So, you assume chat apps, cellular messaging, texting, and Facebook are going to kill email? Think once more. The variety of email customers worldwide has been steadily growing 12 months by 12 months. In 2017, there have been 269 billion emails despatched every day. By 2019, that had grown to nearly 294 billion. And by 2023, Statistica estimates, we’ll be sending greater than 347 billion messages a day.
Clearly, email remains to be a pressure for communication. If you wish to transcend the free email choices, current an expert email tackle, and have some degree of management over your company email communications, you will wish to enroll with an email hosting supplier.
In this text, we current you with a lot of glorious email hosting suppliers who specialise in email and workplace productiveness. Then, we’ll introduce you to some internet hosts that additionally provide strong email hosting packages, in case you wish to contract for internet hosting and email from the identical vendor.
Traditional email-focused hosting suppliers
Here are a few of the prime email-focused hosting suppliers. It’s most likely no shock we kick off with Google’s Workspace (previously G Suite) and Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 and Exchange. But they don’t seem to be the one video games on the town. Keep studying to see some different choices if you happen to do not wish to dwell totally in Microsoft’s or Google’s ecosystem.
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 30GB, 2TB, and 5TB
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Depending on the plan
It was actually a coin toss whether or not we kicked this email supplier record off with Workspace or Microsoft 365. Both are glorious. Workspace integrates an enterprise-level Gmail administration interface with Google Docs, Meet, Calendar, and all kinds of different instruments.
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Pricing is so much less complicated to grasp with Workspace than Office 365. Microsoft gives all kinds of plans and choices that additionally combine into its different licensing pricing constructions. Gmail provides you simply three easy decisions: $6 per 30 days, $12 per 30 days, or $18 per 30 days per person, relying on what enterprise administration options you need.
Unfortunately, when G Suite transitioned to Workspace, the non-enterprise plans misplaced their limitless storage. While G Suite was compelling by itself, the limitless storage made it vital. Removal of that functionality has decreased Workspace’s enchantment, however it nonetheless does an awesome job of mail administration.
More particulars:
Here’s a particular tip: If you wish to get help from Google, get a Workspace subscription. As a Workspace buyer, I’ve been fairly happy with the extent of help offered.
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 50GB and up
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Depending on the plan
Office 365 is turning into Microsoft 365 because… why not? Except, not totally. Home customers will nonetheless get Office 365. This is a superb product, however I swear Microsoft goes out of its strategy to confuse people with its branding modifications. It’s prefer it’s a pastime or one thing.
That mentioned, Microsoft 365 is all of the Office desktop apps, all the Office on-line apps, Microsoft Teams, all the advantages of Exchange, calendaring, cellular apps, and extra. I even have a Microsoft 365 subscription, largely for the Office apps. That mentioned, you can’t go fallacious with Office, er, Microsoft 365. And if you happen to love your Outlook email consumer, you will really feel proper at house with Microsoft 365.
Let Microsoft run your Exchange server
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 50GB and up
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Depending on the plan
Trust me after I let you know that operating Exchange in-house is a giant job. Way again within the day, I nearly misplaced all the things when my (admittedly misconfigured) Exchange server crashed arduous attributable to a failed arduous drive. Even although I assumed I had backups, it took me 13 days to get issues again up and operating.
On the opposite hand, Exchange has been having extreme safety troubles of late. That mentioned, if I had been operating Exchange, I’d a lot somewhat have Microsoft chargeable for making it protected than having to cope with all of it myself.
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I can not let you know what I’d have given to be free of that accountability. That was earlier than Microsoft had Azure and Exchange Online. But now, all it’s essential do is pay a couple of bucks a month, and Microsoft will handle your Exchange operations and ship all of your email messages for you. To be honest, I’d advocate including a couple of bucks and going to the Office 365 Business Premium plan I confirmed you earlier, however nonetheless, what I’d have given for this service again within the day!
Amazon’s AWS service for mail management
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 50GB
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Added payment
So, let’s be clear. You’re email hosted on AWS. That’s just about the gold normal of cloud environments, on a rarified degree that coexists solely with Google and Microsoft Azure. Because it is an AWS-based service, WorkMail integrates with all the opposite AWS companies, permitting you to construct out a comparatively wealthy cloud-based, custom-made infrastructure.
If you are a small firm, simply attempting to arrange a number of email bins, I would not essentially go along with WorkMail. AWS is usually a little difficult to get your head round. But if you happen to’re constructing out a cloud-based company infrastructure the place you want a whole lot of flexibility, safety, and Active Directory integration, WorkMail is unquestionably a viable and confirmed resolution.
Microsoft 365, Exchange, and SMTP email
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: Unlimited
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Added payment
Rackspace is among the authentic cloud infrastructure suppliers. Today, the corporate gives a variety of infrastructure-as-a-service choices, together with full Exchange hosting, Microsoft 365 administration, and conventional email hosting.
The firm gives migration help from different hosts, a big staff of MCSA licensed employees, and the flexibility to help an current Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.
Exchange, SMTP, and email servers
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 10GB or 25GB
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Added payment
Greatmail gives a cloud-based email hosting service with each a web-based consumer and conventional POP3/IMAP shoppers. The firm gives primary email plans with simply email, in addition to a groupware plan that features mail, calendar, and get in touch with syncing.
If you are inquisitive about bulk-sending email, the corporate does provide an SMTP-sending service for “accountable senders.” This service contains outbound relay service for transactional messages, email advertising and marketing campaigns, newsletters, and different purposes.
The firm additionally gives devoted email servers. Greatmail’s Exchange hosting is a standard providing, however it additionally has a plan that enables a mixture of each POP3 and Exchange shoppers to scale back Exchange per-user licensing prices.
Lots of integrated applications to work alongside mail
Zoho is one other a kind of corporations that gives a whole lot of choices. However, as an alternative of providing internet hosting, Zoho gives a variety of cloud-based apps. It’s form of like G Suite on steroids. This is necessary when you begin wanting on the thought of integrating email tightly with CRM. Zoho has a really strong CRM instrument that I used for a few years (and solely stopped after I stopped having to handle gross sales people and make gross sales calls).
While it does provide private email, it is its group or group email that actually shines. The email Web interface is strong, plus it has some intensive administration instruments and a neat little Slack-like function referred to as Streams that permits you to chat whereas outdoors your email field.
Full-featured mail server plus cloud offering
You know, whenever you’re caught at house throughout a worldwide pandemic, you’ve a whole lot of time to assume. And I’ve been fascinated by the identify IceWarp. It simply must be the very best identify of all our hosting suppliers, fingers down.
More to the purpose, IceWarp is an organization that used to promote its personal mail server software program, an installable utility that competed with Exchange. Its since pivoted to develop into a hosting supplier, utilizing software program that runs on its IceWarp server. Its cloud choices now included shared contacts and calendar, collaborative doc modifying, mailing record administration, internet conferences, audio and video calls, cellular apps, and archiving — all obtainable from even probably the most primary plan.
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: Unlimited
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Depending on plan
Intermedia takes a wholesome deep dive into the email wants of enterprises and severe small companies. The firm’s choices begin with both Exchange or Microsoft 365 after which construct on that.
We notably just like the Intermedia Email Protection service that is provided as a part of all its plans. This features a policy-based strategy to spam and malware blocking, anti-phishing safety, point-of-click safety, outbound email safety, and zero-hour safety towards rising threats. All the plans additionally provide video conferencing. Intermedia has limitless storage for all of its Exchange plans.
Web hosting suppliers providing email hosting
Almost each internet hosting supplier gives email of 1 kind or one other. For most, it is only a door-opening choice, however little or no consideration is paid to optimizing the email infrastructure for purchasers. By distinction, the next distributors have extra devoted choices, permitting you to have a single vendor, but additionally one thing of a extra optimized infrastructure.
Everything you ever needed for hosting, including email and upsells
- Your area identify: Yes. And it’d certain prefer to register it for you!
- Mailbox dimension: 5GB and 50GB
- Spam and virus safety: Added payment
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: Added payment
GoDaddy gives… all the things. The firm is among the most prolific software-as-a-service suppliers, focusing totally on something that may be hosted, however with a variety of ancillary companies. The firm gives conventional webmail (which additionally comes with a lot of its hosting plans) in addition to a wide range of particular person and enterprise Microsoft 365 plans.
I’ve been a GoDaddy buyer for effectively over a decade, largely utilizing them as a site registrar. My expertise has usually been optimistic. Although its extra skilled tech help employees aren’t obtainable on a regular basis, I’ve by no means didn’t get any points resolved when reaching out to them for tech help. Here are two articles I wrote fairly a while in the past that give a extra in-depth view of its help service:
Just watch out. While tech help is free, GoDaddy likes charging added charges for all kinds of ancillary companies.
Email with calendar and integrated video
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 10GB or 30GB
- Spam and virus safety: Virus
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone (surcharge for precedence help)
- Archiving and storage: No
We reviewed Hostinger fairly positively when web site hosting suppliers. It ought to be famous that the corporate’s shared internet hosting plan does embody email accounts and mailboxes.
Also: Hostinger web hosting review: Good support and a killer entry-level price
That mentioned, the devoted hosting service offered by Hostinger goes a step additional, utilizing the Flockmail internet consumer that gives built-in calendaring and video name invitations (the place you’ll be able to host conferences for as much as 50 folks).
Web hosting with email hosting thrown in
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: Unlimited*
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Ticket-based
- Archiving and storage: free on some plans
*Keep in thoughts that “limitless” by no means actually means limitless, phrases of service apply.
A2 Hosting does not present separate email hosting companies. Like lots of the web hosts we’ve profiled, A2 gives POP3/IMAP and SMTP hosting as a part of its common internet hosting plans.
Because A2’s email hosting lives on prime of its conventional hosting choices, a wide range of email software companies are simply an set up click on away. Why did we select email from A2 from among the many many internet hosts we have checked out? We like that it gives mail record administration at no further cost.
Email-only plan for those who want their own @domain email address
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 25GB*
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat widget
- Archiving and storage: No
*Oddly, whereas the corporate advertises “Huge 25GB Storage per Mailbox” proper on the prime of their web page, it exhibits this on the FAQ: “25GB is the present restrict. However, you must maintain it underneath 1GB to keep away from points along with your folders loading.”
DreamHost is a simple and comparatively highly effective resolution for email administration. I’ve used its internet hosting companies and located the technical help to be strong. For about $20 a 12 months per mailbox, DreamHost is a viable choice to rapidly get an expert email tackle.
I’d say that the largest profit to DreamHost is the strong anti-spam/anti-phishing/anti-malware providing that lives on prime of an excellent webmail consumer and help for Outlook and all of your cellular desktop gadgets over IMAP.
Standard email, Exchange, and Office 365
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 2GB, 50GB, and 100GB
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone
- Archiving and storage: No
Fasthosts is one other internet hosting supplier providing email hosting as a separate buy-in. It gives a really primary plan for 2 email addresses and two very tiny 2MB mailboxes for about $16 a 12 months. If you need a plan with an SMTP server for affordable, this can be a strategy to go.
But the actual enchantment to Fasthosts is the Exchange 2019 and Microsoft 365 choices. Their Exchange plans provide a few of the largest mailbox sizes we have seen (as much as 100GB). What we notably like is the provision of each internet hosting {and professional} email hosting from the identical vendor.
Microsoft 365 as an upgrade to web hosting
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 15GB or 50GB
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat, ticket, or cellphone (at decreased hours attributable to COVID-19)
- Archiving and storage: Added payment
BlueHost has taken an attention-grabbing strategy to providing email hosting, and we’re spotlighting them largely for the truth that its email enterprise mannequin differs from most internet hosting suppliers.
Rather than including email companies to its regular cPanel internet hosting management, Bluehost pushes clients towards including Office 365. In truth, it is going to solely promote your email hosting if you have already got an internet hosting account with it and that is most likely as a result of, for the primary 12 months, it resells Microsoft 365 at break-even or presumably even a loss. Pricing on that first 12 months is sort of cheap, beginning at $2.99 per 30 days, however it goes up in subsequent years.
Full-featured email hosting with migration assistance
- Your area identify: Yes
- Mailbox dimension: 5GB, 30GB, and 75GB
- Spam and virus safety: Yes
- Aliases: Yes
- 24/7 help: Chat and ticket-based
- Archiving and storage: No
Namecheap will get its identify as a result of it began off life as a site registrar, however has grown right into a full-fledged hosting supplier. I’ve bought SSL certificates from them and located the help to be responsive and the pricing cheap.
We like that Namecheap begins with a 60-day money-back assure, so you’ve greater than sufficient time to arrange and check. It has an awesome mini-enterprise unified administration functionality, permitting you to handle a number of email accounts from one interface. We’re additionally fairly glad to see that the corporate gives a wide range of email migration help choices. It additionally upped its mailbox dimension for the highest two plans from final 12 months.
Our course of
I did some calculating again within the mid-2010s and realized I’d despatched out one thing on the order of 740 million email messages. I’ve constructed, coded, managed, sweated, and swore at email and record servers for a number of many years now. From all that have comes one unyielding fact: It’s far, much better to have one other firm handle your email.
I’ve personally finished enterprise and been a buyer of about half the distributors on this record. I’ve run my email on Exchange servers, by way of Office 365 (now Microsoft 365) and G Suite (now Workspace). I’ve migrated email accounts throughout the web and distributors. I’ve elevated my profanity vocabulary by an order of magnitude.
Also: How to build a website for any business: Your step-by-step guide
My level is: I’ve been down this rabbit gap in nearly each approach conceivable. In making suggestions, I began with the distributors I’m personally acquainted with and really feel comfy recommending. That just about stuffed the record of conventional email hosting suppliers. Then, I picked from the various internet hosts I’ve checked out through the years, retaining a cautious eye on the types of email choices they offered. From the 1000’s of internet hosting suppliers on the market, I picked a number of which have extra in-depth choices or present a greater buyer expertise.
How to decide on
Let me make this easy for you: If you need a no-brainer determination, simply select Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, relying on whether or not you are extra tied to the Google or Microsoft ecosystem. That’s it. Both are glorious choices, present strong if generally irritating help, and can get you the place it’s essential go. Full cease.
All the opposite suppliers are for extra edge-case wants. Do you need one hosting supplier for each internet and email? Then select one of many internet hosts. Do you wish to pay about $12 a 12 months for email? Consider Fasthosts. Do you wish to combine area registration and email? Then contemplate GoDaddy and Namecheap. Do you need Microsoft 365 however need help from one other firm that provides worth to these choices? Consider Intermedia. Do you need a deep, homegrown email providing that has nothing to do with Microsoft or Google? Consider IceWarp.
See? This is what I’m speaking about. if you would like particular case conditions, there’s most likely a hosting supplier right here that may assist. But if you happen to simply need primary, strong email hosting and perhaps collaboration and workplace productiveness apps, it is Google or Microsoft.
What about you? What email hosting supplier do you employ? How has your expertise been? Let us know within the feedback under.
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You can observe my day-to-day challenge updates on social media. Be certain to observe me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
