan | Yes or no per feature | Plan feature list |
| 4. Platform add-on per user | $0, $2.00 or $5.00 | Defender for Office 365 page |
| 5. Tool licence per user | Quoted monthly price | Written quote |
| 6. Licence per month | The larger of line 1 or the seat floor, times line 5 | Contract or order form |
| 7. Setup fee per month | One-time fee divided by 12 | Written quote |
| 8. Admin hours per month | Your own logged hours; no neutral figure exists | Two-week time log or ticket queue |
| 9. Loaded hourly cost | Salary plus overhead, per hour | Finance or payroll |
| 10. Security cost per mailbox | Licence per month, plus setup fee per month, plus admin hours times hourly cost, divided by billable mailboxes | Calculation |
| 11. Full cost per mailbox | Line 10 plus line 2 | Calculation |
Illustrative example, figures are fictional. Fernhill Analytics (fictional) has 150 mailboxes on Google Workspace. The quote is $4.50 per user a month, inside the neutral $2 to $8 range, with a 175-seat floor, so the licence line is 175 times $4.50, or $787.50 a month. A two-week log shows 3 admin hours a week on held mail and reported phishing, or 13 hours a month. At a loaded cost of $60 an hour, that is $780 a month. The total is $1,567.50 a month, or $10.45 per mailbox. If admin time fell to 1 hour a week, the total would be $1,047.50 a month, or $6.98 per mailbox.
Cybersecurity companies charge from about $9 to $65 per user a month, depending on how many controls the price covers. The price index puts the three core per-user controls (endpoint, identity, email) at $9 to $40 per user per month combined23. Security-only managed services run $35 to $65 per user per month, for a package of endpoint detection and response, email security, vulnerability management, plus monitoring25. Compare an email security quote against the $2 to $8 email line; a bundle price covers several controls.
A gateway adds a mail routing change to the setup cost, because mail has to be pointed at it28. When a third-party service filters spam for Exchange Online, the domain's MX record must point to that provider. Google's admin help says to point your domain's MX records to an inbound gateway before you set it up29. Ask each vendor whether setup needs an MX change, and put any fee on line 7.
AegisAI's evaluation needs an admin to approve the API connection, which takes about five minutes, and a findings review at the end. Deployment means no change to mail routing (MX records)18. The platform page lists nothing to write or maintain as attacks change. Setup involves no rules written, no thresholds tuned and no models retrained20.
Track three numbers after any change, starting from the worksheet.
Rerun lines 10 and 11 of the worksheet with the new hours.
Neutral guides give $2 to $8 per user a month, about $4 typical, and $3 to $8. Add that to your platform plan, then use the worksheet to add the seat floor plus setup fees and admin hours. The admin hours line has no neutral benchmark, so use your own log.
A regular business mailbox already gets the platform's filtering: phishing and spam protection in every Workspace edition, built-in security in every Microsoft 365 cloud mailbox. Secure email in price guides means protection added on top, either a platform add-on such as Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 or Plan 2 or a separate tool.
No neutral page opened for this article ranks providers by breaches, so it names none. Both platforms filter phishing and spam in every plan.
Ask the vendor in writing whether shared mailboxes count as billable seats. Ask for the seat floor too, since contract floors move invoices outside published ranges.
Every plan includes filtering, and Microsoft sells Plan 1 at $2.00 and Plan 2 at $5.00 per user a month.
Negotiated pricing lands 20 to 40% below published list rates on multi-year deals. Budget on the list price and treat the discount as a saving once signed.
