For any small business, investing in resources is a huge deal. When choosing an email host, you want the best value for the price you’re investing in. Different factors, including the price, storage, security, and additional features, determine if an email host is the best fit for you.
Having that said, different businesses have different priorities. For instance, a service-oriented business would prefer an intelligent phishing filter over more extensive cloud storage. This article lists eight of the best email hosts you could choose from if you’re a small business owner.
Keep reading to know which of these services best fits your needs, and jumpstart your business today!
What to Look for While Investing in an Email?
Although there may be a slight difference in preferences, a few factors remain prerequisites when looking for an email. The most significant limitation for a small business is the cost factor. You would want to choose a service that would give you the best result for your investment.
Storage is yet another bare necessity. You would want enough storage to fit your business-related files and documents on your email host. The size may, however, differ according to the nature of your business.
When investing, you must be sure about how secure the service is. You will use their service to store and forward sensitive information that you would not want a third party to access. Similarly, you would like to stay safe from spam and phishing bots that would impose a more significant security threat to your business.
Lastly, you must see if the additional features, such as free domain, customer support, and fluid interface, meet your enterprise needs.
Best Email for Small Business
We have gathered eight email hosts you would want to consider while looking for an email service for your small business. We have introduced each email according to its price, storage space, security level, and additional features it offers.
Google Workspace
Google Workspace has become a household name in terms of email hosting. With one of the best user experiences, most users are drawn to it because its interface is similar to the free version of Gmail. This makes it easier for the users to adjust to the hosting.
The basic business plan for Google Workspace starts from $6/per month with a total storage of 30GB on Google Drive. The service is highly reliable and has impressive security features like smart spam filters and even a physical security key for when you try to log in to your account.
Using Google Workspace, you can choose a custom email address using Google Workspace to make yourself stand out. You can synchronize your account with other Google services to collaborate with your team. Additionally, it has features such as smart compose that helps you write emails and check your grammar.
Google Workspace is, however, a luxury email hosting service. Many small businesses may be unable to afford to spend $6 a month on email hosting alone. You can also only send an attachment of 25MB with the email. Anything that exceeds the limit gets stored on your GDrive. Similarly, customer support for Google Workspace could be better than other hosting services available.
Namecheap
Namecheap has been growing quite popular due to its cheap price options. With the basic plan starting from $1.24/month, it has become one of the best budget-friendly email hosts. The total storage space available on the basic plan is 5GB, with additional space in bigger plans.
Although Namecheap has spam filters, there are better ones in the market. It does offer Two-factor authentication, but it is only available on an online email client. This could leave your account vulnerable to hacking.
Namecheap offers free domain names to match your email address. This could be a smart way to represent your business in front of your clients.
Fastmail
Fastmail has been growing quite popular among users recently. The service mostly prioritizes the privacy and security of the users and their information. Plans for Fastmail start from $3/month, and they provide 2GB worth of storage space in the plan with an email attachment limit of 70MB. You could upgrade to a better plan if you want more storage space.
Fastmail prides itself on being reliable with its knowledgeable customer support team. Let’s be honest; anyone would prefer talking to a human with a fundamental understanding of your problem than an automated voice message. If you run into an issue, rest assured you will have a customer support officer helping you out with the matter.
The main reason why users prefer using Fastmail is because of its privacy and security options. Fastmail has a strict privacy policy that keeps your data secure within its servers so you can store sensitive data and not worry about it getting leaked. Similarly, it supports two-factor authentication and has app-specific passwords for email clients that do not support 2FA.
The downside to FastMail is that they do not sell domain names. Although you can link your pre-purchased domain name with the hosting services, you will have to manually connect your domain with Fastmail.
Microsoft 365 Business
Microsoft 365 is yet another household name when it comes to email hosting. The basic business plan for Microsoft 365 starts from $3/month. The total storage space the email hosting service provides is massive, with 50GB mailbox storage and 1TB space on OneDrive, their cloud storage. You could even send attachments up to 150MB using Microsoft 365!
Microsoft 365 offers 24-hour tech support, so if you run into any issue, you can have your problem addressed as soon as possible. With standard secure storage space, its AI smartly filters out any spam, virus, or phishing links from appearing on your email.
Most users are already familiar with the personal or customer version of Microsoft 365, so making the switch to Microsoft 365 is swift. Microsoft 365 is extremely user-friendly, and you can collaborate with your team using the online version of MS Word, Excel, and Teams. With the basic package, you could host online meetings with up to 300 users!
However, for many small businesses, most features may be of limited use. Similarly, Word, Powerpoint, and Excel desktop applications aren’t available on the basic package. Although Microsoft 365 advertises the online versions as part of the package, you can access them all for free.
ZOHO Mail
ZOHO mails is another option if you’re looking for a budget-friendly email hosting service. With the basic plan starting for only $1, you also get to host emails for free for up to 5 users. The service offers storage space of 5GB with additional storage in bigger plans. Additionally, it has a high attachment size limit of 250 MB.
ZOHO offers good security features. The emails you send through ZOHO are encrypted on both ends. The mailing service itself secures the decryption key. You can even send confidential information with a SecurePass code. Additionally, ZOHO claims not to use your data in data mining. So, you can store personal information in the service.
You also get access to collaboration tools such as Writer and Sheets from the ZOHO Office Suite in the higher plans of ZOHO mail. All these features make the hosting email service a good option for small businesses.
There are, however, many limitations to ZOHO. Unlike other services, they don’t offer a free domain. The small storage space of 5GB might not be enough if your business grows. The basic package of the service does not offer as many features as the higher plans cost more.
Dreamhost
Dreamhost is a great email hosting service for growing small businesses. With a starting price of $4.95/month, you can save 63% on a yearly plan at $2.95/month. Additionally, Dreamhost offers a storage space of 25GB per user.
The email hosting service filters potential threats from your mail, including spam, viruses, and phishing. This will protect you from potential security vulnerabilities.
You should use this email hosting service if your business has a higher staff count, as you can create several email addresses for your employees. Dreamhost offers a free domain for a year and includes a WordPress site builder that does not require any code. You can also synchronize your email across your devices and applications.
However, the price increases exorbitantly in a year to $12.99/month. Dreamhost also falls short on office suite applications that other services offer. You will also have to pay for the domain after the first year of registration.
Turbify
Turbify is an email hosting service for businesses formerly known as Yahoo Small Business. The base-level plan for Turbify starts from $3.19/month, but the prices go down per mailbox as you add more employees to the plan. With the same plan, you get 1TB worth of email space, so if you’re a service-oriented company, this would be something you would want to consider.
The email hosting company has amazing security features, including smart spam filters and email encryption. This will keep you safe from malicious emails and reduce the chances of your emails being leaked by a third party.
Turbify also offers a free domain with your purchase. This way, you can stand out in front of your customers. The experience is equally as smooth on mobile applications, so you don’t have to open your desktop every time you wish to view something. Additionally, Turbify includes document handling, content displays, and calendars in its packages.
To state the obvious, Turbify could be expensive for small business owners. Although the prices eventually go down when you add more employees, it could still be too much for some. As the service is newly introduced, adjusting to the interface might take some time.
Yandex 360
Yandex is yet another email hosting service that is reliable and easy on the pocket. The basic plan for Yandex 360 starts from $1.37/month. It offers a massive storage space of 200GB! You can attach up to 25MB worth of files while sending emails. Anything that exceeds this limit will be stored on Disk, the cloud storage service included with the Yandex 360 subscription.
Yandex offers pretty impressive security features. You get the option to select Not saving sent mail which ensures that the emails that you send out through the service are removed from your end. Alongside this safety measure, Yandex supports email encryption on both ends and claims not to use your data for advertisement.
You also get a free domain with your purchase and additional collaboration tools such as disk, messenger, documents, sender, notes, and many more. These tools will help you collaborate with your team to create different documents, communicate, or keep meeting minutes.
Yandex also provides around-the-clock customer support and states that they reply within 3 hours of the complaint being registered. However, as Yandex is not as popularised, you may have issues using the service in the beginning.
