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 sells it by quote.
The short answer
dmarcian's tiers are fully published — $24/mo Basic to $600/mo Enterprise, 17% less on Plus annual billing, metering legitimate mail only — and it stays reporting-first: you keep manual control of DNS. Valimail publishes no Enforce price (Starter, Premium and Enterprise are all quote-only); in exchange you get automated enforcement, patented hosted Instant SPF, automated DKIM rotation, and FedRAMP authorization (Valimail Enforce is listed as "FedRAMP Authorized" on the FedRAMP Marketplace). 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) | Quote-only |
| Free tier | 2 domains, 1,250 DMARC-capable msgs/mo, 1-month history, non-business use only | 5 user seats, 10 SPF lookups, limited automated DMARC |
| G2 rating | 3.5/5 | 4.6/5 |
| Protocols with documented support | 7/9 | 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 | BIMI Inspector and Builder on every tier; no hosted BIMI record or VMC | Full automation via the sales-gated Amplify add-on; Monitor shows status and BIMI Simulator preview only |
| MTA-STS | MTA-STS Inspector Tool for your own domains (login required); no hosted MTA-STS policy or record generation | Hosted on Enforce via CNAME delegation (NS delegation is planned) |
| 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 listed on the Enforce comparison grid |
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: 5 user seats, 10 SPF lookups, limited automated DMARC
- Enforce Starter Quote-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 at $600/mo ($499/mo billed annually)
- No hosted BIMI, hosted MTA-STS, ARC, or DANE productization at any tier (a BIMI Inspector and Builder tool is on every tier); SPF flattening explicitly declined
- Reporting-only platform: no hosted records or auto-deploy, so DNS changes stay manual
- Message volumes are default allowances; the pricing page says custom pricing is available for overages
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 RFC 8617 (ARC, an Experimental spec that an IETF DMARC working-group draft asks to reclassify as Historic) and maintains deep email-authentication standards leadership
- Patented Instant SPF delivers hosted, dynamic SPF that bypasses the 10-DNS-lookup limit
- Enforce platform listed as "FedRAMP Authorized" on the FedRAMP Marketplace, with SOC 2, PCI, and GDPR coverage
- Free Monitor tier with 5 user seats; the pricing page cites 80,000+ customers
- Enforce sends signed webhooks for alerts, so they can feed a SIEM, ticketing system or chat tool; the help article names no plan
- Hands-on onboarding and customer support praised consistently across G2 review cycles
Trade-offs
- Every Enforce tier (Starter, Premium, Enterprise) is quote-only: the pricing page reads "Contact us for custom pricing"
- The pricing page now lists Monitor, Enforce and Amplify; the Align entry tier no longer appears
- Add-on fees appear only on the AWS Marketplace listing: $1,500 per additional domain, $1,000 per additional 100K emails/month, $500 per additional 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, for Enforce users; NS delegation is planned for a future release
Best for: Enterprises and regulated organizations (FedRAMP, Microsoft 365 shops) that want fully automated, hands-off DMARC enforcement and are ready to negotiate a custom quote.
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 quote-only enterprise sales sits a lot of unserved middle. DMARCguard publishes one price ($14.50/mo including 2 domains for founding members, then $15/domain (3–10) and $10/domain (11+)), automates guidance without taking over your DNS, and covers all 9 protocols on Pro — including ARC header-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) | Quote-only | $29/mo incl. 2 domains, excl. VAT & sales tax |
| Free tier | 2 domains, 1,250 DMARC-capable msgs/mo, 1-month history, non-business use only | 5 user seats, 10 SPF lookups, limited automated DMARC | 2 domains, 30 days history |
| Protocols covered | 7/9 | 7/9 | 9/9 |
| G2 rating | 3.5/5 | 4.6/5 | 4.9/5 (11 reviews) |
Frequently Asked Questions
How do dmarcian and Valimail pricing compare?
dmarcian's entry tier is $24/mo — $19.99/mo billed annually, $239.88/yr — for 2 active domains. Valimail publishes no Enforce price: Starter, Premium and Enterprise are all 'Contact us for custom pricing'. AWS Marketplace lists Enforce Enterprise at a vendor-disclaimed $60,000 per 12-month estimate, with add-ons of $1,500 per additional domain, $1,000 per additional 100K emails/month and $500 per additional sending service, sold as 12-, 24- or 36-month contracts. 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: free with 5 user seats — visibility only, no enforcement automation.
Which should a mid-size company choose?
It depends on the constraint. If you need a published number before talking to sales, Valimail is harder to evaluate: Enforce is quote-only, and the only figure in public is AWS Marketplace's vendor-disclaimed $60,000 per 12 months estimate for Enterprise. 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: Pricing page: message volumes are default allowances and custom pricing is available for overages; Terms of Service section 4.1 ties fees to the Order's usage metrics and makes them non-refundable — source
- dmarcian: G2 rating 3.5 from 5 reviews — source
- dmarcian: TLS-RPT and a BIMI Inspector and Builder tool ship on all tiers; hosted MTA-STS, ARC, and DANE do not appear in the tier comparison table — source
- dmarcian: Founder Tim Draegen co-authored the DMARC specification — source
- Valimail: Enforce Starter, Premium and Enterprise all read "Contact us for custom pricing"; no price is published — source
- Valimail: Free Monitor tier includes 5 user seats — source
- Valimail: AWS Marketplace add-ons: $1,500 per additional domain, $1,000 per additional 100K emails/month, $500 per additional sending service — source
- Valimail: AWS Marketplace lists an estimate of $60,000 per 12 months for Valimail Enforce Enterprise (12-, 24- or 36-month contracts) — source
- Valimail: DigiCert acquired Valimail on September 16, 2025 — source
- Valimail: Hosted MTA-STS and TLS-RPT support CNAME delegation only, for Enforce users; NS delegation is planned — 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: The pricing page lists Monitor, Enforce (Starter, Premium, Enterprise) and Amplify; Align no longer appears — source
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