--- title: Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business Reviews meta\_title: 'Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 24 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 4.0 review\_count: 24 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-07' parent\_category: name: Email Security url: https://www.g2.com/categories/email-security --- # Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business Reviews & Product Details Claimed ###### Profile Status This profile is currently managed by Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business but has limited features. Are you part of the Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business team? [Upgrade your plan](https://sell.g2.com) to enhance your branding and engage with visitors to your profile! Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business is a cloud-based enterprise-class security for small and medium enterprises with email security, continuity, archiving, and social-media protection. * * * Seller [Proofpoint](https://www.g2.com/sellers/proofpoint) Discussions [Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business Community](https://www.g2.com/products/proofpoint-essentials-for-small-business/discuss) Overview by Liz Dennison (Senior Marketing Manager at Proofpoint ) Show More ## Value at a Glance Averages based on real user reviews. ### Perceived Cost $$$$$ [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/proofpoint-essentials-for-small-business/pricing) ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![Microsoft Defender for Office 365](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Microsoft Defender for Office 365") Microsoft Defender for Office 365 4.5/5(299) ](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-microsoft-defender-for-office-365/reviews) [ ![Mimecast Advanced Email Security](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Mimecast Advanced Email Security") Mimecast Advanced Email Security 4.4/5(349) ](https://www.g2.com/products/mimecast-advanced-email-security/reviews) [ ![Paubox](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Paubox") Paubox 4.9/5(620) ](https://www.g2.com/products/paubox/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/proofpoint-essentials-for-small-business/competitors/alternatives) ## User Insights Average based on 24 real user reviews. Perceived Cost $$$$$ [Log in to unlock pricing and user insights](/login) ![Viral S.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Viral S.") VS Viral S. IT SecOps Manager Oil & Energy Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4/29/2026 "Fortifies Email Security with a Few Reporting Hiccups" 5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? I use Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business to manage and strengthen our email security across the our energy's organization. The platform helps protect users from phishing, malware, spoofing, and other targeted threats while giving me the tools to monitor quarantines, review threat activity, and enforce security policy on a daily basis. It's an essential layer in our security stack, especially in a critical infrastructure environment where email-based attacks are increasingly sophisticated. Additionally, the initial setup was significant and saved us a large amount of time from a security standpoint with a straightforward implementation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? One area I can see improvement is the reporting functionality. Some reports feel limited, and certain data isn't always easy to extract without opening a support ticket, only to be told that reporting isn't covered under the break-fix model. More granular, customizable reporting would make it much easier to track trends and investigate user-specific issues. I would also like faster updates to the UI and clearer guidance within the portal, especially around frequently used features for admins. This would make the platform more effective and reduce the amount of manual follow-up required. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solves several major problems for us by dramatically reducing the volume of phishing, malware, spoofing and other email-based threats that target our organization. As an energy company , we are a frequent target for social engineering attempts and the platform blocks most of these attacks before they every reach our users. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Our network of Icons are G2 members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions and commitment to helping others through their expertise.G2 IconValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite JG John G. Systems Administrator Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4/28/2026 "Effective Email Filtering with Room for Improvement" 4/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? I like the Proofpoint digest emails for users as they make it easy to find emails that may have been blocked, including legitimate ones that need to be released. I also find the email logs helpful for detecting inbound and outbound mail. Additionally, the initial setup of Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business was simple. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Azure AD sync was having issues. Shared mailboxes were being disabled after syncs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? I use Proofpoint Essentials for email filtering. It blocks and quarantines spam, is easy to find blocked mail and allows emails to be released if needed. I like the digest emails and email logs for monitoring mail flow. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 4/29/2026 Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Kamal Kumar J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Kamal Kumar J.") KJ Kamal Kumar J. Senior IT Infrastructure & Information Security Manager Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 1/17/2023 "Organization can trust on their service. can trust on ProofPoint Email Security service." 5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? I chosen Proof point Email Protection for Oman Refreshemnt Co for securing office 365 email service. I evaluated and found that Proof Point is the industry-leading email gateway, which can be deployed as a cloud service or on premise. I chosen to deploy this as cloud service as it has excellent features for integration with Office 365 and Azure AD synchronization . It catches both known and unknown threats that others miss. It is Powered by NexusAI, advanced machine learning technology, Apart from this Proof Point has excellent support team which resolves the issues on Priority, I never faced any major issues during last 4 years with email security after deploying ProofPoint as our Email Security Gateway. I chosen Proof point Email Protection for Oman Refreshemnt Co for securing office 365 email service. I evaluated and found that Proof Point is the industry-leading email gateway, which can be deployed as a cloud service or on premise. I chosen to deploy this as cloud service as it has excellent features for integration with Office 365 and Azure AD synchronization . It catches both known and unknown threats that others miss. It is Powered by NexusAI, advanced machine learning technology, Apart from this Proof Point has excellent support team which resolves the issues on Priority, I never faced any major issues during last 4 years with email security after deploying ProofPoint as our Email Security Gateway. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? There is no any major flaws about ProofPoint Email Security services. Orgnisation can trust on their services. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? The ProofPoint is securing the Email communications efficiently. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite GL George L. Systems Administrator Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 11/30/2022 "Highly recommend ProofPoint Essentials for ease, functionality, and amazing email spam filtering!" 5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? I like how easy it is to navigate the site and manage my users. From creating/editing/removing users, to managing and monitoring the organizations quarantine and settings. It is also just as easy to add and remove domains for email relay. Simply the best platform I've used for Email Security in the 13 years I've been with my company. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? There isn't anything I could say negative about ProofPoint Essentials. It really is a beast and so user friendly. I would recommend it over and over to everyone. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? ProofPoint Essentials helps my whole organization and all its users with blocking Spam emails and allowing the ease to manage their own as well allow me to manage Sender Lists for allowing and blocking and also create rules. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Verified User in Motion Pictures and Film](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Motion Pictures and Film") AM Verified User in Motion Pictures and Film Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 12/1/2022 "Proofpoint Essentials is a highly capable set of tools!" 5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? The ability to customize the filtering policies is excellent. I also love that it can handle multiple domains. Social media protection is a great addition. Log searches are a breeze to complete. Support has been very helpful when needed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Thus far, there hasn't been anything that I don't like. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? The amount of spam has been reduced tremendously. Also, the ability to peer into an email or its attachments with opening them in users client has been super helpful. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerSource: Organic ![Verified User in Information Technology and Services](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Information Technology and Services") UI Verified User in Information Technology and Services Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 9/17/2020 "Solid Filtering, But Occasional Issues Cause Headaches" 3/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Proofpoint does a good job at it's primary job, filtering spam. It has been fairly reliable with only a few false positives. The interface is intuitive and easy to use and the daily spam journal emails are a nice feature. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? In the 7+ years that we have been using the system, there have been several outages that prevented our clients from receiving email. In some cases, the email was not just delayed, but permanently lost. Attachment scanning can take longer than expected sometimes. I have waited up to 15 minutes for an email with a simple PDF attached to be released. Archiving is lacking, we needed to switch several clients to other archiving solutions because Proofpoint did not meet their needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business: Consider a support team to work through occasional outages and issues. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? The program significantly helps reduce the amount of junk email that we and our clients receive. The interface is intuitive enough that our clients do not require a lot of support. We can focus on other issues and not need to spend too much time helping clients reduce spam. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Our network of Icons are G2 members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions and commitment to helping others through their expertise.G2 Icon 5/6/2022 Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Mike S.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Mike S.") MS Mike S. Manager of Information Technology Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 9/30/2021 "Right Sized Performance and Price" 4.5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? I wanted a cloud-based email gateway, a spam filter, advanced threat protection, and email security awareness training for our employees. Proofpoint gave me all three at a price we could afford. Other bundles I considered either included too many features (driving the price up), or they didn't include all of the things I wanted. So this was just the perfect fit for us. On-boarding was pretty smooth. We recently migrated to Office 365, and we had to configure our account so our old spam filter could send non-quarantined emails. That experience probably helped to make this onboarding process a little smoother. But I don't want to take away from the onboarding people at Proofpoint. They are good at this! Tech support is very responsive. No kidding, you call the support number and an actual tech answers the phone! No tier 1 person answering the phone. They answer the phone and dive right into the solution, awesome! If there is a wait time, just request a call back (automated). I've never waited more than 10 minutes. Our email gateway is now in the cloud with Proofpoint, so if our HQ is down, email keeps flowing. The catch rate on both spam and phishing emails is better than our previous spam filter, which was highly rated for its catch rate (catch rate on phishing emails is now much better). Global Allow and Block lists are easy to add/change/delete, and we were able to import the lists from our old solution. Proofpoint uses "Filter Policies," whereas our old solution used "regular expressions," which are difficult at best. These filters are pretty easy to set up and are very flexible. Using variations of these filters, I can easily prevent senders from spoofing key people in the organization, and I can allow our Mailchimp emails to get through while still blocking all other Mailchimp emails, and so on. Lots of options. The email log is also very usable. I can search just quarantined emails, or all emails, or select one of several other options. I can filter by sender, recipient, or subject. You can also add senders, or entire domains to the Allow list, right from the log view. Of course, you can release emails from quarantine from this view as well. If you have several as a result of a search, you can release them all at one time. Email encryption! We have been using third-party products, but no more. Now we can install a plug-in for Outlook, and the encrypt option is right there for the user to choose when they wish. I can also select criteria, and trigger an encryption automatically (like an email that contains a credit card or social security number). There are other features, other things to like. It is a full-featured solution, borrowing much of its technology from Proofpoint's more expensive enterprise solutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Even though I have experience sending out phishing campaigns with a different product, I've not been able to muddle through that part of Proofpoint Essentials yet. I've tried a couple of times, but I've gotten bogged down with the training/learning part. Learning the previous solution was pretty difficult too, so this is probably an unfair "dislike," but I do dislike things that are hard! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? Next time the power in this area goes out, the executive team will love that emails are still hitting their smartphones, and they have full access to emails via office.com using any browser. Communications will be much better. We used to get a lot of phishing emails. Emails telling employees their password in Office 365 needed to be changed, or they can release quarantined emails, and so on. Proofpoint is catching all of these, much better than our old spam filter, which caught spam pretty well, but was not so good on phishing emails. The Filter Policies have allowed me to finally solve some problems I couldn't solve with the old spam filter. That filter required too much time and effort, so I just had to live with some of the issues (like our marketing department using Mailchimp to send email campaigns, which the old filter would block). Filter policies do require some knowledge and ability, but it is much easier than the old spam filter. And again, tech support can get right into your portal, see your email, your issue, and they'll create the filter for you. You can copy any existing filter, so creating a new filter is usually not a "from scratch" process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite MS Marti S. I Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 12/30/2021 "Proofpoint to the rescue!" 5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Proofpoint monitors all our incoming email and spares us from dealing with the plethora of junk, spam and an abundance of unsolicited email! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? I think it needs some refinement as it blocked emails from within company emails, didn't make sense. If they learned our organizations email address is pretty safe, maybe filtering wouldn't block our own people. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? It filters the junk we do not to see in our very busy days. When time permits, we can log into our individual portal and control what stays and what goes and design a safe list of email recipients from outside the organization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Information Technology and Services](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Information Technology and Services") UI Verified User in Information Technology and Services Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 9/23/2021 "Decent Spam Filtering" 3.5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Proofpoint helps keep unwanted sales and spam emails out of my inbox. My favorite upside is the daily digest notification showing you all the captured emails. It allows me to review everything quarantined in case there was something caught that shouldn't have been. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Occasionally important emails are caught. I won't know this until I receive the daily digest notification which can cause delayed responses. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? By implementing Proofpoint for our clients, it has slowed the amount of unwanted email which increases productivity and decreases the human element risk for phishing emails. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Accounting](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Accounting") AA Verified User in Accounting Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 11/30/2021 "Great email filtering with many options" 5/5 What do you like best about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Very easy to manage and understand interface. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Searching the logs is a bit slow at times. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business: This cloud service provides anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-phishing, URL protections, and ER mailbox for our business. So, it checks quite a few boxes in this category for us. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business solving and how is that benefiting you? Email filtering and protection Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ## Questions about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business? Ask real users or explore answers from the community Get practical answers, real workflows, and honest pros and cons from the G2 community or share your insights. [ Ask about Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business ](https://www.g2.com/products/proofpoint-essentials-for-small-business/discussions/new) GU Guest User What is Proofpoint Essentials for Small Business used for? 0 Upvotes 0 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-proofpoint-essentials-for-small-business-used-for) [ View all Discussions ](https://www.g2.com/products/proofpoint-essentials-for-small-business/discuss) ##### Pricing Pricing details for this product isn’t currently available. Visit the vendor’s website to learn more. 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