Most of the best secure email providers offer users a new email address, client, and service to start from scratch, but most can be daunting, too, with loads of technical language that non-experts may not understand - and a wealth of tricky, intimidating options to select while setting up and configuring the client.
That’s not the case with Soverin. This secure email provider still aims to provide robust encryption but with a more accessible and straightforward approach than many rivals.
That makes it a potential winner for anyone who wants secure email without delving too much into the technical side of security.
Soverin: Plans and pricing
Soverin’s pricing structure isn’t divided into rigid tiers. Instead, this product uses a more personalized system that enables you to build a package based on your needs.
The minimum cost of €39/$40/£32 per year immediately undercuts many other secure email providers. For that money, you get one mailbox that uses your existing domain and 25GB of space, which is a generous amount of capacity – lots of other services only provide 5GB or 10GB.
If you want to buy a new domain to set up a new, secure address, that costs extra, with .NL and .EU domains costing €13/$13/£11, .COM and .NET sitting at €18/$19/£15, and .ORG topping the list at €23/$24/£19.
Additional mailboxes cost €10/$10/£ each, and if you want to add an extra 25GB block of storage, it’ll cost you €29/$30/£24 every time.
There’s a thirty-day money-back guarantee, and the service doesn’t need personal information when you sign up – although you can’t pay with cryptocurrencies or cash, as you can with other secure email providers.
Soverin: Features
Soverin offers full encryption to emails sent and received through their servers, which is an excellent start for any secure email service. Soverin strips IP addresses from emails – something that not every secure email provider actually does – and supports two-factor authentication through its own web client.
Outbound SMTP servers check and honor TLSA records, and inbound servers benefit from published TLSA records.
Soverin uses DKIM/DMARC by default and, deploys SRS and ARC for email forwarding, and is fully compliant with a broad range of laws and standards, like GDPR, AVG, SPF, SSL, DANE and more.
Third-party services independently verify Soverin’s encryption: it scores a 100% confidence rating on CheckTLS.com and an A+ from SSL Labs. Soverin also scores 5/5 in the EU’s MESCA email test.
It’s worth noting that while Soverin always uses encrypted connections with OpenPGP used throughout, they don’t control security used outside of the Soverin ecosystem. If you want this level of security, you’ll need to use your own OpenPGP connection using a service like Mailvelope.
There’s no tracking, no advertising, and no chance for Soverin to see the contents of your mailbox.
Elsewhere, lots of features prove Soverin’s versatility. Thanks to IMAP and POP3 support, it works with any mobile or desktop email client, and you can use your own domain. A unified platform with full user control can be built and provided, mail can be imported from external services, and domain management is available, too. The platform also has its own spam filter and 24-hour monitoring and alerting for suspicious activity.
If you’re buying Soverin for an organization you can customize the product with custom colors, menus and your logos, you’ve got complete control over the number of mailboxes and aliases you use alongside custom domains, and the web client has integrated calendar, contact and task functionality.
Soverin’s servers are hosted in three data centers in the Netherlands, where secure infrastructure and disc encryption protect physical hardware. Hosting providers are selected based on Soverin’s strict privacy requirements. No customer information is shared with third-party organizations.
Soverin: Interface and in-use
Because Soverin works by encrypting your existing account, a little setup is required to get things started. You’ve got to verify that you’re the owner of your domain by adding text records to your DNS, MX and SPF settings.
Once that’s done, you can access Soverin’s mailbox. This attractive and straightforward mail client mimics the three-panel design so often seen elsewhere, making it easy to use for anyone familiar with online email.
At the window's top-right are icons that allow you to switch to your calendar, contacts, and to-do list. In the settings menu, you’ll find all of the key options you need for configuration, but it must be said that many other services give you more granular control over functionality – Soverin’s settings menu is not complicated or intimidating, but you will have more options elsewhere.
Soverin: Support
To access Soverin’s support, you can email them – it’s that simple. The company intends to respond to messages quickly and maintains a service status page on its website.
Elsewhere, the Help section includes guides on setting up your service and customizing key functionality. The guides are well-written and have straightforward explanations that should be easy to follow, even for beginners. There’s also a good FAQ section.
That’s it for support, though. There’s no live chat and no phone support here, which is the kind of thing you’ll find from larger organizations, and lots of other email products offer more depth in their online FAQ and help sections, too.
Soverin: The competition
Soverin’s status as an accessible and affordable secure email provider sees it competing with some big names, including Tuta and Posteo.
All three services are similar, with good security functionality and rock-solid core email client experiences.
Soverin offers more storage than Posteo, but Posteo is even cheaper than Soverin – and it’s not like Soverin is particularly expensive. Tuta, meanwhile, has exceptional security and it also has mobile apps, but customer support is not great.
If you’d like more functionality, including Office tools, VPNs and cloud storage, then it’s worth considering products like Proton and Mailbox.org – and even Zoho if you want a complete business solution. But they’re far more complex and potentially much more expensive, too.
Zoho Mail: Final verdict
Soverin is an effective secure email option, with robust security procedures, straightforward design and flexible, affordable pricing – so if you want a no-nonsense secure email product, it’s worth consideration.
That said, products from larger organizations will offer more support functionality, which is essential for businesses, and the lack of in-depth support won’t sate technical users and people who want more control over their emails.
