Features
There is no standard tier and no premium tier. Everything below is included at £8.00 + VAT per mailbox, per month, because a mail platform that charges extra for shared calendars is not really a mail platform.
By area
Four groups: the mail and collaboration features people use daily, the device and sync behaviour, the security and resilience underneath, and the administrative control you get on top.
Everything a business expects from Microsoft Exchange, running on servers we own and manage in the UK.
One mailbox, every device, always in step. This is the thing IMAP has never managed to do properly.
UK-hosted, UK-owned, and built so that a single failure never becomes your outage.
SolidCP gives your IT team genuine Exchange administration without a PowerShell prompt or a support ticket.
Clients and devices
One mailbox, synchronised everywhere. Read a message on your phone on the train and it is already read when you reach your desk.
Outlook 2016 and later, including classic Outlook in Microsoft 365 Apps. Full cached mode, server-side search, rules and delegate access. The new Outlook for Windows does not yet support on-premises Exchange accounts, so we set up classic Outlook, which Microsoft supports until at least 2029.
Outlook for Mac connects over Exchange Web Services with calendar and contact sync. Microsoft is still rolling out on-premises Exchange support in its newest Mac client, so we check your version before you move.
A complete Exchange client in any modern browser, on any operating system, with no software to install.
Native iOS Mail, Calendar and Contacts over ActiveSync, with instant push and remote wipe.
Gmail, Outlook for Android and Samsung Email all connect over ActiveSync with push delivery.
Authenticated SMTP for scanners, franking machines, CRMs and line-of-business software, plus IMAP and POP3 where they are still needed.
Using the new Outlook for Windows? Microsoft’s new Outlook currently supports Exchange Online but not on-premises Exchange accounts, which includes every hosted Exchange platform. Classic Outlook works fully and is supported until at least 2029. What works, and what to do.
People often use the two names interchangeably, but they do different jobs. Exchange is the mail server that holds your mailboxes, runs the address list, resolves free/busy lookups and pushes changes to your devices. Outlook is one of several clients that talk to it.
That distinction matters commercially: your Exchange mailbox price is £8.00 + VAT, and desktop Outlook is optional. If your team already has Office licences, you pay nothing more. If they do not, we can add Microsoft 365 Apps for business at £9.40 per user, or they can use Outlook Web App for free.
Technical specification
If you are comparing providers on a spreadsheet, this is the row of the spreadsheet you need.
| Exchange version | Exchange Server Subscription Edition, current cumulative update |
|---|---|
| Standard mailbox quota | 50 GB, extendable in 50 GB blocks with no hard ceiling |
| Archive mailbox | Optional in-place archive, 100 GB per block |
| Maximum message size | 150 MB send and receive |
| Aliases per mailbox | Unlimited |
| Accepted domains | Unlimited, included |
| Shared / room / equipment mailboxes | Unlimited, free, not licensed |
| Distribution and dynamic groups | Unlimited, included |
| Public folders | Included, 25 GB per organisation as standard |
| Deleted item retention | 30 days, extendable on request |
| Deleted mailbox retention | 30 days |
| Protocols | MAPI over HTTP, Exchange Web Services, ActiveSync, Outlook Web App, IMAP4, POP3, SMTP with authentication |
| Encryption | TLS 1.2 or better enforced in transit; volume encryption at rest |
| Authentication | Username and password, with optional MFA on webmail and the control panel |
| Anti-spam and anti-virus | Multi-layer reputation, content and signature filtering, included |
| Backups | Daily, held off-host, retained 30 days |
| Platform resilience | Database Availability Group with automatic failover across multiple servers |
| Data residency | United Kingdom only, contractually |
| Uptime commitment | 99.9% monthly, backed by service credits |
| Control panel | SolidCP, included for every customer |
Need something not listed here — a larger public folder quota, a longer retention window, a journaling rule for a regulator? Ask. Most of it is a configuration change rather than a different product.
Tell us how many mailboxes you have and who hosts them today. We will send a written quote, a migration plan and a fixed cutover date — usually within one working day.