10 Best Business Email Providers for Small Business in 2023

Having professional email on your domain is vital for brand credibility, and it’s very affordable. The best business email providers offer ample storage, advanced features, and extras like free domains, SSL (secure sockets layer), video calling, and office productivity software at a low cost. We compared dozens of options and ranked the best email services for small businesses below.

Best Business Email Providers at a Glance

*With annual billing
**First-year pricing, renews at a higher rate

Take our quiz to find out which business email provider works best for you.

We evaluated the best business email providers against 20 different data points to come up with an overall score. Our criteria include scoring based on firsthand experience either testing or using the email service in real-world settings. Providers are ranked below by the overall score earned against all criteria.

Google Workspace: Best Business Email Provider Overall

One of the biggest reasons to choose Google Workspace (and Gmail) for email hosting is that it comes with a full suite of office software. Everything you need to communicate, collaborate, and generate documents, spreadsheets, and slide-based presentations is at your fingertips, 24/7, thanks to web-based apps that automatically save and sync.

Starting at $6, plans come with Gmail business email plus Google Meet video conferencing and Chat, integrated into the email dashboard. Also included is Google Drive storage (from 30GB to 5TB, depending on your plan), advanced administrative controls, and thousands of email apps and third-party integrations.

Google Workspace comes with the secure business-class version of Gmail. It includes professional email on your domain and comes packed with the productivity and collaboration tools preferred by six out of 10 U.S. businesses. Plus, setup is easy; learn how to set up Gmail for business email in a few simple steps.

This hard-to-match level of value puts Google at the top of our list of the best business email providers for small businesses. Gmail’s closest competitor, Outlook via Microsoft 365, has more advanced features, but some features are locked behind the second tier where desktop apps can be downloaded. Read our head-to-head comparison of Microsoft 365 vs Google Workspace to learn more.

Google Workspace Pricing & Plan Features

For most small businesses, the Starter plan will be all that’s ever needed. If you do want to increase storage or video conferencing limits or increase security, upgrades are available. Click the tabs below to learn more.

Want to know more about the specific features Gmail provides to business email users? Read our list of the top Gmail tips and tricks.

Our Expert Opinion

Google Workspace’s plans with Gmail for business email start at $6 a month. The feature-rich plans are value-packed with industry-leading communication, collaboration, and productivity apps. Shared docs, spreadsheets, presentations, calendars, and video conferencing make it the best email provider for just about any small business, especially for collaborative teams.

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Bluehost: Best All-in-one Solution for Web & Email Hosting

Bluehost is a leading WordPress web hosting company. Its web hosting plans include five to unlimited email addresses and a free domain and SSL for data encryption security. It’s the best business email provider for startups and small companies ready to build an online brand presence and want to save money with a bundled solution that includes secure, reliable email hosting.

From the second plan tier up, unlimited emails and storage are included. This makes it a great option for email users who need a lot of storage, such as those handling large graphics or video files.

For more details, read our step-by-step instructions for setting up Bluehost webmail. You can check your mail from any web browser and download the Bluehost mail app to your smartphone and other devices. It’s also easy to add your email address to your favorite email client (e.g., Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail, and so on).

All plans come bundled with everything needed to build brand presence online, including a WordPress website builder perfect for beginners. Plus, WordPress will be installed, and core updates will be managed for you. Bluehost also has web and email hosting plans that are ecommerce-ready for online stores, including all the plugins you’ll need to get your site up and running.

Bluehost Pricing & Plan Features

Bluehost plans are one-stop solutions for web and email hosting. Plans come bundled with a free domain name, SSL/TLS (transport layer security) to encrypt your data and protect it from hackers, and a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder. Learn more about each plan in the tabs below, keeping in mind that all plans are billed annually.

Our Expert Opinion

Bluehost includes free business email hosting in web hosting plans. Plans start at just $2.95 with web hosting, domain, SSL, and five email accounts, or $5.45 monthly for unlimited professional email accounts. This makes it a good choice for new businesses that are building an online presence and need both web hosting and email at a great value.

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IONOS: Cheapest Business Email Plans With a Free Domain

IONOS is one of Europe’s leading web hosting companies and domain registrars. Besides web hosting, it offers standalone secure business email hosting in plans as cheap as $1 per month. You can use IONOS’ intuitive and full-featured web-based mail interface from any browser or add your email address to your favorite email app.

On the cheapest plan, you get 2GB of storage, anti-spam filters, an SSL/TLS certificate for data encryption, a huge 70MB max attachment limit, and a free domain name. The domain inclusion alone saves you anywhere from $10 to $15 a year or more. On the premium plan, you get all that plus more storage, basic collaboration tools, and advanced antivirus protection for as little as $2.50 per user.

I’ve used IONOS for web and email hosting for over 15 years. I expected reliability and security, but what sets them apart is the level of customer support provided. The few times I’ve had an issue, I spoke to a live person within minutes, and that person has nearly always been able to resolve the problem. As a solopreneur digital marketing consultant, having that level of assistance at the ready was invaluable.

IONOS Pricing & Plan Features

The pricing below reflects the cost of IONOS standalone email hosting. They include plans for individuals and multi-users for up to five or 10 users. Click the tabs below to learn more, or visit IONOS to get email included in its website builder, domain registration, or web hosting plans.

Looking for a cheap email-domain-and-web bundle? IONOS is the champ when it comes to cheap email hosting options. If you buy a domain, the Basic business email and SSL are included for free. Email is also covered in IONOS’ web hosting and website builder plans—both of which start as low as $1 per month the first year.

Our Expert Opinion

Although IONOS’ email hosting plans lack tools like video conferencing, at $1 to $5 per month, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better (or cheaper) business email provider. It has everything you need to get started, protects you with advanced anti-virus and anti-spam filters, has high attachment limits, and helps you save money by throwing in a free domain.

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DreamHost: Best for Unlimited Business Email Addresses

DreamHost is an excellent option for budget-conscious small businesses looking for a multiple account email hosting option. Recommended by WordPress, DreamHost is a web hosting provider, and like Bluehost, it offers value-packed web hosting that comes with business email, domain, and SSL.

The Shared Unlimited plan is just that—unlimited emails on your domain, each mailbox enjoying 25GB of storage. The plan also allows for unlimited websites and comes with a domain (included the first year) and free SSL. It’s everything needed to start building a brand presence online. It’s also a great plan for freelancers or agencies that want to offer bundled managed services to clients.

With DreamHost, you can purchase email addresses individually for under $2 per mailbox, with the same great 25GB of storage. Regardless of your chosen plan, spam, virus, and phishing filters are standard. You can check messages on any web browser, via mobile app, or add your email address to Outlook, Gmail, or your favorite app.

DreamHost Pricing & Plan Features

Whether you want a standalone email hosting option or unlimited email addresses, DreamHost has a plan that will work for you. If you purchase standalone email hosting, keep in mind you’ll also need to buy an email domain name. Click the tabs below to learn more.

Our Expert Opinion

DreamHost offers bundled website and email hosting for businesses on a budget. Alternatively, standalone email hosting offers a low-cost business email solution for just $1.67 monthly per email account. While there’s no free trial, DreamHost offers an industry-leading, 97-day money-back guarantee if you buy a plan and then find it’s not quite right for your business.

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Hostinger: Best for Agencies & Resellers

Hostinger offers a bevy of solutions that allow for multiple domains, making it the best business email provider for agencies and resellers. Serial entrepreneurs will also find Hostinger a great choice as they can build hundreds of websites in any of the affordable WordPress and web hosting or no-code website builder plans, all of which come with business email.

Hostinger customers can also rest easy with the peace of mind that data is protected. Hostinger uses Cloudflare-protected nameservers, malware scanning, and weekly or daily backups to ensure all the tools you’re using to build a brand presence online are safe and secure.

Another reason to love Hostinger is its flexible payment options. You can lock in super-low introductory pricing for up to four years, two years, one year, or pay month to month and cancel at any time.

The one drawback to using Hostinger for business email is the small size of storage allowed. The standalone email base plan comes with just 10GB of storage, and reseller plans only provide 1GB of storage per mailbox. Still, for the price, Hostinger is hard to beat and light-to-normal email users will find the storage sufficient.

Hostinger Pricing & Plan Features

Hostinger also has great pricing on standalone email hosting, web hosting, and website builder plans if you don’t need large-scale solutions. But since we’re naming Hostinger the best business email host for resellers and agencies, the tabs below represent the best plans for that use case.

Our Expert Opinion

Hostinger has everything resellers, agencies, and freelance digital marketing consultants need to offer managed services to clients. Large-scale plans are affordable and packed with everything needed to offer email hosting, web hosting, website building, and more, all risk-free and backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

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Microsoft 365: Most Advanced Business Email Features

Microsoft 365 is the best email provider for businesses that want to use Microsoft’s productivity suite (including Microsoft Outlook business email). It’s also best for those needing a ton of storage or who send or receive large attachments.

Outlook is also best for people (like administrative and executive assistants) who need access to manage inboxes and calendars of other users and for conference rooms. Learn more about the advanced tools available in our list of the top Outlook features for business email users.

The base tier’s app inclusions are similar to Google Workspace, starting at the same price of $6 per user, per month. However, it includes a massive 1TB of cloud storage via OneDrive (compared to 30GB with Workspace), although mailbox storage is limited to 50GB regardless of plan, whereas Google Workspace storage is shared among all app use (including email).

The base tier also allows video conferencing with up to 300 participants compared to 100 for the comparable Google Workspace plan. If you’re leaning toward business email through Workspace or Office 365 apps, read our comparison of Gmail vs Outlook to see which has the email features your team needs.

Microsoft 365 Pricing & Plan Features

All Business plans include the Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) suite with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other apps that so many know and love. Click the tabs below to learn what’s included in each plan, and keep in mind that you can try it free for 30 days before committing. All plans require an annual commitment but are billed monthly.

It’s worth noting that both Gmail and Outlook have free versions that allow you to create an email address on gmail.com or outlook.com domains. It’s not recommended for professional use, but for freelancers just starting out or entrepreneurs who aren’t ready to invest in business-grade software yet, getting a free business email address with Outlook or Gmail is an option.

Our Expert Opinion

Microsoft 365 offers competitive pricing for plans that include a ton of cloud storage—1TB, to be exact—for just $6 per month. Large attachments and automations are also massive perks, and business plans come with a slew of apps for everything from business email to video conferencing, office productivity, presentations, marketing collateral, and more. Read our Microsoft Outlook review, then try it for free for 30 days.

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Scala Hosting: Best Business Email Host Including Daily Backups

Scala Hosting is an award-winning web host that offers unlimited business email in web hosting plans as well as standalone email plans starting as low as $2.95 with a long-term contract. All plans include automatic offsite daily backups, which is why it made our list of the best business email providers for small businesses looking for data protection and peace of mind.

Standalone plans include from 10 to unlimited email accounts, in scalable plans allowing one to unlimited email domains. This makes it an excellent option for digital marketing agencies wanting to offer managed business email services and growing businesses that need to create and manage email accounts for users easily.

The highest-tier plan also has the most advanced security features, including real-time malware protection, and user controls. This tier also allows for custom branding and white labeling, which is great for resellers. It also includes blacklist monitoring, which is ideal for teams that rely on cold sales emailing for lead generation.

Scala Hosting Pricing & Plan Features

Below is an overview of the pricing and plan features for Scala Hosting’s standalone business email services. However, if you need web hosting, all its web hosting plans come with unlimited business emails and free SSL for data encryption (for domains hosted on Scala’s servers). Learn more about its dedicated email hosting services in the tabs below.

Our Expert Opinion

Scala Hosting was named as a top-rated business email provider by Tech Radar and enjoys high customer satisfaction ratings. All plans come with multiple inboxes, high storage, and daily offsite backups for peace of mind. We recommend that security-minded small businesses consider the affordable Cloud plan that comes with max security, user controls, and real-time data protection.

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Proton Mail: Most Secure Business Email Provider

*Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
**General Data Protection Regulation

Proton Mail is the world leader for email security and privacy. All plans, including the free version, include end-to-end encryption, making it ideal for any business looking to protect the information shared in business emails. It’s the best business email provider for healthcare practices, legal firms, and other organizations handling highly confidential or sensitive data.

HIPAA is the law that protects private health info (aka PHI) from being disclosed without a patient’s consent or knowledge. GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation, is required for companies doing business in Europe—and Proton Mail business plans account for both.

Proton Mail is one of the few providers that can claim to be fully HIPAA compliant, and it’s appropriate for companies needing GDPR agreements in place. Keep in mind that to ensure compliance, you’ll still need to get a signed agreement in place to fully protect your organization.

Of the providers here, Proton Mail includes some of the highest limits as far as storage. The highest-tier individual and business plans allow up to 500GB of storage per user account. This makes it a great option for creatives and small businesses working with large, proprietary files, such as videos and high-resolution graphics.

Proton Mail Pricing & Plan Features

Proton Mail includes individual business email accounts that are perfect for freelancers and entrepreneurs, as well as easy-to-manage business plans billed on a per-user basis. Learn more by clicking through the tabs below.

Our Expert Opinion

If your organization needs the most private, secure business email provider on the market, Proton Mail’s business plans are hard to beat. It’s one of the few providers that can ensure both HIPAA and GDPR-compliant business email services, making it ideal for healthcare-related users and businesses with customers in European Union (EU) member countries. Get started for free today.

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InMotion Hosting: Best for Guaranteed Uptime

*Non-volatile memory express

InMotion Hosting offers just about the highest uptime guarantee available: 99.95%. In addition, they provide zero-downtime migration and transfer services, ensuring your brand is always available when prospects or customers need to reach you. This is further enhanced with NVMe solid-state storage drives that process data faster than non-NVMe SSD counterparts.

Speed is a serious consideration. Not only does it allow for business email communication in virtual real time, but it also enhances the website visitor experience and even helps business websites rank higher on Google.

All InMotion plans are scalable with additional storage and speed enhancements. And all but the base web hosting plan allow unlimited business emails on your domain, unlimited websites, and unlimited NVMe storage.

On the downside, there’s no standalone email hosting plan, unlike DreamHost, IONOS, and Hostinger. Plus, hosting plans are priced comparatively higher than these competitors. But the advantages offered by increased speed and a near-perfect uptime guarantee could be more than worth it.

InMotion Hosting Pricing & Plan Features

InMotion Hosting plans include a basic plan with up to 10 email inboxes and unlimited email accounts in all plans after that. Automatic backups, Google Workspace, and dedicated IP addresses can be purchased as add-ons. Click the tabs below to find the best email solution for your small business.

Our Expert Opinion

While InMotion’s hosting comes at a slightly higher cost per month than some others on this list, it also offers the highest uptime guarantee. Web hosting plans come with 10 to unlimited business emails with storage scaling upward by the plan. There’s little risk to testing the waters with InMotion Hosting business email as all plans include a lengthy 90-day money-back refund window.

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Zoho Mail: Best Free Business Email Solution

For the best free business email option, look no further than Zoho Mail. Though you’ll need to buy a domain name, it’s one of the best ways to get a free business email address. The free plan provides up to five email addresses and, like IONOS, the cheapest premium plan costs just $1 per month. However, Zoho Mail includes more storage in its free and base tier (5GB) compared to IONOS’ Basic plan (2GB).

In addition to its free and basic plans, one of the reasons it’s on our list of the best business email providers is that Zoho Mail offers Workplace plans well-suited for teams. They include a 30GB plus 10GB shared storage plan at $3 per user, per month or a 100GB plus 100GB shared storage plan priced at $6 per user, monthly.

They also include email hosting on multiple domains, Zoho Office Suite, Zoho Cliq (collaboration tools), mobile apps, large file upload limits, and from 10- to 100-participant video meetings. These tools make them comparable to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, and at $3 per user, per month, the Standard plan is half the cost of either of those providers.

The free plan has low attachment size limits and low storage limits overall. For this reason, it’s best for those who don’t depend heavily on email but want a business email address to maintain a professional image. Check out what’s involved with creating free Zoho email accounts for your small business.

Zoho Mail Pricing & Plan Features

Zoho Mail is the go-to free business email if you own a domain. Entrepreneurs and small teams can create up to five custom email addresses completely free of charge. Then scale up with plans that add additional storage, functionality, and even a full suite of office productivity and communication tools similar to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Click the tabs below to learn more.

Our Expert Opinion

Zoho Mail is widely regarded as one of the best ways to get free business email, making it an excellent choice for budget-conscious businesses that need five or fewer email addresses. Paid plans start at $1 per user, monthly, but the low cost is at the expense of high storage space. If your business relies heavily on email, the best options are Bluehost and Microsoft 365.

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How We Evaluated the Best Email Providers for Small Businesses

All businesses need email that can be accessed quickly, securely, and reliably, with enough storage to keep messages from bouncing. However, some companies only need a single email address, while growing companies need scalable solutions. For that reason, we looked at a range of options that can serve anyone from sole proprietors to businesses with multiple employees as well as agencies and resellers.

The criteria we used to identify and evaluate the best business email providers include:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Which is better for business email: Gmail or Outlook?

For teams that need collaboration tools or work remotely, Gmail is better. Its tools are intuitive, modern, and user-friendly, and multiple users can collaborate on projects simultaneously. On the other hand, Outlook email features and workflow automations are more advanced, especially in higher tiers that include downloadable desktop software. Outlook users get more storage in the base tier as well.

Still not sure which to choose? Get the complete breakdown Gmail vs Outlook.

How do you create a custom email address for business use?

It’s easy to create a custom email address on your domain name, such as “[email protected].” First, register a domain (e.g., yourbusiness.com) by purchasing one from a domain name registrar like Domain.com, GoDaddy, or IONOS. Then, get email hosting and set up access to your email with your favorite email app.

How do I choose a professional email address?

Choosing a professional email address to use for work is easy—it comes down to choosing a custom domain for email use and deciding on your preferred username format. Ready to get started? Learn how to create a professional email address in four easy steps.

If you’re not quite ready, check out this list of professional email address ideas and examples for inspiration.

Bottom Line

Businesses that depend on email need services that are dependable, feature-rich, secure, and affordable. For small businesses looking for the best business email solution overall, we recommend Google Workspace. It comes with Gmail business email, ample storage, thousands of business app integrations, and all the office productivity and collaboration tools companies need.

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