Amazon WorkMail Is Shutting Down: What You Need to Know

Amazon WorkMail is sunsetting on March 31, 2027. Here's what that means for your team, your timeline, and your options for migrating.

The announcement

On April 1, 2025, AWS announced that Amazon WorkMail will be discontinued on March 31, 2027. Starting April 30, 2026, no new WorkMail organizations can be created. If you're running WorkMail today, you have roughly a year to find a new home for your team's email.

This isn't a drill. AWS has published official guidance recommending customers migrate to third-party providers like Zoho, Zoom Workplace, or Kopano.

Why is WorkMail shutting down?

AWS never said it explicitly, but the writing has been on the wall for a while. WorkMail received minimal updates over the past few years — no modern web UI refresh, no mobile app improvements, no integration with newer AWS services. It was a solid, quiet service that did one thing: email. But it wasn't growing, and AWS likely decided the engineering resources were better spent elsewhere.

What's the timeline?

  • April 30, 2026 — No new WorkMail organizations can be created
  • March 31, 2027 — WorkMail fully shuts down
  • Now through March 2027 — Existing customers can continue using WorkMail normally

That gives you about 11 months from the cutoff to migrate. It sounds like a lot, but email migrations are notoriously tricky — DNS propagation, user communication, client reconfiguration, testing. Don't wait until February 2027.

What are your options?

AWS recommends three providers: Zoho Mail, Zoom Workplace, and Kopano. Let's be honest about each:

Google Workspace ($7.20/user/mo) — The gold standard for email, but your data leaves AWS entirely. If you chose WorkMail because you wanted email on your infrastructure, Google is the opposite of that.

Microsoft 365 ($6/user/mo) — Same story as Google. Powerful suite, but your email data now lives in Microsoft's cloud. You also get a bunch of tools you may not need.

Zoho Mail ($1-4/user/mo) — Affordable, but less mature. Your data moves to Zoho's infrastructure. Limited IMAP support on lower tiers.

inbox.camp ($4/user/mo) — That's us. We're building the direct replacement: managed email hosting that runs on your AWS account. Same price as WorkMail. Your mail stays in your S3, sent through your SES, DNS on your Route 53. We handle the hard parts.

What should you do right now?

  1. Don't panic. You have time. But start planning now.
  2. Audit your WorkMail setup. How many users? How many domains? Any mail flow rules or aliases?
  3. Decide what matters. Is keeping data on AWS important? Do you need IMAP? Web UI? What's your budget per user?
  4. Evaluate your options. If staying on AWS matters, join our waitlist. We're launching Summer 2026 — well ahead of the WorkMail shutdown.

We're building the replacement

inbox.camp was built specifically for this moment. We auto-detect your WorkMail organizations, domains, and users. We cut over your DNS in under 10 minutes. Your team keeps using their email clients — Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird — without skipping a beat.

Same price. Same AWS infrastructure. Better experience. Get on the waitlist and we'll let you know when it's ready.