Scroogle Mail vs Gmail
An honest look at what you trade when your email is free. No scare tactics, no cherry-picking - Gmail does some things better than we do, and we'll say so.
The short version
Gmail is a genuinely capable email service, and it costs nothing because you pay with your data - your inbox helps build the profile that Google's advertising business runs on.
Scroogle Mail costs from £2.99 a month, and in exchange your mailbox is zero-access encrypted: we cannot read your mail, mine it, or sell anything derived from it, because we hold no keys to it.
If you want a free, ad-funded inbox with world-class search, Gmail is fine and we won't pretend otherwise. If you want your email to be private, that is the trade: a fair price instead of your data.
About each service
GmailGoogle LLC - Mountain View, USA
The world's biggest mailbox provider, with well over a billion users. It is free, fast, reliable and deeply woven into the Google ecosystem - Drive, Docs, Calendar, Android. It is funded by advertising: Google is a US company whose core business is knowing enough about you to sell your attention, and while Gmail stopped scanning message bodies for ad targeting in 2017, your mail still feeds "smart features", and your Google account activity as a whole still feeds the ads machine.
Scroogle MailScroogle Mail AG - Zurich, Switzerland
A small, profitable Swiss company - 14 people, 12,000+ mailboxes, two datacentres in Zurich and Lausanne. Paid-only, from £2.99 a month, so our only customers are the people whose email we protect. End-to-end encryption between users, zero-access storage for everything else, open-source clients and annual published audits. We are honest about scale: we are a rounding error next to Google, and we like it that way.
The full comparison
Where the two are level, we say so. A comparison that gives the home team every row isn't a comparison - it's an advert.
| Feature | Gmail | Scroogle Mail |
|---|---|---|
| Price & business model | ||
| Price | Free - paid with your data | From £2.99/mo inc VAT |
| Storage | 15 GB free, shared across Gmail, Drive and Photos | 15-200 GB depending on plan (paid) |
| Ads in the inbox | Historically yes - ads appear in the Promotions and Social tabs | Never - there is no ad inventory to fill |
| Data used for advertising | Yes - your Google account activity feeds ad profiling across Google | Never - subscriptions are the entire business |
| Privacy & encryption | ||
| Reads message content for features | Yes - Smart Compose, Smart Reply and package tracking process your mail | No - zero-access storage means we can't |
| End-to-end encryption | Not by default (client-side encryption exists only on some Workspace tiers) | Yes - automatic between Scroogle Mail users, OpenPGP-based |
| Zero-access storage at rest | No - Google holds the keys to your mailbox | Yes - keys are derived from your password; we never see them |
| Jurisdiction | United States | Switzerland (FADP; Art. 271 Swiss Criminal Code) |
| Open-source clients | No | Yes - web, mobile and desktop apps, plus annual published audits |
| Everyday features | ||
| Custom domain | Yes - via paid Google Workspace | Yes - included on every plan |
| Calendar & contacts | Yes | Yes |
| Search | Excellent - it is Google, after all | Good - searching encrypted mail is harder, and it shows in edge cases |
| Offline access | Yes | Yes - desktop and mobile apps, plus IMAP via Scroogle Bridge |
Gmail details reflect the free consumer product as of July 2026; some rows differ on paid Google Workspace tiers. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.
Who wins at what
Where Gmail is genuinely better
- Search. Gmail's search is the best in the business. Ours is good; theirs is instant and eerie.
- Integrations. Thousands of apps plug into Gmail out of the box. Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar all just work together.
- It is free. No card, no bill, no decision. For a lot of people that genuinely is the right price.
- Ecosystem. If your life runs on Android and Google Workspace, Gmail is the path of least resistance.
We'd rather concede these plainly than pretend they don't matter. If they're what you value most, Gmail is a reasonable choice.
Where we are better
- Privacy. Zero-access encryption means nobody at Scroogle Mail can read your mail. Not policy - maths.
- No ads, ever. Your inbox isn't inventory. Nothing in it is scanned, scored or sold.
- No scanning. No "smart features" quietly processing your messages to train something.
- Swiss law. Swiss FADP, GDPR-aligned, and Article 271 means foreign authorities can't demand your data directly.
- One clear price. From £2.99 a month, VAT included, cancel anytime, 30-day money-back guarantee.
The honest pitch: you pay a small, visible price instead of a large, invisible one. Read the security model.
Switching is easy
You don't burn your Gmail address to leave Gmail. Most people run both in parallel for a few weeks, then quietly stop checking the old one.
Create your address
Pick a plan and a new address - or bring your own domain, included on every plan. Setup takes about three minutes.
Run the importer
Our one-click importer copies your Gmail history, folders and contacts over in the background, encrypted as it lands. Fourteen years of mail is a normal afternoon's work for it.
Forward the stragglers
Set Gmail to forward, then update your important logins as they email you. Anything that still arrives at the old address lands in your new inbox.
Asked a lot, answered honestly
Is Gmail insecure?
Can I keep my Gmail address?
Do you have a free plan like Gmail?
Is Scroogle Mail worth paying for?
Ready to stop paying with your data?
Pick your address, run the importer, and own your email again. From £2.99 a month, VAT included, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Get Scroogle Mail