DefendDomain compared to Proofpoint
Proofpoint is an enterprise email security suite, and lookalike domain detection is one feature of its Email Fraud Defense product.
We call you within one working day. Or book a 30-minute demo: enough for us to give you a clear annual price for your domains.
Proofpoint at a glance
Proofpoint sells enterprise email security. Its lookalike domain detection is a feature of Proofpoint Email Fraud Defense, a DMARC and domain protection product inside that suite (older Proofpoint material calls the lookalike detection Domain Discover), not a standalone Digital Risk Protection (DRP) product.
DefendDomain finds the lookalike domains registered to impersonate you and gets them taken down when they are used against you, so the two solve different halves of the same problem and are more often bought together than instead of each other.
- Proofpoint is built around
- Enterprise email and collaboration security
- Typically sold to
- Enterprise
- Typical annual cost
- Quote only, no public pricing
DefendDomain and Proofpoint, side by side
The short version, before the case for either of us. Every claim in the Proofpoint column comes from their own published material.
What the product is built around
DefendDomain
Finding web addresses made to look like yours and getting them taken down: lookalike domains, new certificates, copies of your website and of your wording, plus a daily check of your own domains
Proofpoint
Lookalike domain detection is a feature of Proofpoint Email Fraud Defense, their DMARC and domain protection product, inside a broad email and collaboration security suite
Lookalike domains that never host a website
DefendDomain
We check the email set-up (MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records) of every registered lookalike. When one is set up to send email, we flag it, even if it has no website
Proofpoint
Their published approach flags MX records on lookalike domains as a risk indicator, and they state they aim to stop attacks before they strike. Checking the rest of a lookalike's email set-up (SPF, DKIM and DMARC records as well as MX) and flagging when it can send email is not listed in their public material as of September 2026
When someone copies your website
DefendDomain
The optional website marker (a small script or a 1×1 image on the pages you choose) reports when a copy of a page loads somewhere else, and we search the web for distinctive phrases from your site
Proofpoint
Not part of their published impersonation capability. Cloned sites are outside the email security remit
Takedowns
DefendDomain
Unlimited on Pro and Enterprise. One click sends the evidence to up to 12 places at once, with automatic follow-ups to the host, registrar and registry
Proofpoint
A takedown service for lookalike domains is publicly described, with their material referring to assistance in getting domains taken down. Packaging and volume are not published, so check your quote
Your own domains
DefendDomain
A daily check of your own domains (email security, DNS and takeover risk, certificates, website settings, exposed files), graded A to F, with a fix for each finding
Proofpoint
A genuine strength on email authentication specifically, through their DMARC and email fraud tooling. A daily graded scorecard across DNS hygiene and takeover risk, TLS, web hardening and exposure is not part of the published impersonation offering
How you buy it
DefendDomain
Pro: an annual plan priced by the number of domains you protect, where you approve each takedown. Enterprise: priced to your needs, with our analysts running the takedowns
Proofpoint
Sales-led bundles, priced on user licences, package tier and contract term. Pricing is quote only and no price list is published
Comparison based on Proofpoint's own public product material as of September 2026. Vendors change their products, so check anything that matters to you against their current documentation and your own quote. Proofpoint is a trademark of its owner. DefendDomain is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Proofpoint.
The facts your vendor review will ask for
About DefendDomain only. Check the same points with any vendor on your shortlist.
- What we check
- Around 500 lookalikes of each of your domains across 240+ domain endings, re-checked every hour. 100+ public certificate logs, watched as entries appear. Copies of your website and of your wording. Your own domains, checked daily and graded A to F.
- Where a takedown goes
- One click sends the evidence to up to 12 places at once: the registrar, the host, the email provider the domain sends through, an abuse-report network, blocklists and threat feeds, browser warning lists and search engines. Not every place applies to every attack: a domain with no website has nothing for a search engine to remove.
- Follow-up
- Automatic. We chase the host and registrar again at 48 and 96 hours, go to the registry at 120 and 168 hours, and tell you if nothing has moved after 30 days. Most takedowns take between 2 and 96 hours.
- Who approves a takedown
- On Pro, someone on your side confirms it is a live attack and approves it with one click. On Enterprise, our analysts check every alert and run the takedowns. Takedowns are unlimited on both.
- Alerts
- Email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, SMS, webhook, Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel and Wazuh.
- Security and data
- ISO 27001 certified (certificate 535732026) and Cyber Essentials certified. UK GDPR and EU GDPR. Our main database is hosted in London (AWS eu-west-2).
- Which plan suits whom
- Pro suits companies that approve takedowns themselves. Enterprise covers unlimited domains and brands, run by our analysts.
- Price and contract
- Pro is an annual plan with 5 domains included, priced by the number of domains you protect. Enterprise is priced to your needs. Both are annual: a 12-month minimum, renewing each year unless you give 30 days' notice. We do not publish the Pro price yet.
We call you within one working day to talk it through.
ISO 27001 certified · Cyber Essentials certified · Winner, teiss Cyber Security Start-up of the Year 2026
What Proofpoint does well, and who should buy them
Taken from what Proofpoint publishes about its own product. If this is the shape of your problem, they are a reasonable buy and we will say so.
Email authentication at enterprise scale
Proofpoint publicly leads on domain spoofing defence through DMARC roll-out, and on protecting the mail your own applications send on your behalf. If getting DMARC to enforcement across a large, messy estate is the project in front of you, that is squarely what they are built for.
Compromised supplier detection
Their impersonation material puts real weight on detecting a supplier whose account has been taken over, which is a different attack from a lookalike domain and a genuinely hard one to spot from outside the mail flow.
One vendor for the whole communication stack
If you already buy email security from Proofpoint, adding impersonation protection to that contract is the simplest route through procurement, and that has value.
Where DefendDomain goes deeper
We work on one problem: web addresses made to look like yours, and copies of your website. We find them, tell you which can send email or show a copy of your site, and get them taken down when they are used against you.
The domain has to exist before the email can be sent
Email security judges a message once it has been sent to you, which is after the fake domain was set up. We watch around 500 lookalikes of each of your domains across 240+ domain endings, re-check them every hour, and flag each one that is registered, set up to send email or issued a certificate.
Your customers and suppliers are not behind your inbox
The mail that does the damage is often never sent to you at all. It goes to your customers, to your suppliers, and to your own finance team from a domain that looks like a supplier. No inbox filter you own sees any of it, because it never passes through your systems.
Takedowns as well as filtering
When a lookalike is used against you, the evidence is already gathered. One click sends it to up to 12 places at once: the abuse teams at the registrar, the host and the email provider, blocklists, browser warning lists and search engines. That goes after the attacker's domain, rather than protecting one mailbox.
What each of us costs
Most vendors in this category do not publish a price list. This is how each of us charges.
- What Proofpoint publishes
- Proofpoint does not publish pricing for its domain monitoring, so anything you know about the cost will have come from your own quote.
- What moves the number
- In this category the number usually tracks three things: how many brands and domains you put under watch, how many modules you switch on, and whether takedowns are included or metered.
- How DefendDomain charges
- There are no user licences in our price. Pro is an annual plan priced by the number of domains you protect, with unlimited takedowns. We do not publish the Pro price yet either: ask for a pricing call and we call you within one working day.
Choose Proofpoint if
- Your primary problem is inbound email security and getting DMARC to enforcement across a large estate.
- You need compromised-supplier-account detection inside the mail flow, which is a different attack from a lookalike domain.
- You are an enterprise already standardised on Proofpoint and a single contract matters more than depth on the domain layer.
- You want one vendor across email, data loss prevention and awareness training, and you accept impersonation as one module within that.
- Most of your phishing losses so far have arrived through the inbox rather than through a domain nobody in your company ever saw.
Choose DefendDomain if
- The domains that worry you are the ones attacking your customers and suppliers, where your own inbox controls never get a look.
- You need to know when a lookalike with no website is set up to send email.
- Somebody has copied your website, or you think they might, and you want to know when a copy of your pages loads somewhere else.
- You want unlimited takedowns rather than a quota, with follow-ups to the host, registrar and registry sent automatically.
- You want a product a finance or IT lead can run: someone on your side approves each takedown with one click on Pro, or our analysts run them on Enterprise.
What moving actually involves
There is no software to install and no data to move. Lookalike monitoring, certificate watching and the daily check of your own domains need only your domain names. The website marker is optional: a small script or a 1×1 image on the pages you choose.
Step 1
Add the layer Proofpoint does not watch
Almost nobody moves off Proofpoint to buy us, and we would not suggest it. The realistic shape is that the mail gateway keeps doing its job on the mail reaching your tenant, and we watch the domains registered to attack the people outside it.
Step 2
Your Proofpoint renewal does not gate this
The email gateway stays exactly where it is, so there is no contract to unwind and no renewal date to wait for. This is an addition to the stack rather than a replacement in it, which means the only timing question is your own budget cycle.
Step 3
Route our alerts into the tools you already run
Alerts can go to email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, SMS, a webhook, Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel or Wazuh. Nobody needs to live in another dashboard, and no existing workflow has to be rebuilt.
Questions buyers ask us about Proofpoint
How much does Proofpoint domain monitoring cost compared to DefendDomain?
Neither of us publishes a price, so the answer is about how each of us charges. Proofpoint Email Fraud Defense is sold as part of an enterprise platform and quoted as one. DefendDomain Pro is an annual plan priced by the number of domains you protect, with unlimited takedowns. Enterprise, where our analysts run it for you, is priced to your needs. Ask us for a pricing call to compare.
Do we need DefendDomain if we already have Proofpoint?
They solve different halves of the problem, so they work together. Email security decides what reaches your people. DefendDomain watches what attackers are building outside your perimeter, which is the lookalike domains registered against your brand and the copies of your website that appear elsewhere. The fraud that does the most damage is usually aimed at your customers and your suppliers, so it never travels through your systems and your inbox controls never see it.
Is DMARC enough to stop domain impersonation?
DMARC stops somebody sending mail that claims to come from a domain you own, which is worth doing and which our daily check of your own domains grades. It does nothing about a domain the attacker owns. A lookalike of your name is a different domain, so the attacker can publish perfectly valid SPF, DKIM and DMARC records on it and the mail authenticates cleanly. Stopping that means finding the domain itself and taking it down.
What does DefendDomain cover that an email security suite does not?
Three things in particular. Lookalike domains that never host a website and exist only to send a handful of fake invoice or payroll emails, which we catch on their email set-up. Copies of your website, found by the optional website marker and by searching the web for your wording. And takedowns: one click sends the evidence to up to 12 places at once, with automatic follow-ups.
Comparing more than one vendor
Most shortlists have three names on them. The same comparison is here for the others, or start from the full comparison hub.
Free scan. No account, no card details.
See your own exposure before you shortlist anybody
Whichever way this decision goes, it is worth knowing which lookalikes of your domain are already registered. The free scan checks 150+ of them in a couple of minutes and emails you the report.
- Typos, other endings and added words, such as yourcompany-invoices.com
- Which ones are registered, and which are set up to send email as you
- The report in your inbox, usually in a couple of minutes. No account, no card details, no sales call.
