dmarcian vs Valimail
A self-serve DMARC purist against an enterprise automation platform. dmarcian publishes every price and expects you to run your own DNS; Valimail — a DigiCert company since September 2025 — automates enforcement end-to-end and prices it like enterprise software.
Comparison last verified July 20, 2026. Pricing sourced directly from dmarcian and Valimail.
The short answer
dmarcian's tiers are fully published — $24/mo Basic to $600/mo Enterprise, about 17% less on annual billing, metering legitimate mail only — and it stays reporting-first: you keep manual control of DNS. Valimail's only public price is Enforce Starter at $5,000/year, annual-only; in exchange you get automated enforcement, patented hosted Instant SPF, automated DKIM rotation, and FedRAMP authorization no competitor matches. Practitioners who want control and predictable spend pick dmarcian; regulated enterprises that want hands-off automation pick Valimail.
At a Glance
| Feature | dmarcian | Valimail |
|---|---|---|
| Starting paid price | $24/mo ($19.99/mo annual) | $5,000/yr (annual-only) |
| Free tier | 2 domains, 1,250 DMARC-capable msgs/mo, 1-month history, non-business use only | 1 primary domain, 5 user seats, unlimited email volume, ~6-month history |
| G2 rating | 3.5/5 | 4.6/5 |
| Protocols with documented support | 5/9 | 7/9 |
Protocol Coverage
Documented support across the 9 core email authentication protocols. "Not documented" means our research briefs found no public evidence either way.
| Feature | dmarcian | Valimail |
|---|---|---|
| DMARC | ||
| SPF | ||
| DKIM | ||
| BIMI | Full automation via the sales-gated Amplify add-on; Monitor shows status and BIMI Simulator preview only | |
| MTA-STS | Hosted on Enforce via CNAME delegation (NS delegation deferred); shipped early 2026 | |
| TLS-RPT | ||
| ARC (chain analysis) | ||
| DANE/TLSA | ||
| ARF (failure reports) | Forensic (RUF) processing and Forensic Viewer from the Basic tier | Privacy-safe RUF+ failure reporting gated to Enforce Enterprise |
Published Pricing
List prices as published on each vendor's pricing page.
dmarcian
Free tier: 2 domains, 1,250 DMARC-capable msgs/mo, 1-month history, non-business use only
- Basic $24/mo · $19.99/mo annual
- Plus $240/mo · $199/mo annual
- Enterprise $600/mo · $499/mo annual
- Custom Quote-only
Valimail
Free tier: 1 primary domain, 5 user seats, unlimited email volume, ~6-month history
- Enforce Starter $5,000/yr (annual-only)
- Enforce Premium Quote-only
- Enforce Enterprise Quote-only
- Amplify (BIMI add-on) Quote-only
Strengths and Trade-offs
dmarcian
Where it shines
- Founded by Tim Draegen, co-author of the DMARC specification; reviewers cite the mission-driven credibility
- Meters only DMARC-capable legitimate traffic, so forwarded and fraudulent volume never counts against your plan
- TLS-RPT ingestion included on every tier, including the free Personal plan
- 30-day free trial on all paid tiers with no credit card, and published prices unchanged for at least 18 months
- Reporting depth and sender-source grouping praised as more detailed than other solutions
Trade-offs
- 10x price jump from Basic ($24/mo) to Plus ($240/mo) with no tier between 2 and 8 active domains
- REST API, SAML SSO, and Domain Discovery are Enterprise-only ($499/mo billed annually)
- No BIMI, hosted MTA-STS, ARC, or DANE productization at any tier; SPF flattening explicitly declined
- Reporting-only platform: no hosted records or auto-deploy, so DNS changes stay manual
- Exceeding plan volume for two consecutive months triggers an automatic upgrade to a higher tier (per the August 2024 Terms of Service)
Best for: Practitioners who want deep DMARC aggregate-report visibility from the spec co-author's team and prefer to keep full manual control of their own DNS records.
Valimail
Where it shines
- Co-authored the ARC standard (RFC 8617) and maintains deep email-authentication standards leadership
- Patented Instant SPF delivers hosted, dynamic SPF that bypasses the 10-DNS-lookup limit
- The only FedRAMP-authorized DMARC provider, with SOC 2, PCI, and GDPR coverage
- Free Monitor tier expanded post-acquisition (Domain Report Card PDF added) as the customer base grew past 92,000
- Hands-on onboarding and customer support praised consistently across G2 review cycles
Trade-offs
- Enforce Starter at $5,000/yr is the only public price; Premium and Enterprise are quote-only, and all paid tiers bill annually only
- The ~$19/mo Align entry tier was retired post-acquisition, leaving no paid option between free Monitor and $5,000/yr
- Overage fees are disclosed only on AWS Marketplace: $1,500 per extra domain, $1,000 per extra 100K emails/mo, $500 per extra sending service
- ARC is not productized at any tier despite the RFC 8617 co-authorship, and DANE has no documented support
- Hosted MTA-STS works via CNAME delegation only; NS delegation is deferred to a future release
Best for: Enterprises and regulated organizations (FedRAMP, Microsoft 365 shops) that want fully automated, hands-off DMARC enforcement and can commit to annual contracts starting at $5,000/year.
Where DMARCguard Fits
DMARCguard is our product — treat this section as our pitch, and check every number above against both vendors' own pricing pages.
Between dmarcian's manual-control model and Valimail's $5,000 automation floor sits a lot of unserved middle. DMARCguard publishes per-domain pricing ($3.9/domain/mo for founding members), automates guidance without taking over your DNS, and covers all 9 protocols on Pro — including ARC chain analysis and DANE, which neither vendor productizes. Start free with 2 domains and 30 days of history.
| Feature | dmarcian | Valimail | DMARCguard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting paid price | $24/mo ($19.99/mo annual) | $5,000/yr (annual-only) | $6.9/domain/mo |
| Free tier | 2 domains, 1,250 DMARC-capable msgs/mo, 1-month history, non-business use only | 1 primary domain, 5 user seats, unlimited email volume, ~6-month history | 2 domains, 30 days history |
| Protocols covered | 5/9 | 7/9 | 9/9 |
| G2 rating | 3.5/5 | 4.6/5 | 4.8/5 (7 reviews) |
Frequently Asked Questions
How much cheaper is dmarcian than Valimail?
dmarcian's entry tier is $24/mo — $19.99/mo billed annually, about $240/yr — for 2 active domains. Valimail's only published price is $5,000/year for Enforce Starter with 1 active domain — roughly 20x dmarcian's entry cost — and AWS Marketplace discloses overages of $1,500 per extra domain and $1,000 per extra 100K emails/month. The products differ accordingly: Valimail automates what dmarcian reports.
What does Valimail automate that dmarcian doesn't?
Enforcement itself. Valimail Enforce hosts and continuously adjusts your DMARC policy, runs patented Instant SPF (no 10-DNS-lookup limit), and automates DKIM key publication and rotation. dmarcian's SPF Surveyor and inspectors validate and visualize, but every DNS change is yours to make — and it has explicitly declined to offer SPF flattening.
Do dmarcian and Valimail have free tiers?
Yes, both. dmarcian Personal: 2 domains, 1,250 DMARC-capable messages/month, 1-month history, non-business use only. Valimail Monitor: 1 primary domain with unlimited email volume, 5 user seats, and roughly 6 months of history — visibility only, no enforcement automation.
Which should a mid-size company choose?
It depends on the constraint. If budget approval tops out below four figures, Valimail is out — the gap between its free Monitor and $5,000/yr Enforce has no middle step since the Align tier was retired. If DNS-savvy staff time is the scarce resource, dmarcian's manual model is the cost. A published per-domain price with hosted guidance — how DMARCguard prices it — is the third model.
Sources (18)
- dmarcian: Basic tier: $24/mo monthly or $19.99/mo billed annually, 2 active domains, 100K DMARC-capable msgs/mo — source
- dmarcian: Plus tier: $240/mo monthly or $199/mo billed annually, 8 active domains, 1M msgs/mo — source
- dmarcian: Enterprise tier: $600/mo monthly or $499/mo billed annually, 15 active domains, 5M msgs/mo, unlimited retention — source
- dmarcian: Personal free tier: 2 domains, 1,250 msgs/mo, 1-month retention, non-business use only — source
- dmarcian: Pricing meters legitimate DMARC-capable traffic only, not forwarded or fraudulent volume — source
- dmarcian: Two consecutive months over the plan's data limit triggers an automatic upgrade to a higher subscription (per the August 15, 2024 Terms of Service; clause not restated verbatim on the current ToS page) — source
- dmarcian: G2 rating 3.5 from 5 reviews — source
- dmarcian: TLS-RPT ships on all tiers; BIMI, hosted MTA-STS, ARC, and DANE absent from the tier comparison table — source
- dmarcian: Founder Tim Draegen co-authored the DMARC specification — source
- Valimail: Enforce Starter starts at $5,000/year, annual billing only — source
- Valimail: Free Monitor tier: 1 primary domain, 5 user seats, unlimited email volume, ~6-month history — source
- Valimail: Overages: $1,500 per additional domain, $1,000 per additional 100K emails/mo, $500 per additional sending service — source
- Valimail: AWS Marketplace lists a $60,000/12-month estimate for Enforce Enterprise — source
- Valimail: DigiCert acquired Valimail on September 16, 2025; Valimail operates independently as of April 2026 — source
- Valimail: Hosted MTA-STS and TLS-RPT shipped early 2026 via CNAME delegation; NS delegation deferred — source
- Valimail: Valimail co-authored RFC 8617 (ARC) but no tier page advertises ARC as a product feature — source
- Valimail: G2 rating 4.6 — source
- Valimail: Align tier (SMB entry, ~$19/mo per third-party comparisons) retired from the public lineup between Sep 2025 and Apr 2026 — source
Go Deeper
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