Paubox and Virtru both encrypt email that carries patient information for clinics on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, but they protect it in different ways.
Clinics, health plans, and digital health vendors that need HIPAA-compliant email without forcing recipients through a portal
Health systems shopping IoMT device security or third-party risk assessment suites
Health systems and digital health vendors that need persistent encryption on Gmail, Outlook, and shared files with revoke and expiration controls
Solo therapy practices that only need inexpensive secure webmail with forms
Paubox encrypts outbound healthcare email so recipients read PHI in ordinary inboxes instead of a separate portal, and starter plans appear on paubox.com with volume tiers.
Virtru applies data-centric encryption to email and files inside Gmail, Outlook, Google Drive, and SharePoint, including revoke and expiration controls, with gateway and client options.
Paubox is usually a mail-flow change rather than a multi-month project. Virtru prices by protected seats and Drive or SharePoint volume, with no stable public healthcare list price.
Paubox sells inbound filtering, archiving, an API, and marketing email as add-ons. Virtru sells a mail gateway and desktop or browser plugins as separate options.
“I don't understand how Paubox.com is secure compared to services like Virtru. Virtru isn't as user friendly since it needs plugins/apps but it seems more secure than Paubox. With Virtru, secured messages are never actually transited via email which means as a sender we aren't leaving PHI in our outbox, we aren't counting on the recipients email system to be secure and in case of an error we have the chance to remove access to a message after it's sent.”
John-Mc · r/hipaa · · source
“Big fan of Paubox. It makes it easy to create and customize HIPAA forms without a lot of extra steps. I use Google Workspace with Paubox.”
sleepwell-bewell · r/therapists · · source
Choose Paubox when clinic IT wants outbound PHI encryption that recipients open in a normal inbox.
Choose Virtru when the security team needs controls that stay with the file after it leaves Outlook or Gmail.
Skip both if the clinic only texts patients or uses the EHR inbox and has no email encryption requirement.