Rackspace Technology offers extensive cloud computing solutions for businesses all over the globe. From cloud storage and managed email hosting to analytics and databases, Rackspace has been an IT powerhouse since 1998.
But how does it stack up in the modern era? In this review, we’ll take a look at Rackspace’s current offerings and how the company compares with other brands in the same space.
Rackspace Compared
Rackspace did not make our list of the top email hosting providers. Instead, our top pick is DreamHost, which provides secure, affordable email hosting for businesses of any size. Email hosting with DreamHost begins at just $2.59 per month.
- DreamHost — Best All-Around Email Hosting Provider
- Hostinger — Best Budget-Friendly Provider
- Intermedia — Best for Email Security
- Scala Hosting — Best for Significant Storage
- Google Workspace — Best for Google-Centric Users
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard — Best for Microsoft-Centric Users
- Amazon WorkMail — Best for AWS-Centric Users
Find out what we love about each brand on our list of the best email hosting providers.
About Rackspace
Rackspace offers managed cloud services, email hosting, managed databases, ecommerce solutions, and managed security services. The company partners with major cloud services like Microsoft 365, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform to create custom cloud solutions.
For example, if you want to integrate Microsoft 365 into your business, Rackspace can help you set up and manage the software. Same with Rackspace partners like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, VMware, and OpenStack.
Rackspace Health and Stability
Rackspace has been around since 1998. Based in San Antonio, Texas, it has offices in several U.S. cities and an impressive list of countries—Australia, the UK, India, Switzerland, Singapore, and Mexico, to name a few. The company houses data in many of the same locations, and Rackspace engineers monitor the data around the clock. Known for its openness regarding the business’s inner workings, Rackspace publicly publishes an annual report detailing its yearly financials.
Despite that, Rackspace appears to be struggling. In the summer of 2021, the company laid off 10% of its workforce and moved many of its operations out of the US.
Then in early December of 2022, a ransomware attack caused a service outage for all 30,000 of Rackspace’s hosted Microsoft Exchange users. The lost email data had still not been fully recovered a month later, in January 2023. Along with clunky customer support following the security breach, this breach led users to express their outrage and frustration on social media, tarnishing its public reputation.
Rackspace is publicly traded under the ticker symbol RXT. The price of Rackspace shares dropped by about 16% immediately after the service outage. In December 2022, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the thousands of businesses impacted by the breach.
Rackspace Pricing
While Rackspace offers a pricing structure for its hosted email plans, it doesn’t list prices for most other services. This is because the managed cloud services, databases, and security services are highly customizable, and they really only make sense for big businesses with complex needs.
So, instead of listing plans and pricing, you can request a free quote from Rackspace if you’re interested in something other than email hosting.
Hosted email plans cost a set amount of money per user each month. Businesses can take the email plans for a test drive with a two-week free trial.
Rackspace Pricing Structure
For Rackspace’s hosted email services, pricing begins at $2.99 per user monthly. The most expensive Rackspace Email plan costs a monthly fee of $6.99 per user. You’ll pay more if you choose Rackspace’s Microsoft 365 add-on. All plans list 24/7/365 customer support, spam and virus protection, webmail, and 25GB mailboxes as core features.
The company doesn’t publicly list its pricing model for its other services. Users report that cloud solutions begin at about $75 per month. For a dedicated server, the price jumps to anywhere between $499 to $1,249 a month based on how much server space your company uses.
To get an accurate price based on your business’s IT needs, connect with a Rackspace sales rep.
Rackspace Pricing Comparison
One of Rackspace’s most popular features is its hosted email services. The pricing is somewhat competitive at just $2.99 per user each month for the base plan tier. The most expensive Rackspace Email plan costs $6.99 a month. But if you want a hosted Microsoft 365 email account through Rackspace, you’ll pay $5 to $60 per user monthly, depending on the plan.
For comparison, DreamHost only offers one hosted email plan at $1.99 a month and comes with basic features. But most of DreamHost’s web hosting plans include email already. And if you use a DreamHost website hosting plan that doesn’t, you might as well add it since you’re already in the DreamHost ecosystem.
With Hostinger, you can sign up for a Titan or Google Workspace-hosted email account. Titan plans begin at $0.99 a month per mailbox, and the feature-rich Google Workspace-hosted email plan costs $6 a month per mailbox. Both of these are significantly less expensive than Rackspace’s priciest plans.
Rackspace Trials and Guarantees
Rackspace offers a two-week free trial of its email hosting plans, including Microsoft 365. The company doesn’t advertise any trials or deals for its other services. To find out how much it’ll cost your business to use Rackspace’s managed hosting, dedicated servers, and other services, you’ll need to connect with the sales team.
Rackspace Email Hosting Review
When you sign up for Rackspace email hosting, you should receive 24/7/365 support, spam and virus protection, unlimited aliases, and 25GB mailboxes. Pay a dollar more per month, and you’ll also get 30GB of file storage, shared calendaring, Microsoft Office-compatible apps, and instant messaging. If you spring for the most expensive Rackspace Email plan, you can add email archiving to the list.
Or, you can go the hosted Microsoft 365 route for more sophisticated tools. Despite this robust group of features and plan choices, Rackspace didn’t make our list of the top email hosting providers. Let’s explore what’s good and not-so-good about Rackspace email hosting.
What Makes Rackspace Email Hosting Great
Wide range of plans: Rackspace offers an admirable variety of email hosting plans to fit everything from small ecommerce shops to giant tech companies. For the most part, plans are reasonably priced.
Document editing and collaboration included: Even if you don’t pay for one of the more expensive Office 365 plans, you’ll get document-sharing services through Rackspace Email with the company’s Microsoft-compatible apps. This allows you to collaborate on documents and spreadsheets with coworkers in real-time.
Automatic syncing: Your email, calendar, and contacts will stay synced to the cloud even on Rackspace’s $3.99/month plan, Rackspace Email Plus. In other words, if you don’t want to pay for the pricier Microsoft 365 add-ons to enjoy syncing, you don’t have to. Rackspace Email provides desktop and mobile syncing through ActiveSync.
Generous mailbox space: Rackspace Email offers 25 GB of mailbox space in its basic plan. The Plus plan comes with an additional 30 GB of file storage space. For comparison, a free Google account gives users 15 GB of file storage across Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Drive.
Where Rackspace Hosted Email Falls Short
Major security issues: We can’t ignore this glaring issue with Rackspace. The security breach and system outage in December of 2022 infuriated scores of Rackspace customers who were using the company’s hosted Exchange email program. Many still haven’t been able to recover the emails they lost during the outage.
The Play ransomware group gained access to the Rackspace Exchange servers by taking advantage of known vulnerabilities in the system. Microsoft had provided fixes for the vulnerabilities in November of 2022, but Rackspace allegedly failed to install them, citing concerns that the changes could disrupt its email operations. As of late January 2023, Rackspace had yet to resolve all the issues caused by the breach.
Unfortunately, a con this big makes some of Rackspace’s pros difficult to trust. What good is generous mailbox storage, for example, if the company loses your emails in a significant service outage?
Poor customer service: Rackspace became famous in its heyday for its dedication to customer support. Known as Fanatical Support, Rackspace’s customer service put consumers first with friendly, 24/7/365 customer service. Before moving its headquarters to the North Side of San Antonio in October of 2022, Rackspace HQ was located at 1 Fanatical Place in Windcrest, a suburb of San Antonio. But according to users, customer support has spiraled downward in recent years.
In the wake of the 2022 security breach, customers reported abrupt hangups, hours-long hold times, zero migration support, unreturned calls, and agents who simply couldn’t help solve their problems. But users had noticed a drastic decline in service even before the breach. Again, this con makes any of Rackspace’s email hosting plan promises of 24/7/365 service hard to trust.
Inconsistent service offerings: Rackspace used to offer hosted email through Microsoft Exchange along with Office 365. If you were to go to the Rackspace website, you’d find Exchange pricing plans listed for purchase. However, various reports state that Rackspace had to shut down its Exchange program after the December 2022 attack.
The company has encouraged customers to migrate to its Office 365 program instead. In addition, you can easily access links to a supposed Rackspace pricing calculator on the internet. However, click the link, and you’ll spend a good five minutes trying to find the mysterious calculator. It appears not to exist anymore.
Complex website: The Rackspace website could use an overhaul to make it more user-friendly. It takes multiple clicks to even find the hosted email options. And instead of seeing the pricing plans and feature lists at the top of the page, you have to scroll halfway down. Compare this with the Hostinger website, where email services are easily visible from the website’s homepage, and pricing plans are a click away.
Rackspace Email Hosting Compared
Rackspace didn’t earn a spot on our top email hosting services list. DreamHost nabbed that top spot. Here are our top choices for email hosting providers:
- DreamHost — Best All-Around Email Hosting Provider
- Hostinger — Best Budget-Friendly Provider
- Intermedia — Best for Email Security
- Scala Hosting — Best for Significant Storage
- Google Workspace — Best for Google-Centric Users
- Microsoft 365 Business Standard — Best for Microsoft-Centric Users
- Amazon WorkMail — Best for AWS-Centric Users
Final Verdict
In light of Rackspace’s email hosting security and customer service issues, we don’t recommend it for our readers. The company’s recent changes and layoffs appear to have affected the quality of service it can provide.
Instead, we suggest going with one of the email hosting providers on our top list, like the all-around all-star DreamHost, budget-friendly Hostinger, or highly secure Intermedia.
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