Email Encryption Buyers’ Guide 2025

State Of The Encryption Market

Email encryption solutions enable users to encrypt the emails they send so that messages, attachments, and metadata can only be read by the intended recipient.

• The global email encryption software market was valued at USD 7.55 million in 2024, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20.10% to reach a value of USD 32.70 million by 2032.
• This significant growth is being driven primarily by increasing concerns around data breaches and phishing attacks.
• But external threat actors aren’t the only danger when it comes to email; employees can also intentionally or accidentally leak company data, e.g., by sending it to themselves to access after leaving the company, or by sending it to the wrong recipient.
• The need to comply with strict data privacy and protection standards is also driving growth in the email encryption market, with mandates such as GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and CCPA requiring that organizations take steps to secure their communication channels.

Why trust Expert Insights: We’ve researched, demoed, and tested several leading email encryption solutions, spoken to organizations of all sizes about their data loss prevention challenges and the features that are most useful to them, and interviewed executives from leading providers in the email encryption and wider DLP spaces. You can find our product reviews, interviews, and Top 10 shortlists to the best email encryption products on the market in our Email Security Hub.

Email Encryption Recommendations 

Before we jump into the details, here are our top tips on how to get the most out of your email encryptionimplementation:

• For maximum security: Use DLP policies and automation to automatically encrypt certain emails (e.g., when the solution detects sensitive content or when communicating with users in a certain organization). This will mitigate the risk of users forgetting to encrypt messages and protect your data, without impacting the user experience. 
  
• For best adoption rates: Train your users on how to effectively use the encryption platform to help increase usage of the tool. In the same vein, look for a solution that streamlines the encryption process as much as possible, e.g., with a “one-click encryption” inbox plug-in.
  
• For best practice: When in doubt, encrypt! Encrypted email is much more secure than standard email. As such, you should encourage users to use the encryption solution any time they’re sharing confidential information—this ties back into the need for training. 

How Do Email Encryption Solutions Work?

 Email encryption solutions are typically deployed in the cloud or integrated into an email environment via an add-in, a message header, or pre-defined policies. 

Once deployed, there are a few different methods that email encryption solutions can use to secure emails. The most common of these are TLS encryption, AES encryption, PGP, S/MIME, and encryption at rest:

1. TLS (an evolution of SSL encryption) is one of the most widely used encryption protocols, and many popular email service providers (such as Google Workspace) use TLS by default. It eliminates the possibility of a Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attack between the web browser and server client and ensures the integrity of email data in transit. However, it doesn’t secure emails that are stored in users’ inboxes. 
   
2. AES is an encryption protocol that uses block ciphers to encrypt and decrypt data. AES 256-bit encryption (which uses a 256-bit key length and submits data to 14 rounds of encryption) is widely considered the most secure of encryption. It’s very difficult to hack and it’s fast, but it can be tricky to implement manually within software; thankfully, email encryption providers take care of that part for you. 
   
3. PGP has been the default email encryption method since it was invented back in 1991. It provides strong protection against spoofing, and it’s almost impossible to crack when properly implemented. However, it can be tricky to set up, and incorrect setup can lead to security vulnerabilities. 
   
4. S/MIME is a protocol that uses asymmetric keys to protect emails in transit, as well as secure them against tampering and spoofing. It also uses digital certificates to verify sender identity. However, you have to implement it on each user’s endpoint. 
   
5. Encryption at rest does exactly what it says on the tin—it secures data that’s “resting”, i.e., stored, in users’ inboxes. This encryption method ensures data integrity and confidentiality. However, it can be slow to decrypt data. 

You can read about each of these protocols in more detail here. Note that, whichever encryption protocol your chosen email encryption solution uses, the solution will take care of the encryption for you; neither you as an admin nor your users have to manually deploy any encryption protocols. 

So what exactly do users have to do? 

Usually, it’s as straightforward as clicking a button within their email service that will encrypt their message for them. Some email encryption providers also offer the ability to scan emails for sensitive content (such as financial information or personally identifiable information) and encrypt it automatically. 

In terms of the recipient, email encryption solutions often require end users (whether internal or external to the sender’s organization) to open a third-party web application in order to decrypt, read, and reply to encrypted emails; this usually can’t be done natively within the recipient’s email application.

Benefits Of Email Encryption

There are three main benefits to implementing an email encryption solution:

1. Secure your company’s email data: By implementing an email encryption solution, you can ensure that your users’ emails are delivered securely—without tampering or unauthorized viewing—to only the intended recipient.
   
   • “Many people think you only need to encrypt emails with personal data or credit cards, or to meet compliance regulations like HIPAA, PCI, CCPA, and more. So, they think only a portion of their users need to have an encryption license,” says Rom Hendler, CEO and Co-Founder of Trustifi, in an exclusive interview with Expert Insights. “This is wrong, because you want to protect everybody in your organization. If you’re not going to protect everyone, you’re going to be vulnerable.”
     
   • “The biggest security risk to every business is our people,” Tony Pepper, CEO and Co-Founder of Egress, tells Expert Insights. “The overwhelming threat is employees of the business that are well-intentioned, that want to do the right thing, but just make mistakes.”
     
2. Ensure compliance with data protection frameworks: Many data protection standards require organizations to encrypt any sensitive data that leaves the business.
   
   • HIPAA requires all covered entities (healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses) to protect electronic PHI at rest, in storage, and in transit. It also strongly recommends that organizations encrypt any ePHI being sent externally (i.e., beyond their firewall), even if it’s being sent to another covered entity.
     
   • PCI-DSS states that organizations shouldn’t send unencrypted credit card information over open networks, or unencrypted primary account numbers via end-user messaging technologies.
     
   • The FFIEC advises that, in order to comply with GLBA, “financial institutions should employ encryption to mitigate the risk of disclosure or alteration of sensitive information in storage and transit.”
     
3. Improve your company’s reputation: Using an email encryption solution demonstrates to your customers and partners that you care about the integrity and privacy of your communications with them. This can help foster trust and improve your organization’s reputation. 

Common Email Encryption Challenges

There’s one main challenge that you might come across when implementing an email encryption solution: user adoption. 

Email encryption tools often require the end user to carry out an additional step before sending an email, such as clicking a plug-in, managing an encryption key, or prefixing emails with text, e.g., [encrypt]. The inconvenience of this could deter users from using the solution consistently. Similarly, end users trying to decrypt emails may find it frustrating if they have to download specialized software or create an account. This could put off potential clients or partners from engaging with your users’ communications. 

There are a few things you can do to solve these issues: 

1. Look for a tool that makes encryption as easy as possible (i.e., “one-click” encryption).
   
2. Provide your users with training as soon as you’ve deployed the solution so that they understand how to use encryption effectively and why it’s so important. 
   
3. Look for a tool that offers browser-based decryption that doesn’t require recipients to create an account or download anything in order to read encrypted emails. 

Best Email Encryption Providers

Our team of software analysts and researchers have put together a shortlist of the best providers of email encryption solutions, as well as adjacent lists covering similar topics:

• The Top 10 Email Encryption Platforms
• The Top 9 Email Encryption Solutions For Microsoft 365
• The Top 8 Outbound Email Security Solutions

Email Encryption Features Checklist 

When comparing email encryption solutions, Expert Insights recommends looking for the following features:

1. End-to-end encryption: One of the most secure encryption methods, this will ensure only the sender and intended recipient can read the contents of the email.
2. Automatic encryption: The best tools allow you to configure DLP policies that will automatically detect emails containing sensitive information and encrypt them. Some solutions also offer compliance templates for policy creation, to help you adhere to specific requirements relevant to your organization. 
3. Secure attachments: The solution should encrypt email attachments along with the message body to protect all content.
4. Key management: The solution should securely manage all public/private keys for you, including generation, storage, and distribution.
5. Digital signatures: Users should be able to sign emails to verify the sender’s identity and ensure message integrity. 
6. Revocation capabilities: Senders should be able to revoke access to encrypted emails— this is useful if they make a sending error or a device is compromised. In a similar vein, they should also be able to request read receipts and decryption receipts.
7. User-friendly interface: It should be easy for users to encrypt, decrypt, and manage messages without technical expertise.
8. Support for standards: You should be able to choose from a variety of widely accepted encryption standards like PGP, S/MIME, or TLS.
9. Compatibility: The solution should work seamlessly with your email provider (e.g., Outlook, Gmail) and be compatible with different devices and platforms—including mobile devices.
10. Audit trails and logging: The solution should track email access and encryption/decryption activities for security auditing and compliance.

Future Email Encryption Trends

As the email encryption market continues to grow, we can expect to see key trends.

First is the growing integration of AI- and ML-based data loss prevention, which automatically scans emails for sensitive content and encrypts them as needed. While some tools are already doing this, we expect it to become a more common capability. 

Second is the development of stronger encryption methods. Whilst the encryption algorithms being used currently are difficult to crack, the rise of quantum computing means that there will likely be a need for stronger algorithms in the future. Staying on top of this will be key for vendors looking to provide high levels of security. 

Finally, we may see a move towards email platforms offering native email encryption in a bid to make email a more secure communication channel by default. 

Further Reading 

You can find all our articles on email encryption in our Email Security Hub. No time to browse? Here’s a few resources to bookmark.

• Shortlist: The Top 10 Email Encryption Platforms
• Blog: How Does Email Encryption Work And Which Is The Best Type For Your Organization?
• Industry Guide: Email Encryption For Financial Services
• Industry Guide: HIPAA Compliant Email Encryption For Healthcare Organizations
• Industry Guide: Email Encryption For Law Firms

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