eFa Refugee Plan — One Domain Free for a Year

What you get

Months 1–12

£0

One domain, fully protected. All features included:

✓AI scoring on every message (ML + LLM)
✓Live verdict feed and quarantine dashboard
✓25 mailboxes per domain, full sender rules
✓UK-hosted, GDPR-aligned

Month 13 onwards

£9.50/mo

Half price, forever — our gift to eFa refugees. Or walk away. Your call.

✓50% off standard pricing — lifetime, no end date
✓We email you 30 days before the change — no surprises
✓No automatic charge — opt in to continue
✓Export your data and walk away any time

Why we're doing this: eFa filled a real gap — solid open-source spam filtering, free, run on your own kit. Now that it's winding down, hosted SaaS antispam at per-user pricing isn't a great answer for the small business or single-domain admin. We're offering 12 months free plus lifetime half-price because we want eFa's audience to give MxGuard a fair shake without it costing them anything — and to know we'll treat them fairly long-term, not bait-and-switch after the free year.

How migration works

No downtime. Old eFa box keeps running as your safety net.

Apply (this page)

Fill in the form below — your name, email, domain, and where mail should be delivered after we've scanned it (the host running your inbox today, typically the same hostname your eFa points at). We'll review and reply within one business day.

We approve + send you a welcome email

A link to set your password, sign in to your MxGuard dashboard, and an MX migration crib-sheet tailored to your domain.

Update your DNS MX records

In your DNS provider's control panel, change the MX records for your domain from your eFa box to:

Priority	Host
10	mx1.mxguard.uk
20	mx2.mxguard.uk

DNS typically propagates in 5–60 minutes. Slower DNS providers may take up to 24 hours. During this window, some mail still arrives at your old eFa box (which is fine) and some at MxGuard. Nothing is lost.

Watch the live feed

Open app.mxguard.uk/feed and you'll see every message arriving at your domain in real time, with the verdict, score, and signals that drove it. Way more visibility than MailWatch.

Decommission eFa (no rush)

Keep your eFa box running for a week or two as a backup MX. Once you've confirmed mail is flowing through MxGuard with no issues, shut it down.

Stuck somewhere?

Email efa@mxguard.uk with your eFa hostname and what's not working. A real person will get back to you within a few hours (UK business time).

Frequently asked

What if I have more than one domain on eFa?

The free tier covers one domain. For additional domains it's the standard per-domain pricing from day one (£18.99/mo per domain, with volume discounts kicking in at 6+). Apply for the free one first and we'll bundle the rest at the same time.

Will I be auto-charged after 12 months?

No. We never take a card during the free year, so there's nothing to auto-charge. When the year ends, you opt in to continue at £9.50/mo (half the standard rate, forever — our gift to eFa refugees). Or you walk away, and the service simply stops 14 days later. We'll email you 30, 14 and 7 days before that point so it's never a surprise.

Why half price forever — what's the catch?

No catch. eFa filled a real gap for years and its users built a culture around it. We want eFa's audience to land somewhere good, and to know we'll treat them fairly long-term — not bait-and-switch after the free year. So eFa refugees pay £9.50/mo, forever, no end date. New customers arriving via our normal pricing page pay £18.99. Both are fair for what each gets.

What happens to my custom whitelist / blacklist?

You'll need to re-add them in MxGuard's dashboard — sender allow/block lists work very similarly to MailScanner's rules but the storage format is different. For a typical eFa user that's a few dozen entries; ten minutes of copy-paste.

Is MxGuard open-source like eFa was?

No — MxGuard is a hosted service, not a self-hostable appliance. That's the trade-off: in exchange for "I want it to just work, I don't want to patch ClamAV every month, and I want a real human if it breaks," you give up the right to inspect every line of source. We think that's a fair deal for most ex-eFa users, but if open-source self-hosting is non-negotiable, options like Mailcow, Mail-in-a-Box, or rebuilding on Rspamd may suit better.

Where is my mail data stored?

UK only. Mail flows through our UK datacentre (Brighton / London), is scanned in-memory, and delivered onward. Bodies of quarantined mail are retained 30 days by default, encrypted at rest. We never share, sell, or use mail content for anything other than spam scoring. GDPR-aligned; UK data sovereignty preserved.

Why one domain free, not unlimited?

Most self-hosted eFa users protect one domain — their own company's. That's who this offer is for. MSPs running eFa for 20 clients are doing this commercially and should be on a commercial plan (with volume pricing) from the start. The free tier isn't designed to absorb their cost base.

What if my application is rejected?

The most common reason is that your domain isn't actually using a self-hosted MX (e.g. you've already switched to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and forgot). We'll tell you why and you're welcome to subscribe to the standard paid plan at any time. There's no bad blood.

eFa Refugee Plan: one domain, free for 12 months.