ShieldMarc vs Valimail
For UK MSPs who do not need enterprise-tier pricing to protect client domains.
Valimail targets large enterprises with a sales-led motion. Their platform is credible at the top end of the market. Where ShieldMarc wins is published transparent pricing, self-serve onboarding, no procurement cycle, and a flat MSP plan that covers 100 domains at the price of Valimail's lowest published tier divided by five. Figures below are from Valimail's public pricing page, verified May 2026. Valimail publishes in USD, converted to GBP at approximately £1 = $1.25; verify directly at valimail.com/pricing.
Published pricing vs sales-led quote
Valimail's lowest published paid tier is Enforce Starter at approximately £4,000/year (USD list price converted at £1 = $1.25). Everything above is custom pricing through an account team. ShieldMarc prices are on the website: £0 / £49 / £99 per month (annual). Same product category, no quote cycle.
Self-serve onboarding in minutes
One DNS record change and a ShieldMarc account, live in under 5 minutes. Valimail deployments typically go through a sales cycle and can bundle professional services.
Threat model + Claude AI
Paid ShieldMarc plans combine our proprietary threat model with a frontier Anthropic Claude model for deep analysis on demand. Valimail uses its own automation-first stack.
Access and pricing (verified May 2026)
| Feature | Valimail | ShieldMarc |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Sales-led quote for all paid tiers | Published flat pricing, monthly or annual |
| Free tier | Monitor: free, sender intelligence and dashboards (user count not stated on the public pricing page; verify with Valimail) | Starter: 1 domain, 10,000 messages, 20 free tools, AI explanations on free tools included |
| First paid tier | Enforce Starter: ~£4,000/year (USD list at $1 = £0.80) | Professional: £49/mo annual (£588/year), 25 domains, 5M messages/mo |
| Top published tier | None: everything above Enforce Starter is custom pricing (contact sales) | MSP: £99/mo annual (£1,188/year), 100 domain slots, 20M messages/mo |
| Published message volume limits | Not shown on public pricing | Starter 10k · Professional 5M · MSP 20M · Enterprise custom |
| Implementation time | Weeks, often with professional services | Under 5 minutes, self-serve |
| Expansion pricing | Sales-led | +50 domain slots and +5 million messages for £39.99/mo (published) |
| Enterprise tier purpose What actually triggers a custom quote | Almost every paid deal. Published pricing stops at Enforce Starter. | Triggered only by formalised SLA, regional hardware hosting, EU-only AI routing, regulated-sector compliance frameworks, or SSO provisioning specifics. Standard scale stays on published MSP + buckets. |
| Can you estimate your cost upfront? | No for mid-market and above. Custom quote and procurement cycle required. | Yes, for every standard case. Enterprise is only for compliance / hosting specifics. |
Features and depth
| Feature | Valimail | ShieldMarc |
|---|---|---|
| Analysis engine Paid tiers only, on-demand only. We combine both. | In-house automation only | Proprietary threat model + Claude AI |
| Automated sender discovery | Strong | Strong via our threat model, with Claude AI classification on demand |
| One-click sender authorisation | Yes (flagship feature) | Manual per-sender authorisation with clear task list |
| Subdomain policy (sp=) detection | Policy detected | sp= scored independently, weaker-than-p flagged as a distinct control failure |
| SSL, DNS, DNSSEC, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT, CAA, lookalike, uptime | DMARC and sender authentication are the focus; SSL, DNSSEC, CAA, lookalike and uptime monitoring are not part of the published bundle | All in one dashboard on paid tiers |
| Brand TLD grouping (MSP) | Not advertised | TLD variants count as one slot |
Data, hosting and privacy
| Feature | Valimail | ShieldMarc |
|---|---|---|
| Company base | US-based | UK owned and run |
| Default hosting | US / global | EU hosted, UK hosted on request |
| PII stored | Standard enterprise SaaS profile | Minimal by design: account emails, audit log, rare RUF headers |
| Subject to US CLOUD Act | US-incorporated; CLOUD Act applies to US-held data | No (UK based, EU hosted) |
| Third-party certifications | SOC 2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP available | None held today; scaling target |
Conclusion
Where ShieldMarc has an edge
- Published pricing on every tier. The price you see is the price you pay, no sales cycle.
- Self-serve in under 5 minutes with one DNS record change. No professional services.
- £49/mo (annual) buys 25 domains of DMARC, SSL, DNS, DNSSEC, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT, CAA, lookalike and uptime monitoring. Valimail's Enforce Starter alone is ~£4,000/year.
- Paid-plan AI analysis combines our proprietary threat model with a frontier Anthropic Claude model, on demand only.
- Subdomain policy (sp=) scored independently, weaker-than-p flagged as a distinct control failure.
- UK-owned, EU-hosted by default. No US CLOUD Act exposure. UK-hosted environments available on request.
- Minimal personal data by design, suitable for DPIA-heavy public sector buyers.
Where Valimail stacks up
- One-click sender authorisation is a genuine flagship feature and is more mature than our manual per-sender workflow.
- Enterprise compliance portfolio: SOC 2, ISO 27001, and a FedRAMP deployment option. ShieldMarc holds none of these today. If your procurement has any of them as a hard gate, Valimail satisfies that and we will not.
- Hosted SPF and hosted BIMI are available as part of their platform. ShieldMarc is deliberately focused on the DMARC, SSL and DNS fundamentals in early days; we do not ship hosted SPF or hosted BIMI today.
- Mature sender discovery and automation, refined over years of enterprise deployments.
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