Proton Mail vs. SmartVault

Good if you like privacy and not having your data mined for advertizing and AI training.

SmartVault sends out a cover letter with the tax returns that includes a link for them to download their tax returns, avoiding the insecurity of an email attachment. It does not include a statement retrieval feature but does work very nicely with a third-party app called FileThis. The majority of the users in the office have not been able to install the Outlook plug-in due to "a certificate error." In five years, SmartVault has not addressed this issue.

Incentivized

• Secure encrypted email hosting
• Connection with Outlook works well
• Works well on all platforms: web, Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS
• Low monthly cost for email plus all the associated apps

• Easy navigation
• Email notifications
• Document previews

• Exporting email (which I like to do for archiving) is awkward and slow.
• Proton Mail Bridge (which allows access from other email readers like Outlook) sometimes has synchronization issues. Lately these just resolve themselves.

• They have cut back on support as have many SaaS companies recently.
• The documentation can sometimes be a little difficult to follow.

Incentivized

Mostly intuitive and easy to use. A bit harder if you stick with two passwords (one for the account and one for the encryption).

Reaching someone is more difficult than it should be. Also, they don't take possession of known issues always suggesting it is a local PC issue in initial conversations. That, of course, can be frustrating for the end-user.

Incentivized

Proton had a wider offering of products like vpn and drive. I ended up paying for a yearly subscription, I liked it so much.

Incentivized

Sales team was responsive, price was good, functionality was acceptable

• Easy to link with my business domain and email.

• has made sharing documents with large numbers of clients easier
• has forced us into using their service, or spending time to find a better alternative, in my experience.
• Speaking personally the product has cost us several thousand dollars over predicted budget costs for a 3-year projection