Email has been an important way to communicate online for decades, and it’s likely to stay that way for many more. Even though there are a lot of free email services for users and businesses, many of them aren’t good for office use because they don’t have features like central management. We looked at the best small business email hosting, the benefits, and reviews of each hosting service.
What Is Email Hosting and Why Use One?
An email server is managed by an email hosting provider. By subscribing to the email hosting service, you can obtain an email hosting server. To utilize an email service, all you need is a domain name. An email hosting service can be used to keep, send, and administer your email accounts. To ensure that emails are sent on time to their intended recipients, the majority of large e-commerce sites have their own email servers. Small businesses, on the other hand, rely on email hosting services offered by organizations like Google, Zoho, Rackspace, and many more.
Most web hosting companies now provide email hosting servers as a supplement to their standard offerings, including shared, dedicated, and cloud hosting. Of them, Cloudways is one. With a Rackspace email hosting solution, it provides managed cloud hosting services.
What Are the Advantages of Utilizing Business Email?
The benefits of utilizing business email include:
#1. Builds Trust
Not having a known face behind your company will make it harder to gain the trust of your target audience. Nowadays, anyone can sign up for a free email account, so if your company is trying to gain customers’ trust, you’ll have to do something to set itself apart.
The first step in running a successful business is establishing trust with your consumers, and you can do so with a professional email address. The use of separate email addresses for billing, sales, jobs, and support might help your small staff appear larger.
#2. Protects Sensitive Business Data
Malware assaults, spam, and invasive adverts are all common problems for free email hosting services. They aren’t equipped to safeguard users’ interests in the way that is necessary, so they’re not secure. Also, you can’t rely on complete privacy with your email.
If you own a company, you have a responsibility to protect not only your own interests but also those of your customers and their personal information. As a result, you shouldn’t put your company in danger by relying on free email providers that pose security risks.
#3. Saves Your Emails from Going into Spam Filters
Without adequate security measures, free email accounts are an easy target for malware and spam. If you rely on email marketing to drive sales, offering free emails to your customers could be detrimental to your bottom line. The reason for this is that the emails you send could be marked as spam. All your hard work will be for naught if your clients don’t bother to check their spam folders.
However, if you outsource your email hosting to professionals, you may avoid having your messages bounce or end up in spam. Therefore, you can continue to reap the benefits of email communication with your clientele.
#4. Backup and Privacy
Many free email services have a significant chance of being hacked, shut down without warning, or both. If your company doesn’t regularly back up its data, losing this data could be disastrous. In addition to losing potential customers’ and clients’ private communications, you also lose access to sensitive company data.
#5. Branding
Using your company’s name in your email signature is a great way to build recognition for your brand. Customers will have more faith in your company just because of the name.
Small Business Email Hosting
After getting a feel for how crucial business emails are, check out the following list of reputable email hosting services.
#1. Google Workspace
Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite) is just Gmail, so it’s easy to set up a professional email account for your company. It has a ton of cool features, including admin controls, and doesn’t bombard you with adverts. Small business email hosting features time- and energy-saving technologies that are specifically developed to increase your business’s output.
With Google Workspace, you can share and edit files in real time with your coworkers and use the shared calendar to arrange meeting times, making email communication not only simple but also cutting-edge. All of your company’s data, users, and devices will be safe since it is built on Google’s secure infrastructure. It gives you complete control over your email and performs automatic cloud backups of your data.
Gmail, Calendar, Currents, Chat, Meet, Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Websites, Apps, Scripts, Drive, Cloud Search, Keep, Admin, Vault, Endpoint, and Extensions are just some of the capabilities it provides.
#2. A2 Hosting
When it comes to email marketing, you can rely on A2 Hosting’s extensive suite of email tools and capabilities. When it comes to email, you have two options: Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) or Post Office Protocol (POP3). In addition, RoundCube and Horde, two popular webmail clients, come set up and ready to go. In addition, Mailman is included to facilitate communication with anyone who has opted in to receive emails from your organization.
With the email hosting service, you can count on a higher guaranteed uptime, giving you more room to maneuver with confidence in your business’s consistency. Free email tools are included with each email hosting account. The cPanel interface provides access to and management of all of these features.
#3. ScalaHosting
ScalaHosting is a reliable business email hosting service that guarantees 100% delivery and utmost security. A separate cloud environment for email boxes comes with several advantages, and ScalaHosting provides just that.
ScalaHosting is the most effective means of bypassing spam filters and increasing brand recognition. Also, it helps you set up sales and email addresses, so your staff can respond fast to each lead or request. In addition, it employs SShield, its proprietary, top-tier cybersecurity solution. For companies to be protected from hackers, SShield uses basic logic, verifies and inspects code, and detects dangerous activity.
#4. Titan
Titan’s business email package provides email at your domain and productivity-enhancing features to assist small businesses to expand their brand and cultivate meaningful interactions with their customers.
Titan also facilitates the importation of contacts from other email services and the management of several accounts from a single dashboard. As an added bonus, their helpful and educated support staff is on hand at all times of the day or night. All emails sent by small businesses are guaranteed to be delivered with a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
#5. DreamHost
Get in touch with consumers and potential clients with confidence by using DreamHost’s expert email hosting services. Your website’s email address could be used for outbound communication.
You can get started with DreamHost without switching hosting plans. Any domain name you possess will function properly on our dependable, easy-to-use, and robust platform. Emails can be moved about using the drag-and-drop interface, addressed to specific people with the click of a mouse, and subject lines with the click of a mouse. Emails are kept in sync across all of your devices (laptop, smartphone, tablet, smartwatch, desktop, and so on) thanks to cutting-edge IMAP support.
#6. Zoho Mail
Do you want hosting that is safe, encrypted, and ad-free?
You can rest certain that your information is secure on Zoho. This email hosting service provides swift and improved defenses against spam and malware. It gives you legitimate-looking email addresses that will boost your company’s credibility. Zoho Mail’s data centers are monitored 24/7 by advanced security systems, so you can count on them being available whenever you need them to be. In addition to using S/MIME to encrypt individual messages, we employ end-to-end encryption to safeguard all of your email traffic.
#7. Rackspace
Rackspace is a great alternative for businesses searching for low-cost email hosting. Professional-looking email communications are within reach of even the smallest of enterprises. You could avoid unwanted messages and harmful software with premium filtering. In addition, it safeguards the confidentiality of your company’s most secret information.
Rackspace’s devoted professionals additionally make it easy to switch over to a new business email address. Just remember your domain registrar and let Rackspace handle the rest.
#8. Microsoft 365
Using Microsoft 365 as your email service provider will allow you to create professional emails and keep in constant contact. You may check your inbox, shared calendar, and contact list from any computer or mobile device.
Do not freak out if you misplace your phone with all of your work emails on it. To protect sensitive company data, you can still delete emails remotely. Thanks to Microsoft 365, you may personalize each and every email you send by utilizing a unique format, adding your own domain name and photos, and so on.
#9. GoDaddy
Use GoDaddy’s professional-looking email services to make an indelible impression on your customers. It has user-friendly tools like a webmail interface, a task manager, and a calendar. The emails are responsive on desktop computers and mobile phones alike, and they sync automatically to ensure that you always get the most recent version.
GoDaddy’s anti-virus filters and 256-bit encryption can prevent over 300 million viruses and other malware from entering your mailbox every day. It provides the highest level of protection possible by integrating automatic threat monitors, complex data analytics, and a dedicated group of security professionals.
#10. Amazon Workmail
To complement its compatibility with popular mobile and desktop email clients, Amazon Workmail provides a safe and simple to administer business email solution. Outlook and other native Android or iOS email apps that use the IMAP protocol allow you to easily access your emails, calendars, and contacts. They are also available via any online browser.
Connect your email system to your existing company directory without any disruptions. It not only lets you store information securely but also encrypts it. In addition, the SDK allows you to manage users, resources, and groups, and set up compatibility with Microsoft Exchange Server.
#11. Fastmail
Fastmail’s flexible design makes it simple to craft professional emails that reflect the look and feel of your company’s website. When sending and receiving emails, you may intelligently organize everything in a single inbox. By coordinating your team’s access to email, contacts, and calendars, you can speedily disseminate information and set up timely meetings.
Topicbox provides a central hub for all team members to access and contribute to shared information and allows for streamlined communication. Employing this function, you can create and manage an archive for your business. Secure your emails and other sensitive information with Fastmail’s powerful features and controls.
Do I Need Hosting for Email?
You can keep your email in-house without paying a third party to do so. Email hosting on your own servers is possible. However, this requires you to register your domain name and manage an email server on your own. Businesses can save themselves a lot of hassle, money, and time by outsourcing their email hosting needs to a third party.
What are the Most Important features to look for in an Email Hosting Provider?
Spam filters are a must for protecting your inbox from unwanted messages, and you should also be able to establish an unlimited number of email addresses for yourself and your staff, use email forwarders for when you’re not at the office, and establish auto-responders and other similar features to handle messages when you can’t respond manually. You should have a large mailbox, ideally unlimited.
How Do I set up an Email Hosting Server for My Small Business?
The following are proven ways to set up your email hosting for your small business.
#1. Selecting the Server Hardware
Although servers are capable of many different things, they are most useful when they are dedicated to one or a small number of activities. Your server’s hardware and features requirements should be determined by the kind of operations it will be performing. The capabilities of various server types are determined by their respective hardware and features. Depending on the workload expected of the server, several configurations of CPU, hard drive, and memory may be appropriate.
#2. Selecting the Server Operating System
Servers need special operating systems that are more reliable and made to handle a lot of users at once. Most servers use one of the following operating systems:
- Essentials for Windows Server
- Linux Ubuntu Server
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- CentOS
#3. Choosing a Server Location in the Office
Your server needs its own space, preferably a whole room. The use of a tiny tower server does not negate the need for dedicated server space. Separating the offending server is a good idea for both noise reduction and security reasons. Many potential threats to data security can be reduced or eliminated by restricting who has physical access to the server. In some cases, this may be required by law.
#4. Server Configuration
Setting up the server’s OS is the first step in configuring the machine. Installing from a virtual disc is quite similar to installing on a physical computer. Sometimes a server will have its OS already installed. When this occurs, you can get right into the configuration process.
#5. Implementing Server Security
To put it simply, your server is perhaps the most vital piece of equipment in your workplace. They play an essential role in every aspect of running a business, from providing services to customers to exchanging information and managing databases. Servers are enticing to hackers because of their important role in keeping businesses running. As a result, protecting servers is a top priority.
How to Choose the Best Email Hosting Providers for Your Small Business?
Since email has been the primary means of online communication for so long, it is only fair that you subscribe to the top email hosting provider to ensure reliable email hosting services.
Whether or whether your email hosting service provides a secure environment should be one of your top priorities. Since some corporate emails contain critical information, it’s important to use a hosting solution that safeguards your inbox from hackers.
Third-party email hosting shared web and email hosting, and self-hosted email is all viable options, but you must choose one.
Selecting an email hosting service that allows for customization and provides round-the-clock assistance is also crucial. The email hosting service you select should give you the flexibility to customize your inbox to your specific needs.
You should also consider storage space and reliability while deciding on an email hosting service.
How Can I Create My Own Email Domain for Free?
The following are the step by step on how to create your own email domain name for free.
#1. Get a Free Email Domain With Mail.com
You can use Mail.com if you’d like a free email domain without having to worry about setting up your own web hosting or registering your own domain name. This supplier doesn’t allow you to make your own email domain, therefore it might not be the greatest option for an already-established company. A generic domain name from a premade catalog may be the best option, though, if you’re a one-man show or a startup with few resources.
#2. Create an Email Domain With Zoho Mail
Zoho Mail makes it easy to create a free email account that corresponds to your existing domain name (for usage, say, with a website). This email provider has several pricing tiers, the cheapest of which (Forever Free Plan) allows up to five users, five gigabytes of storage space, and twenty-five megabytes of attachments.
Click the “Forever Free Plan” button at the bottom of Zoho Mail’s price page to have your free email domain set up. You’ll have to scroll down a bit to locate it; it’s not as prominent as the premium options.
#3. Receive a Free Email Domain From Bluehost
This approach is not completely free because it requires you to pay for a web hosting package. If you must host a website anyhow, though, Bluehost is a good, low-cost alternative that includes a custom domain email address, a free domain name for a year, and a free SSL certificate.
If you want to present yourself online in a credible manner, this is the way to go. It’s simple to install, integrates well with WordPress sites, and provides a wealth of resources for building a new website.
#4. Get a Free Email Domain From Dreamhost
With some DreamHost hosting services, you may get a free and unique email domain. To repeat, this approach does not come without cost. This could be a cheap option, though, if you’re also looking for a hosting service.
Please be aware that the email domain is a paid add-on to some of the hosting options. If you go with the Shared Starter plan, for instance, you’ll have to shell out more cash if you want a dedicated email account. Therefore, we advise going with DreamPress, which has monthly plans beginning at $16.95.
How Much Should Email Host Cost?
What is the average annual cost of an email hosting service? Hosted email services can be had for less than a dollar monthly, and often even for nothing. A cheap hosted email service will typically cost you around $1 per user per month.
What is the Best Free Email for Small Businesses?
Here is a list of the best free email hosting for your small business services:
- HubSpot Email Hosting
- Gmail
- Outlook.com
- iCloud Mail
- Zoho Mail
- Yahoo! Mail
- AOL Mail
- Mail.com
Does Gmail work for small businesses?
When you set up Google Workspace for your company, learn the best practices for using Gmail. A Google Workspace account may be more advantageous for you if you wish to use Gmail for work purposes rather than a personal Google Account. Start a free trial of Google Workspace.
Conclusion
New and improved functions in email make it easier than ever to stay in constant contact with clients and leads. Not only do professional-looking business emails help spread awareness of your brand, but they also provide credibility to your operations. By using one of the aforementioned email hosting services, you may save time, ensure the safety of your customer data, and gain the trust of your consumers.
Small Business Email Hosting FAQs
How much should I pay for email hosting?
In rare circumstances, you can find free or extremely low-cost email hosting. Prices for hosted email services typically begin at roughly $1 per user per month.
Does Google offer free email hosting?
You can keep using Gmail without cost and keep your own domain name, and you can keep utilizing other Google Workspace services like Drive, Meet, Search, Maps, and YouTube without paying a dime.
Is GoDaddy a good email host?
GoDaddy is a powerful web host that includes Microsoft Office email functionality and provides top-notch customer care.
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