This week we published how buying a Check Point license through cAIberOps works: the price beat, the free trial, the monthly check-in. This post is the timeline that goes with it. If your email security renewal lands in the next two or three months, here is what to do, in order, so that the renewal quote is a decision rather than an invoice.
It is written for a business that already pays for a dedicated email security product, such as Proofpoint, Mimecast, Barracuda or Abnormal AI, runs it with its own staff or IT provider, and would consider Check Point Email Security for the same job at a lower price. If you would rather hand the whole thing off, that is a different service, covered at the end.
Find the renewal date and the notice window
Many email security subscriptions renew for another term unless somebody says otherwise. Pull up the agreement and look for two things: the renewal date, and any notice period for cancelling or changing the order before it. If your agreement has a notice period, that date is the one to work from. Put both on the calendar. If you cannot find the agreement, ask the vendor or the reseller who sold it to you for the renewal date and the notice terms in writing; they have them.
Sixty days out is the comfortable starting point: room for a two-week trial, a quote, a decision and a switch without anyone working the weekend before the renewal. Thirty days is enough for us. The trial takes two weeks and the comparison usually comes back within two business days, so a renewal that is a month away is still a renewal we can work.
Get the renewal quote in writing, itemized
Ask for the renewal quote now rather than waiting for it to arrive. Ask that it be itemized: the product name, the tier or package, the number of users or mailboxes, the term, and the price per user per period. A single total in an email is not enough to compare against, and it is not enough for our promise either. The quote has to be issued to your business, for a paid standalone license, and dated within the last 30 days when you send it to us; a bundle price that folds email security into other services does not qualify, because there is no like-for-like line to beat.
Some vendors publish a list price for their entry plan; your renewal quote is often a different number, which is why we ask for the quote and not the list. If the renewal price went up from last year, note the old number too. You do not need to argue about it; you need it on paper.
Name your tier, and count the mailboxes you use
Vendors sell email security in tiers, and the names rarely tell you what is inside. Before you compare anything, write down which protections your current tier includes: pre-delivery scanning or post-delivery removal from the inbox, attachment sandboxing, URL rewriting or click-time checks, account takeover protection, internal mail inspection, and anything bundled in such as archiving or awareness training. Your vendor's datasheet or your admin console lists them. This is the list we map to the matching Check Point tier, so that the comparison is the same protection on both sides rather than a cheaper quote for a thinner product.
Then count. Licensed users and mailboxes in use drift apart over a year: people leave, shared mailboxes get created, contractors come and go. Renewals are usually priced on the licensed count, so a count that is higher than the people you have is money you pay for empty seats. Fix the number before anyone quotes anything. On a Check Point annual license bought through us, the licensed user count is set at the order and reviewed at renewal, so the count you give us is the count you pay for during the term.
Send us the quote; we beat it with the matching Check Point tier
With the itemized quote and the tier list in hand, send them to us. We identify the Check Point Email Security package that matches your tier, quote it for the same number of users and the same term, and beat the price on your quote. Apples to apples, we will beat that price. Guaranteed, on those terms. A beat, not a match. If your current tier is lower than the Check Point package you would want, we beat the quote with the Check Point tier that matches your current tier and quote the higher tier separately, so you can see what the step up costs. If you are planning to move up a tier at renewal anyway, send the higher-tier quote and we beat that one with the matching Check Point tier.
The comparison usually comes back within two business days. We register the opportunity with Check Point, which is how partner pricing works, and we are a small partner rather than one of the large resellers you would reach by default; a lower price and a person who stays on the account are the reasons to buy here. We do not publish a license-only price list, because the right number depends on the product, the tier, the count and the term.
Run the free two-week trial alongside what you have
Do not take our word, or Check Point's, for how the engines perform on your mail. The free two-week email security assessment connects Check Point Email Security to your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace by API, with no MX change, in Monitor only mode.
Monitor only means the platform inspects mail after delivery and reports; it does not sit in the mail path. During the assessment it takes no action: it watches what arrives and how it flows, and we quarantine nothing; no message is held, moved or deleted. Your current product keeps working exactly as it does today, which is the point: you see what it let through, on your own mail, with your own examples.
Check Point's own documentation sets the default Email Security trial at 14 days with the full feature set, which is why the assessment runs two weeks. The first stretch of the trial is calibration: Check Point's anti-phishing engine runs what it calls Learning Mode, which Check Point puts at "a couple of minutes to 72 hours, depending on the number of protected mailboxes and the volume of their emails," and during it, per Check Point, no email is flagged as phishing or spam. The report covers the days after that. Monitor only stays on for the whole two weeks: the platform looks and reports.
If you buy at the end of the trial with the connection still in place, there is no second calibration: the license goes onto the account that is already watching your mail. If you disconnect and come back later, the tenant is reconnected, calibration runs again, and then the policy moves to Prevent (Inline). At the end we show you what reached your inboxes and, for each example that matters, what we would have done in the same situation. You get the written report and the walkthrough, and you keep the report whether or not you buy. Started 45 days out, the trial is finished a month before the renewal; started 30 days out, it still finishes about two weeks before the renewal, with the quote already on the table.
Decide with time to spare, and plan the switch
With two weeks to go you have the renewal quote, the Check Point quote that beats it, and two weeks of evidence from your own mail. Decide then, not the day of the renewal.
If the answer is Check Point, the switch is lighter than people expect: the platform is already connected from the trial, and the policy moves from Monitor only to Prevent (Inline), which per Check Point "scans the emails prior to delivery to the user"; in Microsoft 365 that step creates the connectors and mail flow rules Check Point needs, and your admin sees them. Retiring the old product is your job or your IT provider's, on the day you choose: for a gateway, that means pointing your MX records back to Microsoft or Google; for an API product, disconnecting it. We do not touch your MX records at any point. You run the console; we are on the call when the switch starts, and the monthly check-in begins the first month.
If the answer is to stay, you still leave with a current itemized quote, a clean user count, and a two-week report on what your filter let through. That is a better renewal than many businesses get.
What this route includes, and what it does not
Licenses bought through us are Check Point licenses: the same engines, in your own Infinity Portal account, with Check Point's technical support under the support plan on your quote; we tell you which plan it is and who to call before you buy. For the term of a license bought through us, once a month, you get a short written report and the offer of a call: what the platform's monthly report shows, what changed, what Check Point released and whether we think you should turn it on, and a renewal heads-up, typically about 60 days out, with the count checked. The same promise applies to Harmony Endpoint and other Check Point products where a comparable competitor product exists.
License only means license only. We do not watch your quarantine, release your held mail or tune your policies; those are the managed service. This is not a penetration test or a vulnerability scan, and we do not sell either. We do not write policies or certify compliance.
If you would rather have email security off your plate
If what you want is email security handled for you, not a cheaper license to run, we do that too. The other route is Managed Email Security: the license and the managed service together, where we run the platform. On the year-end offer it is $6.40 per user per month ($5.60 for registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits; $8 list). The offer is 20% off (30% for registered 501(c)(3) nonprofits) on a 12-month Managed Email Security agreement signed by December 31, 2026, new customers only, no onboarding fee. That offer is for the managed agreement; the license-only route is priced against your quote, as above.
How to start
Send the renewal quote you have, or the renewal date if the quote has not arrived yet, and tell us which tier you are on and how many mailboxes you use. We come back with the Check Point package that matches, the price against your quote, and a date for the trial. We work with small and medium businesses and nonprofits nationwide, including Washington DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland. To start, book a free 15-minute call, or see the services page.
Sources: Check Point Email Security administration guide (Threat Detection Policy and Email Protection modes; Learning Mode; Trial information; Office 365 connectors and mail flow rules); the price promise terms as stated in this post and in the Check Point license post on caiberops.com; the Managed Email Security offer terms as stated in the Managed Email Security post on caiberops.com.
