4 small business email hosting services for growing teams.

Even as the world shifts towards new digital communication channels like SMS to social media, email remains one of the most valuable tools around. Just about every small business needs email to communicate and thrive. This means they also need small business email hosting to succeed.

Unlike a free email account that ends in “gmail.com” or “yahoo.com,” a professional email address—one that ends in your domain name—signifies you’re committed to your job and an expert in your field. But in order to use a custom domain name and access the features, you need to manage your inbox like a pro and get a great hosting plan that’s suited for a business of your size.

We’ll explain what email hosting is and introduce you to some of the best email hosting services.

What is email hosting?

Email hosting is a service used to send and receive emails. Like a web hosting service allows customers to access your website from its domain name, an email hosting service enables them to contact you through a completely unique email address.

Your service provider will act as a permanent home for the emails you want to keep. The best plans often come with smart email storage features such as folder organisation. Your email service will also give you additional storage for any attachments you receive.

To help you narrow down your search, we’ve compiled a list of four excellent small business email hosting providers that will keep up with your business needs while preventing malware, spam, and more.

1. G Suite

Gmail is the top email service in the world with more than 1.5 billion users actively using the platform. G Suite is a particularly popular choice for small business owners thanks to its user-friendliness and its feature-rich platform, which you can subscribe to for a highly affordable price.

Even with the most basic plan—which only costs $6 per user per month—you gain access to high-quality email features such as:

• The entire G Suite platform, which includes popular collaboration tools like Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Sheets
• 30 GB of cloud storage in Google Drive
• Spam protection
• 24/7 customer support

If you exceed Gmail’s attachment limit of 25 MB (which is a typical price for hosting providers), the platform saves and sends your files as Google Drive links. And when you upgrade to a business or enterprise plan (starting at $12 per user per month), you get unlimited online storage in Google Drive in addition to powerful admin controls.

When you choose G Suite as your small business email hosting service, you can manage and promote your brand through Google My Business without leaving your central workspace.

2. Microsoft Office 365

If your company prefers collaborating through the Office 365 suite—which includes Microsoft Excel, OneDrive cloud storage, and more—Microsoft’s email service, Outlook, is for you.

Web and mobile versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

The highlight here is massive file storage capabilities for a considerably low price, though you have to pay more per user if you want to be billed monthly rather than make an annual commitment. You also have to upgrade to higher-tier plans (starting at $12.50 per user per month) to access the full Office 365 suite and desktop versions of each collaboration tool.

Still, this email hosting service is a helpful tool for larger teams scaling their operations. It also has more security features than G Suite, allowing you to set how frequently password changes are required and place team members in “security groups” with custom permissions.

3. Zoho Mail

If you only need the bare minimum from your small business email hosting service, you can save money by choosing Zoho Mail. It offers a simple interface and the basic features you need, including email, calendar, and contacts synced across all devices. Zoho Mail also provides excellent security measures, including two-factor authentication, S/MIME encryption, and attachment sandboxing to protect against malware. Prices start at $1 per user per month for 5GB storage and go up to $10 per user per month for 100GB storage. All plans come with a 15-day free demo, so you can try it before committing.

4. Gmail for Business

Gmail for Business is the email hosting service provided by Google as part of its G Suite package. It offers a wide range of features and integrates seamlessly with other Google products, making it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. Gmail for Business provides a professional email address with your domain name, advanced spam filtering, 24/7 support, and 30GB of storage per user, which is shared with Google Drive. Pricing starts at $6 per user per month and increases depending on the plan and additional features you choose. G Suite also offers a watch demo so you can see the features in action before making a decision.

5. Office 365 Email Hosting

Office 365 Email Hosting provides a comprehensive email solution for businesses, with various plans to suit different needs. The plans include professional email address, calendar, contacts, and tasks, as well as security features such as anti-spam and anti-phishing protection. With Office 365 Email Hosting, you also get access to the full Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. Prices start at $4.50 per user per month, and a watch demo is available so you can see how the service works before committing.

When you upgrade to paid plans, which cost $1 or $4 per user per month, you get email and folder sharing capabilities, offline access, extremely high attachment limits, and the ability to create tasks in your inbox. You’ll also get the perk of Zoho calendars, which can help your team share schedules and sync appointments.

This is a great hosting option for solopreneurs or any small businesses that don’t seek enhanced file storage or extra collaboration tools.

However, if you choose a complete Zoho Workspace plan—which tacks on just $3 or $6 per user per month—you can get 250 MB of storage space in Zoho WorkDrive as well as access to collaboration tools for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and video calls. Though Zoho may require a bit of a learning curve since it’s not as widely used as the options above, it is fairly user-friendly.

You can pay annually for email-only plans or pay $1 extra per user per month for monthly billing on Workspace plans.

Zoho Mail is highly recommended for anyone who already uses Zoho CRM for their business.

4. Rackspace

Rackspace isn’t a name you hear every day, but it offers a great email server. It uniquely offers a 100% uptime guarantee, which means it will never fail you when you need your email platform the most..