PowerMTA is commercial software from Bird with no free or open-source edition, and published third-party estimates put licences around $8,000 a year. If that is already budgeted and you know why you need it, the checklist below is what to demand. If you are not sure, the honest advice is to start with Postal, which is free.
None
Commercial only · Postal is the free alternative
Almost everybody researching PowerMTA hosting should try Postal first. Postal is MIT licensed and free, delivers mail directly, manages its own queues and gives you an API — and it costs nothing to find out whether it is enough. PowerMTA earns its licence at the point where per-domain throttling, granular IP pool rotation and detailed delivery accounting are what stand between your mail and the inbox. That point exists, and most senders never reach it. If you are past it, what you need from a host is dedicated resources and several IP addresses, not a bigger shared allocation.
Related: Running PowerMTA on a VPS · All six packages compared · Port 25 · rDNS · SMTP VPS
The requirements come from the software vendor; the verdicts are ours and are answered straight. Where the answer is no, it is no.
| Requirement | Why it matters | Us |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated CPU and RAM | At the volumes that justify PowerMTA, sharing a host node with unrelated tenants means unpredictable throughput exactly when it matters. | Yes VDS range — dedicated cores and dedicated RAM |
| Several IPv4 addresses | IP pools, rotation and warm-up scheduling are the features you are paying for. With one address there is nothing to manage. | Yes Additional IPv4 available — ask before ordering |
| Reverse DNS on every address | A pool where only the primary address has a matching PTR undermines the whole arrangement. Each sending IP needs one. | Yes Set by support on request, free |
| Outbound Port 25 | PowerMTA delivers directly. This is table stakes and many large providers do not offer it. | Yes Open by default on every plan |
| Fast storage | PowerMTA writes accounting files and spool data continuously. Slow disks become the bottleneck before the network does. | Yes NVMe available across the VDS range |
| A provider that tolerates volume | Some hosts open Port 25 and then object once you actually use it. Ask what their acceptable-use policy says about sustained sending. | Yes Opt-in sending, at volume, is what these plans are for |
| A licence from the vendor | Unlicensed builds circulate. Running one means no support, no reliable patching, and an unknown binary holding your sending credentials. | No Licences come from Bird — we sell only the server |
| Deliverability expertise | PowerMTA gives you controls, not answers. Somebody has to know which knob to turn and why. | No Unmanaged — we do not tune your MTA |
Sources, checked 17 August 2026
Read at each vendor's own documentation rather than taken from a summary. Follow the links and check for yourself — figures like these move.
Ask any provider, including us. The answers are more revealing than a feature list, and a vague reply is itself an answer.
Derived from the requirements above rather than from a price target. If your list or sending volume is unusual, ask us rather than guessing from this.
Dedicated cores and dedicated RAM. Anyone paying for a PowerMTA licence is past the point of sharing a host node.
2 Cores · 4 GB Dedicated RAM
60 GB NVMe · 10 Gbps Port
$32.95/mo
This is a starting point, not a rule — list size and sending frequency matter more than the software itself. See all plans · compare all six packages · ask before you order.
From $4.95 a month with root access from the first second, and a 7-day money-back guarantee if the fit turns out to be wrong.
