The PEC (i.e. the Certified Electronic Mail) is an increasingly requested tool to be able to send and receive certified emails from the Public Administration, from professionals with VAT number and, more generally, from companies. In fact, it is gradually replacing the old and slow Fax, which until now was considered the only means by which to send a document and to be sure that the recipient had received it.
If for work or necessity we need a PEC, in this guide we have collected all the services that allow you to have a free PEC for a limited period of time, so you can receive and send the necessary emails without having to necessarily take out a monthly subscription; if your needs will lead you to receive and send many PECs, it is definitely worth choosing the service we like best and paying for it, so that we always have it available.
READ ALSO: How to get a PEC Email address (certified mail)
What is the PEC
The functioning of the PEC is quite simple, although at the beginning it could put a novice user in difficulty. In short, a PEC differs from a traditional email due to its advanced sending and receiving system : every time we send a PEC, a unique certificate is generated, managed by the mail server and available to both the sender and the recipient: the first will receive a notification that certifies the sending and also a notification that certifies the receipt of the email by the recipient, while the latter will have the certainty of having received an email from that specific person.For Italian law, the PEC has the same legal value as a registered letter with return receipt, therefore it can be used instead of the traditional registered mail service to send packages of important documents, contracts, certifications and any other document required by the Public Administration. and private companies.
Precisely for this reason we will have to protect the PEC in a much more scrupulous way than just email, avoiding to communicate it too much around and to enter it online: unauthorized use can lead to very serious legal consequences, since everything we send is certified to our name (so we are fully responsible for it).
The PEC is a completely different thing from the SPID, which we have explored in our guide How to activate SPID: complete guide .
The best free PEC services
After presenting a brief excerpt on how PEC works, let's see together the PEC services that can be used for free for a limited period of time. Unfortunately at the moment there is no 100% free service, we will have to be satisfied with the limited free trial services.PEC Legalmail
The first service that we recommend to use to have a free PEC is PEC Legalmail, managed by InfoCert.
After opening the page, click below on Free trial, so that we can start the registration immediately and, upon activation, we will have 6 months of free trial for the chosen service.
By activating the PEC Silver plan, we will obtain an 8 GB PEC mailbox, including services related to the security archive, access to the mailbox from Android and iPhone and convenient SMS notifications. At the end of the trial period, the service will cost us € 39 + VAT per year .
If we want to save something we can also subscribe to the PEC Bronze plan, available at a cost of € 25 + VAT per year (a simple 5 GB PEC). If instead we want the complete service we will have to focus on the PEC Gold plan, the cost of which is 75 € + VAT per year (for a complete PEC with 15 GB of space, in addition to all the benefits already seen in the Silver plan).
PEC Register.it
Another PEC service that we can try for free for a limited period of time is PEC Register.it.
By opening the site, simply click on the Activate 6 months free button, located under the 2 GB Agile PEC section, then follow all the steps indicated in order to have our free PEC immediately. At the end of the 6-month trial period, we will pay the chosen plan (ie PEC Agile) 25 € + VAT per year, with the addition of SMS notification services and access also from Android and iPhone smartphones.
If we need more space at the time of renewal, we can also subscribe to the PEC Unica plan, which allows you to have a 3 or 5 GB PEC mailbox, so that you can store a greater number of certified emails. Depending on the capacity chosen, the cost of the service also changes: for the 3 GB we will have to pay € 1.98 per month + VAT, while to have the 5 GB box we will have to pay € 3.44 per month + VAT.
Economic PEC services
In this part of the guide we will show you some PEC services so cheap that they can be opened immediately, so as to save a lot during the year.Postecert
If we want to rely on a safe and reliable organization, nobody beats the PEC offered by Poste Italiane, that is PosteCert.
With only 5 € + VAT per year (for the private user profile), we will have a complete PEC box, with 200 mailings per day, domain @ postecert.it, 100 MB of space and the possibility of adding additional space at any time ( paying every additional 100 MB 1 € + VAT).
A simple PEC, but ideal for those who want to spend very little and still want to have a PEC for companies and public administrations.
Aruba PEC
One of the most reliable PEC services in Italy is Aruba PEC, a famous company that provides sites, hosting and more at competitive prices.
Currently this is the best PEC box for those who want to save but want to have a lot of space and advanced features: in fact with this PEC we will have (at the cost of 5 € + VAT at the first renewal, then 7.9 € + VAT per year ) 1 GB of space, integrated antivirus and antispam system, the dedicated Aruba PEC app and advanced service for reading electronic invoices.
If we want to increase space and services, instead of the PEC Standard plan (which we illustrated earlier), we can focus on the PEC Pro and Premium plans, which at a higher cost allows you to have up to 8 GB of archive and SMS notifications.
Conclusions
As we have seen, the PEC services can also be tried for free, so as to be able to meet an urgent need to be solved. By taking advantage of both PEC services with a free trial, we can have up to one year of PEC for free, after which we will have to decide which service to keep and (inevitably) pay for. If we want to pay immediately and keep the PEC for a long time, we advise you to focus your eyes on Aruba PEC, which offers the right amount of space and integrated services at a good price.We want to access the PEC from our smartphone or tablet "> App to access certified PEC mail from iPhone and Android.
If, on the other hand, we are looking for programs to be able to manage e-invoices for free, we continue reading our guide to free and complete E-Invoice Programs .
Have we received a PEC on normal email and don't know how to open EML files? We discussed this issue in our article on How to Open EML Files in Email .
