On Premise Licensing
 

Pricing model

MailArchiva On-Premise is priced on a per mailbox basis. The larger the number of mailboxes, the lower the price per mailbox. The license price applies to a specific major version of the product and is once off, one-time fee. The only recurring fee is the support fee. The support fee is mandatory in the first year, and optional thereafter. For instant pricing information (for less than 500 mailboxes), refer to Register Quote, Make a Purchase or email sales (at) mailarchiva.com.

30 day trial

The MailArchiva On Premise product includes a 30-day trial. The trial period offers the opportunity to evaluate the product before making a commitment.

Mailbox count calculation

When performing a license check, MailArchiva will attempt to ascertain the number of mailboxes in the organization. If a connection to Active Directory or Azure is available, it will obtain the mailbox count directly from there. If a connection to AD or Azure is not available, the count is extrapolated by examining the emails in the archive according to a formula described further below.

Obtaining the mailbox count from Active Directory / Azure

If an Active Directory / Azure connection is available, MailArchiva will attempt to obtain the mailbox count from there.

The following  LDAP query is executed to obtain the mailbox count from Active Directory:

Extrapolating the mailbox count

In the event that an Active Directory or Azure connection is not available, MailArchiva will attempt to extrapolate the mailbox count from the emails in the archive. For this purpose, a "mailbox" in MailArchiva is defined as a unique local address (excluding the domain part). Assuming there are two local domains, company.com and offshorecompany.com, the email addresses joe@company.com and joe@offshorecompany.com, will be counted as one mailbox since the domain part is excluded. In an attempt to eliminate aliases, a mailbox is generally (though not necessarily) counted if there are at least ten emails both sent and received on that box.

In addition, common mailboxes like postmaster, root, etc. are ignored. To accommodate companies with high turnover rates, any mailboxes that are dormant for more than a year are not counted (i.e. no emails have been sent for more than a year). Dormant mailboxes may still reside in the archive and are fully searchable.

If mail is imported into the system, it will be included in the mailbox count calculation.

Verification

Microsoft 365 / Microsoft Exchange

Before verifying the number of mailboxes, if using Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Exchange, ensure that Azure and Active Directory authentication is configured, enabled, respectively, then restart MailArchiva and wait approximately ten minutes for the license checks to occur. To verify the number of mailboxes required by the system, login to the MailArchiva web console, in the Configuration->Logs section, view the contents of a file called license_count.txt. All mailboxes obtained from Azure or Exchange should be listed in this file. If not, double check that Azure and Active Directory authentication is configured correctly.

Other mail servers

When using mail servers other than Microsoft 365 / Microsoft Exchange, MailArchiva will extrapolate the count from emails in the archive in accordance with the algorithm outlined earlier. The full count may only become apparent after the archive is sufficiently populated with email data. Ultimately, the mailbox count should align approximately with the number of mailboxes defined on your mail server. Thus, for licensing purposes, it is recommended to obtain the mailbox count by counting the number of mailboxes configured in your mail server directly.

How many mailboxes to order?

The general rule is to order, at minimum, the same number of mailboxes as is defined in connected mail servers. In addition, it is prudent to order a few additional mailboxes (e.g. extra 10%) to accommodate for growth over the period of a year. After the license is issued, the license may be extended to include additional mailboxes. However, it may be cheaper to purchase all mailboxes upfront.

How to place an order

Orders may be placed online directly from the Stimulus Software Business Services site. Alternatively, email sales (at) mailarchiva.com to place the order. If you already have an account on our Business Services, refer to Make a Purchase.

How to obtain the license file

After placing an order, the license file will be emailed automatically to your email address. It can also be downloaded directly from the Business Services online portal. The permanent license file is only issued once the product has been paid for. When purchasing via purchase order, it may take time for payment to arrive. In this circumstance, a temporary license with an expiry of one month will be sent to your inbox to cover the period while payment is still forthcoming.

How to install a license file

Login to the MailArchiva web console using a web browser. Go to Configuration->About. Click on Install License button. Select the license file. Click Install. When installing a license, a signature and expiry date check will be immediately performed to verify the validity of the license. Since checking a mailbox count is resource intensive, the mailbox count check only occurs at an interval of twelve hours or so or about ten minutes after the server has started. Thus, you may only know whether or not the mailbox count has exceeded after some time. If you need to know as early as possible, restart the server and wait ten minutes or so, view the output of the license_count.txt file in Configuration->Logs.

Licensing and upgrades

A license file is valid for all versions of MailArchiva whose build date does not exceed the end date of the purchased support contract (i.e. paid period end). Thus, after upgrading MailArchiva to a new version, if the build date on the new version exceeds the paid period end of the installed license, the license will become invalid. It will then be necessary to renew one's support contract, obtain a new license file, and install it as per the above instructions.

Exceeded count

When the mailbox count is exceeded, an alert will be generated and sent to the administrator.   Due to the way in which the product works, it is not possible to provide full service to certain mailboxes, and deny service to the mailboxes that have been added since the original purchase. If the mailbox count is exceeded, the server will enter a restricted mode (applicable for all users) whereby many features such as email export, sending, etc. will be disabled. In addition, if more than one SMTP listener or IMAP connection is defined, the additional listeners/connectors will be automatically disabled.

Excluding mailboxes from the count

At this time, it is not possible to exclude certain mailboxes from licensing by archiving a subset of mailboxes. The reason being, MailArchiva does not work in the same way as a mail server. Unlike a mail server, it does not store user mail separately in individual mailboxes. Thus, if one creates an archiving rule that specifies not to archive emails addressed to a particular sender or recipient, the rule will likely inadvertently ignore emails pertaining to the mailboxes that you wish to keep.

To illustrate:

You want to keep Joe's emails
You don't want to keep Peter's email

Possible solution: Create an archiving rule to ignore emails with recipient Peter.

Result: Joe sends an email to Peter. When the archiving rule is applied, the system will not archive mail with the recipient, Peter. However, since mail is not stored in separate mailboxes, Joe would not be able to view the email that he sent to Peter (since it would not have been archived). If this side effect is acceptable, then an archiving rule can be created as follows:

anyaddress:peter@domain.com

Considering the above, in most cases, one needs to order the number of mailboxes in active use by the mail server.

License extension

At any stage, a license may be extended to cover additional mailboxes. This can be done by logging into the MailArchiva website, and requesting a new quote. When requesting a quote, be sure to select the existing license and enter the number of extra mailboxes required. Alternatively, email sales at mailarchiva.com with the number of additional mailboxes needed.

License downgrade

Once the license file has been issued, it is valid for a specific mailbox count. Unfortunately, it is not currently technically possible to revoke an existing license and issue a new one with a lower count in order to minimise the cost of support renewal. 

Support contracts

A commercial support contract comes with email and telephone tech support, automatic product updates and version upgrades. When purchasing the product, a support certificate will be issued and emailed to you.  When calling the support line, quote the number on the certificate before obtaining assistance. A valid support contract entitles one to download any version of MailArchiva released during the support period, and not any version released after the support contract expired. 

Since MailArchiva support contracts are inclusive of major version upgrades, all support renewals start from the last date of support contract expiry. If the renewal is more than four months late, a late charge is levied.

Starter license (<=9 mboxes)

The full featured commercial-grade MailArchiva On Premise product is free to use for companies with nine or fewer mailboxes provided no commercial support is needed. In the free tier, it is not necessary to install a license file. All features are automatically enabled. If this applies to your situation,  simply download the product now. If a customer requires a license for twenty mailboxes, then all twenty licenses must be purchased. Furthermore, there is no free tier available for MailArchiva Cloud.

For obvious reasons, commercial support is not provided to free users of the product. Support queries must be directed to the support forum. We will try our best to respond within a reasonable timeframe. However, understandably, since you haven't paid for the product, we are under no obligation to do so! If commercial product support is needed, it is necessary to purchase a ten user license. Furthermore, assuming your system goes over the free mailbox limit, you'll still need to pay for the full mailbox count (i.e. including the nine mailboxes that were previously free).