vs
Zoes vs. Proofpoint Essentials
The short version
DNS changes
None
Zoes
MX records point to Proofpoint
Proofpoint
Mail between employees
Checked
Zoes
Never crosses the gateway
Proofpoint
Price for 100 mailboxes
$482.50 / month, billed yearly
Zoes
About $393-942 / month
Proofpoint
How you buy
Directly, online
Zoes
Through a partner
Proofpoint
What is actually different
Mail path
Nothing changes; mail arrives as before
Proofpoint: All inbound mail passes through Proofpoint first
Compromised accounts
Sees phishing sent from one employee to another
Proofpoint: Only sees mail crossing the perimeter
Buying
Online, no reseller
Proofpoint: Through partners
Each flagged email
Labelled with the attack type
Proofpoint: Quarantine digest and admin console
Why teams choose Zoes over Proofpoint
Nothing in front of your mail
No MX change and no gateway in the delivery path. If a vendor has an outage, your mail still arrives.
Catches attacks from inside
Zoes checks mail between employees, so a hijacked account phishing its colleagues is caught too.
A price you can see
Published per-mailbox pricing that drops as you grow - $5 a mailbox above 50. No sales call.
The attack type on every flagged email
Invoice fraud, credential phishing, impersonation - each dangerous email is labelled, so whoever handles IT knows what it was without a security analyst.
Full comparison
Proofpoint Essentials prices are from a published partner price list (October 2026) and vary by package and partner. Proofpoint is a trademark of Proofpoint, Inc.; Zoes is not affiliated with it.
Questions
Do I need to change MX records for Proofpoint Essentials?
Yes. Proofpoint Essentials filters mail as a gateway, so your MX records point to it. Zoes needs no DNS changes.
Why does gateway vs. API matter?
A gateway only sees mail crossing your perimeter. A phishing email from one compromised employee to another never passes through it; Zoes reads the mailbox, so it sees that too.
What does Proofpoint Essentials cost?
It is sold through partners. Published partner prices run from about $3.93 to $9.42 per user per month, depending on the package.
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