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The major reason behind integrating an email hosting service is to make the functionality of the email server appear seamless. The popularity of email has shot up due to the flexibility, communicational easeness, and obtaining method.
The day-wise exchange of emails worldwide accounted for 333 billion in 2022. Moreover, according to Statista, this number is expected to reach 392.5 billion by 2026. With staggeringly high numbers of users, one must employ email hosting services for full effectiveness.
Obtaining an account is simple because email is one of the most popular ways to communicate, whether for personal or professional use. You'll typically need to open an account with an ISP, and you only have one account to begin with. Another choice is to sign up for an account with Google, Microsoft, or another well-known company.
Yet, choosing the best email provider for you can be challenging because there are many factors to take into account - particularly in these days of remote working. Certain questions that need to be answered are,
- How effective are the spam filters?
- How easy is it to maintain order in your inbox?
- Do other email clients have access to the account?
- What if you used the service with your own unique domain and email address ([email protected])?
We'll showcase some of the top providers from our tried-and-true reviews of each email service in the following paragraphs. All of the email services we chose provide respectable free options, sometimes with ads and some restrictions. However, we've also evaluated their enterprise-level commercial packages, which offer the strength, capability, and extras demanding users want.
The storage capacity, registration process, user interface and experience, security, and other factors have all been considered when comparing the top email providers. Along with other aspects, we considered how well they would function and execute as well as their pricing strategies.
Join us as we explore the best email hosting services in 2024, considering pricing strategies and overall performance.
But first, let’s understand the basic about email hosting:
What is email hosting service?
A service that manages email servers is known as email hosting service. Your email accounts, messages, and files will be stored on these email servers. Having an email service in addition to your domain name is a smart move if you already own one.
Small and large enterprises frequently need outside email hosting services. Big businesses that conduct business on a wide scale typically have their own email hosting options.
Free email services should be avoided because of their lack of usability, security features, speed, and customer support. The ideal email hosting provider for you will depend on a variety of features, including server/mail protocol kinds, storage capacity, security, customer and technical support, permissions functions, and pricing.
Why Do You Need An Email Hosting Service?
Email has been an essential tool for electronic communication for many years, and it will probably continue to be so for many more. Although there are numerous free email services accessible for individuals and businesses, many of them lack specialised features like central administration that are ideal for office use.
An email hosting server can be used to keep, send, and administer your email accounts. Your email accounts can be kept, sent, and managed on an email hosting server. To guarantee that messages are sent on chance to their planned beneficiaries, most of the huge online businesses have their own email servers.
Small businesses, however, make use of email hosting services offered by organisations like Google, Zoho, Titan, and many more.
Advantages Of Using Email Hosting service
Signing up with a paid email hosting provider can be advantageous to your business for a variety of reasons.
For example, by allowing every user in your company to create a custom email address based on your specifications, you'll ensure brand consistency.
You'll also usually get better security and productivity tools. Some providers will even provide you with collaboration tools that far outperform free email hosting options.
Finally, when you choose email hosting through your paid web hosting provider, you'll typically get much better customer service per user - even if you need web hosting for multiple domains or a complex custom domain.
This ensures that if you ever have problems with your email service or the professional email address for your domain name, you'll be able to resolve the problem and get back to using your email account as soon as possible.
What Characteristics Should Email Hosting Service Providers Have?
Here are some essential features of an email hosting provider:
Simple To Use
You can access your email through various platforms, each with its own set of requirements. So, look for an email hosting provider that provides webmail, IMAP, and POP access.
- Webmail enables you to use a web-based email client, which is extremely convenient.
- IMAP - IMAP enables you to read your email from any device without having to download it.
- POP - POP requires you to download your emails before you can read them
Offers Security
Your subscribers and clients have faith in your company and entrust you with sensitive information such as their personal information, financial information, and so on. As a result, your hosting server must include features such as data security, anti-malware, anti-spam, and so on.
Not On Any Blacklists
Having your IP address blacklisted can have a significant impact on your business operations, and it may take longer to un-blacklist it. As a result, you should avoid email hosts with a history of putting domains on blacklists. Why? Because you could end up with a blacklisted recycled IP address.
Flexibility And Dependability
Email service providers must provide you with sufficient control over your emails and associated files. Aside from that, it should be dependable and have a good reputation.
8 Best Email Hosting Services
ProtonMail
ProtonMail is a Swiss-based email service that provides exceptional privacy right away. It leverages client-side encryption to ensure your email content protection as well as other data protection before it is sent to the mail servers. By securing your communications, it protects your data against any kind of breaches and ensures no one can get access to your inbox.
Features -
- Free private email powered by end-to-end encryption
- Dual password mode (For account login and for message decryption respectively)
- Easy contact management
- Better email management using labels, folders, and filters
- Inbox personalization to customize layout, colors, and themes to match your brand
- Mobile app to access your email inbox on mobile devices
- One-click migration to Proton from other email clients with zero loss of data
Pros -
- Simplified account creation process with a unique username and password
- End-to-end encryption offering optional password protection
- No need to provide another email address while creating account
- Two-factor authentication supported
Cons -
- Free plan offers single email address with data storage of only 500MB
- Limited email sending limit (Just 150 messages per day)
Pricing -
- Freemium plan with limited functionality available
- Paid plan starts from 4.99 € per month
End-to-end encryption (Source)
Zoho Mail
Zoho Mail is a nice modern take on email that includes some useful collaboration features. Rather than sending a long message with a subject and signature every time, send a quick stream message to colleagues—or share an email from a client on which you need to collaborate.
Features -
- Shared inboxes allowing each team member of a department to access same partner through their personal emails
- Tabbed app that allows switching between email inbox, calendar, and a draught email with ease
Pros -
- Ad-free email client and hosting for business domain
- Free for use if your team comprises fewer than five employees
- Seamless integration with other email clients
- Affordable pricing plans ($1 per user per month)
Cons -
- Email administration panel is not user-friendly
Pricing -
- Freemium plan available for up to 5 team members
- For additional team members, paid plans start at $1 per user per month
Zoho Mail’s User-interface (Source)
GMX Mail
Global Mail eXchange (GMX) offers a free email service in four languages: English, Spanish, German—the service's primary language—and French. With its surprisingly large 50 MB maximum attachment limit, GMX stands out from the other email services on this list. It offers you a lot more than other email providers can. You can email large files like documents, a lot of photos, and videos with attachments of 50 MB!” on its website, GMX writes.
Features -
- Send large files, such as high-resolution photos, videos, and more along with your emails seamlessly
- Utilize Clean Email, the best cleaning software to organize your emails
Pros -
- Large attachment limit (up to 50 MB) for all emails
- Unlimited storage space
- Two versions available - one for German users and other for international users
Cons -
- Does not support two-factor authentication
- No improved account security in the era of massive cloud security security breaches.
FastMail
Microsoft and Google, especially, aren't loved by everyone as businesses. It makes sense that some people try to stay away from products made by some of the biggest tech companies whenever possible. There is something to be said for sticking to your principles, even though paid enterprise products tend not to have the same privacy concerns as free consumer products. Despite the fact that it did not make this list for a variety of reasons, Hey is one of my favorite apps.)
Fastmail is the only option if you want a private email service for both you and your staff. It has all of the business-focused team features necessary to make this list, even though it is available to individuals.
Features -
- Provides email addresses with custom domains
- Create domain name aliases that point to central inbox. For example, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and so on
- Add custom branding to the app and login screen
- Share work calendars and contacts with everyone in the company
- Include a customized company footer in the emails
Pros -
- Can be customized to suit your brand theme
- More privacy and security
Cons -
- Custom domains are not included in the Basic plan
- Expensive. You can get access to Microsoft or Google's entire app suite for about the same price
Pricing -
- Starts from $3 per user per month
Masked Email feature for enhanced privacy (Source)
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail was one of the first popular email services, launching in 1997. It is an excellent free email service provider. On the off chance that you're an entrepreneur, you ought to likewise consider Yippee's field-tested strategy since it allows you effectively to set up a marked email address to establish a long term connection with your clients and colleagues.
Features -
- Minimalist web interface
- Keyboard shortcut support
Pros -
- Storage space of 1TB for free
- Priority customer support for paid customers
- Unlimited email archiving on paid plans available
Cons -
- Display of marketing advertisements
Pricing -
- Yahoo Mail Pro starts at $3.49 per month
IceWarp
IceWarp is yet another superb choice for email hosting. It also comes with a suite of productivity tools and a surprising amount of storage space, like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and Zoho Workspace. It could be a good fit for you if you want a lot of storage space and are satisfied with IceWarp's alternatives to Microsoft Word and Google Docs. The fact that not everyone has to be on the same plan is a nice touch. If your graphic designer needs a lot of storage but the marketing department doesn't, you can change things to save money.
Features -
- Email hosting and inbox
- Shared calendars and contacts
- Custom document, spreadsheet, and presentation editors
- Video and voice conferencing
Pros -
- Offers a suite of business tools to manage workspace operations
- Flexible pricing plans
Cons -
- Might face issues with configuration
Pricing -
- Starts from $2.80 per user per month
IceWarp’s User Interface (Source)
Make the right choice
This marks the conclusion of our review of the best email hosting options for small businesses in 2024. Businesses have relied heavily on email for decades, and it does not appear to be going away anytime soon.
A dependable email hosting provider can help every business by taking some of the pressure off of the owners and keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes. Selecting a hosting email service can be challenging because making the wrong choice could have an impact on your email performance and other marketing activities. The aforementioned services are among the best and offer a wide range of plans and features.
In addition, every company's requirements are unique. As a result, before making a decision, consider your industry, the IT environment you already have, the size requirements for your inbox and attachments, the features you need, and more. What your company wants from a business email hosting service and what it can afford will really determine your decision. Any of the options on our list can be used by a variety of businesses.
