Intermedia Hosted Exchange is a powerful outlier in the world of hosted email. It offers unlimited mailbox storage, free migration help by experts, and ActiveSync for mobile devices, plus access to Intermedia AnyMeeting, 2GB of file-sharing storage, and innovative security features.
It’s one of the few remaining hosted exchange options that isn’t just a rebranding of Microsoft 365, yet it nevertheless offers familiar Outlook web access as well as an optional add-on for the Microsoft 365 apps. Add some security and policy features that most other platforms lack, and Intermedia easily earns our Editors’ Choice award, along with Google Workspace Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
Intermedia Pricing and Plans
It’s actually a little easier to find Intermedia’s pricing for Hosted Exchange using Google than hunting around on the company’s website. But once you find it, you can choose from a number of pricing tiers. The service starts at $7.49 per user per month for Hosted Exchange Email. This includes the unlimited mailbox storage mentioned above as well as hand-holding during migration. It also gives you access to Intermedia’s AnyMeeting video conferencing product, 2GB per user for SecuriSync backup and file sharing, and Intermedia’s HostPilot Control Panel for management.
For $9.99 per user per month, you get the same service but with email archiving included. Paying $10.99 per user per month boosts SecuriSync file sharing and backup space to 10GB per user.
Beyond that, the price jumps to $14.99 per user per month for a tier that includes not only hosted Microsoft Exchange email but access to other Microsoft 365 apps, albeit only the ones in the Microsoft’s Essentials tier (Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). You can actually add these apps a la carte to any of Intermedia’s pricing tiers; you’ll just need to contact the company for a quote. The top pricing tier is $16.99 per user per month, with all the bells and whistles including email archiving and 10GB SecuriSync except the bundled Microsoft 365 apps.
That’s a lot to digest, but it also offers customers a lot of options, and there are still other possibilities. For example, while the AnyMeeting platform is mentioned in Intermedia’s Hosted Exchange price list, its unified communications platform, Intermedia Unite, is not. However, if you talk to Intermedia, you can likely work that service into your overall pricing structure, too.
Having to contact Intermedia to find what your actual price is going to be is a small hoop to jump through, considering how much you can customize your solution. Still, while the Microsoft 365 app options sound nice, we found the best value in just the Hosted Exchange Email tiers. Most businesses need more than just the four Essentials apps if they’re going to use Microsoft’s productivity suite, so you’re probably better off going straight to Microsoft 365 Business Premium if you’re in that boat.
Getting Started
When you log in, you’ll be greeted by Intermedia’s HostPilot console. This is essentially a one-stop-shop for managing everything to do with your account, and it extends well beyond just Hosted Exchange. The layout is straightforward and easy to navigate. Large, well-labeled buttons point the way, and it’s easy to find your way around even if you’re new to the platform.
It’s worth noting that setting up your Intermedia Hosted Exchange instance includes a white-glove process—the company will handle migration and setup for you as part of your package. However, if you prefer the self-install experience, you should start by adding your domain. This can be accessed from the Utility section of the Services pulldown. While the process is not wizard-like, I found adding a domain to be straightforward. But setting up the domain will require some homework, so I suggest you rely on Intermedia’s 24/7 support.
Once that’s done, you can add mailboxes for users, which is an easy process. Just navigate to Exchange Email and Mailboxes and from there you can specify a name, email address, and default password for every user. In addition, you can choose between Exchange, POP/IMAP, or OWA-only mailboxes depending on your subscription.
While any Exchange box can have POP and IMAP support, you may also want a simple mailbox that only uses these protocols. Those cost $2 each and are a cost-effective method for employees or apps that might not need the full power of Exchange. For collaboration, you can enable Skype for Business, though Microsoft Teams is accessible, too, if you opt for the Microsoft 365 apps. And let’s not forget, Intermedia’s AnyMeeting is a great collaboration choice as well. As for the email client, most folks will likely use their desktop Outlook installation.
Once everything is set up, accessing typical items is simple—you can find distribution lists, company contacts, and public folders via links on the left side of the screen. You can also manage disk quotas, though the mailboxes are effectively unlimited, so that’s really more for your own rules rather than a platform limitation. A Resources tab lets you choose your Exchange server and it also gives you the details necessary to set up mobile devices and configure your domains.
Intermedia Email Protection
The email protection features are located in a different management section and give you a lot to unpack. Your first line of defense will be inbound and outbound policies. While many services have this feature, including Microsoft 365 and Zoho Mail, Intermedia extends the process of managing spam and phishing attacks beyond just moving items into quarantine. For instance, emails can be delivered to the user’s inbox but tagged with a warning in the subject line. There is also a specific callout for marketing mail, which is a nice productivity boost if you’re trying to sift through hundreds of emails a day. Another standard but necessary component is a list of safe and blocked senders. This works as it does on other mail platforms and is simple to use.
Attachments also get special attention. You can get really granular when determining what your organization considers to be “allowed” versus “dangerous,” and you can even have emails delivered to recipients but with any attachments stripped. Many folks may have already seen this in action with other products, but it’s easy to configure here with checkboxes for the most common offenders and a comma-separated list for custom ones.
Another feature, Intermedia LinkSafe, targets phishing emails. It prevents users from visiting phishing pages that contain malware by analyzing a link when the user clicks on it. Since there’s always the possibility of something being improperly categorized, you can add to lists of safe or blocked URLs. The phishing policy can also be configured to look for specific things such as emails that attempt to impersonate your users or ones from domains that mimic your own.
Lastly, there’s AI Guardian. This is the new kid on the block. While it takes up to two weeks to enable, depending on the number and size of mailboxes you have, it’s capable of learning what’s typical for your users and flagging emails with both color content and tags in the header. This builds on the inbound policies that you’ve already defined but enhances their scope. It’s an impressive feature that’s so far unique to Intermedia Hosted Exchange.
Back-End Security and Integration
As you might suspect by now, Intermedia Hosted Exchange really shines when it comes to security, boasting SOC compliance as well as SSAE 16 Type II-audited data centers. Those standards are meant to prove that the company’s data management processes surrounding data pass muster and that the physical security of its data centers is also in order. Intermedia will also sign a HIPAA BAA if you have that need.
Beyond these basic things, Intermedia does an excellent job of presenting security-related tools and articulating how and why they are applied. Many platforms, like Google Workspace, simply handle these things for you but don’t make it clear how policies are being applied or how you can control them. Intermedia closes that gap. Even the most black-box component, AI Guardian, works on an existing toolset that administrators understand.
One of the few areas where Intermedia comes up a little short is third-party integration unless you’re all about Microsoft apps. Integration with them and with Intermedia’s own AnyMeeting is great, but beyond that, there’s no integration marketplace and no freely available REST API for making your own. If you’re looking for a broader set of application integrations, you’ll want to check out Google Workspace Business Standard or Zoho Mail.
A Great Email-Focused Microsoft Solution
Intermedia Hosted Exchange is a fine alternative for those migrating from on-premises Exchange to something that’s cloud-hosted. It offers some fantastic improvements over Microsoft 365 when it comes to security, and the bundled AnyMeeting is a solid competitor to Microsoft Teams. You can also enjoy the familiar Microsoft 365 apps if you’re willing to pay a little extra for them. The major barrier to acceptance is the idea that you’re decoupling from the primary Microsoft Cloud—any improvements on the Microsoft side don’t necessarily translate to the offerings from Intermedia. That said, there’s a lot to like, and for the right audience, this platform is a winner.
