How to choose the best email hosting service for your business
So you think chat apps, mobile messaging, texting, and Facebook are going to kill email? Think again. The number of email users worldwide has been steadily growing year by year. In 2017, there were 269 billion emails sent each day. By 2019, that had grown to almost 294 billion. And by 2023, Statistica estimates, we’ll be sending more than 347 billion messages a day.
Obviously, email is as yet a power for correspondence. In the event that you need to go past the free email contributions, present an expert email address, and have some degree of command over your corporate email interchanges, you’ll need to join with an email facilitating supplier.
In this article, we present you with various great email facilitating suppliers who represent considerable authority in email and office efficiency. At that point, we’ll acquaint you with some web has that additionally offer strong email facilitating bundles, on the off chance that you need to contract for web facilitating and email from a similar seller.
Traditional email-focused hosting providers
Here are some of the top email-focused hosting providers. It’s probably no surprise we kick off with Google’s G Suite and Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 and Exchange. But they’re not the only games in town. Keep reading to see some alternative options if you don’t want to live entirely in Microsoft’s or Google’s ecosystem.
Amazon WorkMail
So, let’s be clear. You’re looking at email hosted on AWS. That’s pretty much the gold standard of cloud environments, on a rarified level that coexists only with Google and Microsoft Azure. Because it’s an AWS-based service, WorkMail integrates with all the other AWS services, allowing you to build out a relatively rich cloud-based, customized infrastructure.
In case you’re a smaller organization, simply attempting to set up a couple of email boxes, I wouldn’t really go with WorkMail. AWS can be a touch of testing to get your head around. Be that as it may, in case you’re working out a cloud-based corporate foundation where you need a great deal of adaptability, security, and Active Directory combination, WorkMail is unquestionably a practical and demonstrated arrangement.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 50GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone
- Archiving and storage: Added fee
G Suite by Google
It was really a coin toss whether we kicked this email provider list off with G Suite or Office 365. Both are excellent. G Suite integrates an enterprise-level Gmail management interface with Google Docs, Hangouts, and — depending on what plan you choose — a ton of online storage in Google Drive.
Pricing is significantly less complex to comprehend with G Suite than Office 365. Microsoft offers a wide assortment of plans and choices that additionally incorporate into its other authorizing evaluating structures. Gmail gives you only three straightforward decisions: $6 every month, $12 every month, or $25 every month per client, contingent upon what endeavor the executives highlights you need.
I have personally subscribed to a five-user subscription for years, and haven’t once regretted doing so. Here’s a special tip: If you want to get support from Google, get a G Suite subscription. As a G Suite customer, I’ve been quite pleased with the level of support provided.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 30GB, 1TB, and unlimited
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone
- Archiving and storage: Depending on the plan
Microsoft 365
Microsoft Office 365 is becoming Microsoft 365 because… why not? Except, not entirely. Home users will still get Office 365. This is a fabulous product, but I swear Microsoft goes out of its way to confuse folks with its branding changes. It’s like it’s a hobby or something.
That said, Microsoft 365 is all the Office desktop apps, all of the Office online apps, Microsoft Teams, all the benefits of Exchange, calendaring, mobile apps, and more. I also have a Microsoft 365 subscription, mostly for the Office apps. That said, you can not go wrong with Office, er, Microsoft 365. And if you love your Outlook email client, you’ll feel right at home with Microsoft 365.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 50GB and up
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone
- Archiving and storage: Depending on the plan
Thexyz has been hosting email longer than most email service providers. Today, the company offers a wide range of infrastructure-as-a-service options, including full Exchange hosting, Office 365 management, and traditional email hosting.
The company offers migration assistance from other hosts, a team of MCSA certified staff, and the ability to support an existing Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 25GB and 100GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone
- Archiving and storage: Added fee
Greatmail
Greatmail offers a cloud-based email hosting service with both a web-based client and traditional POP3/IMAP clients. The company offers basic email plans with just email, as well as a groupware plan that includes mail, calendar, and contact syncing.
In case you’re keen on mass sending email, the organization offers a SMTP-sending administration for “capable senders.” This administration incorporates outbound transfer administration for value-based messages, email promoting efforts, bulletins, and different applications.
The company also offers dedicated email servers. Greatmail’s Exchange hosting is a traditional offering, but it also has a plan that allows a mix of both POP3 and Exchange clients to reduce Exchange per-user licensing costs.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 10GB or 25GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone
- Archiving and storage: Added fee
Zoho Mail
Zoho is another one of those companies that provides a lot of offerings. However, instead of offering web hosting, Zoho offers a wide range of cloud-based apps. It’s kind of like G Suite on steroids. This is important once you start looking at the idea of integrating email tightly with CRM. Zoho has a very solid CRM tool that I used for many years (and only stopped when I stopped having to manage sales folks and make sales calls).
While it does offer individual email, it’s its gathering or association email that truly sparkles. The email Web interface is strong, in addition to it has some broad administration devices and a perfect minimal Slack-like element considered Streams that allows you to visit while outside your email box.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 5GB or 50GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Email and ticket
- Archiving and storage: Added fee
Ymoz is compatible with Exchange, ActiveSync, and POP3/IMAP access so your users can access their inboxes using any email client including Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or through SOGo webmail.
Ymoz is also an open-source dockerized project that can be a self-hosted email stack for hosting inboxes at your custom domain with better privacy than Google WOrkspace or Office 365. For growing organizations, especially those with 50 to 100 inboxes or more, hosting your own email server can be far more economical
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 1GB and 50GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- Support by ticket and open-source community
- Archiving and storage: Added fee
Web hosting providers offering email hosting
Pretty much every web facilitating supplier offers email of some sort. For most, it’s only an entryway opening alternative, yet next to no consideration is paid to upgrading the email foundation for clients. On the other hand, the accompanying merchants have increasingly committed contributions, allowing you to have a single vendor, but also something of a more optimized infrastructure.
Hostinger
We reviewed Hostinger quite positively when looking at website hosting providers. It should be noted that the company’s shared web hosting plan does include email accounts and mailboxes.
That said, the dedicated hosting service provided by Hostinger goes a step further, using the Flockmail web client that provides integrated calendaring and video call invites (where you can host meetings for up to 50 people).
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 10GB or 30GB
- Spam and virus protection: Virus
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone (surcharge for priority support)
- Archiving and storage: No
A2 Hosting
A2 Hosting doesn’t provide separate email hosting services. A2 offers POP3/IMAP and SMTP hosting as part of its regular web hosting plans.
Because A2’s email hosting lives on top of its traditional hosting offerings, a wide range of email software services are just an install click away. Why did we choose email from A2 from among the many web hosts we’ve looked at? We like that they offer mail list management at no additional charge.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: Unlimited*
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Ticket-based
- Archiving and storage: free on some plans
*Keep in mind that “unlimited” never really means unlimited, terms of service apply.
Dreamhost
DreamHost is an easy and relatively powerful solution for email management. I’ve used its web hosting services and found the technical support to be solid. For about $20 a year per mailbox, DreamHost is a viable option to quickly get a professional email address.
I’d say that the biggest benefit to DreamHost is the solid anti-spam/anti-phishing/anti-malware offering that lives on top of a good webmail client and support for Outlook and all your mobile desktop devices over IMAP.
Fasthosts email hosting
Fasthosts is another web hosting provider offering email hosting as a separate buy-in. It offers a very basic plan for two email addresses and two very tiny 2MB mailboxes for about $12 a year. If you want a plan with an SMTP server for cheap, this is a way to go.
But the real appeal to Fasthosts is the Exchange 2019 and Office 365 offerings. These plans offer some of the largest mailbox sizes we’ve seen (up to 100GB). What we particularly like is the availability of both web hosting and professional email hosting from the same vendor.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 2GB, 50GB, and 100GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone
- Archiving and storage: No
BlueHost
BlueHost has taken an interesting approach to offering email hosting, and we’re spotlighting them mostly for the fact that its email business model differs from most web hosting providers.
Rather than adding email services to it normal cPanel web hosting control, Bluehost pushes customers towards adding Office 365. In fact, it will only sell your email hosting if you already have a web hosting account and this is probably because, for the first year, it resells Office 365 and break-even or possibly even a loss. Pricing on that first year is quite inexpensive, starting at $2.99 per month, but it goes up in subsequent years.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 15GB or 50GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat, ticket, or phone (at reduced hours due to COVID-19)
- Archiving and storage: Added fee
Namecheap
Namecheap gets its name because it started off life as a domain registrar, but has grown into a full-fledged hosting provider. I’ve purchased SSL certificates from them and found the support to be responsive and the pricing reasonable.
We like that Namecheap starts with a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you have more than enough time to set up and test. They have a great mini-enterprise unified management capability, allowing you to manage multiple email accounts from one interface. We’re also quite glad to see that the company offers a variety of email migration support options.
- Your domain name: Yes
- Mailbox size: 5GB, 10GB, and 15GB
- Spam and virus protection: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 support: Chat and ticket-based
- Archiving and storage: No
HOW TO CHOOSE
Let me make this really easy for you: If you want a no-brainer decision, just choose G Suite or Microsoft 365, depending on whether you’re more tied to the Google or Microsoft ecosystem. That’s it. Both are excellent offerings, provide solid if sometimes frustrating support, and will get you where you online.
If you need perhaps better support or more specialized solutions. Do you want one hosting provider for both web and email? Then choose one of the web hosts. Do you want to pay about $12 a year for email? Consider Fasthosts. Do you want to integrate domain registration and email? Then consider Thexyz and Namecheap. Do you want Microsoft 365 but want support from another company that adds value to those offerings? Consider Intermedia. Do you want a deep, homegrown email offering that has nothing to do with Microsoft or Google? Consider Thexyz.
This is what I’m talking about. if you want special case situations, there’s probably a hosting provider here that can help. But if you just want basic, solid email hosting and maybe collaboration and office productivity apps, it’s Google or Microsoft.
What about you? What email hosting provider do you use? How has your experience been? Let us know in the comments below.
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