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If you’re responsible for overseeing the communication tools at your organization, it’s essential to do some homework before deciding on an email hosting provider. While it’s possible to utilize free personal email platforms such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail, doing so can give your organization an unprofessional image and erode your credibility with customers, vendors, donors, and even your own employees. Cheap email hosting plans offer essential features for organizations on a budget, with cheap plans available for those seeking the lowest possible cost, helping you maintain professionalism without overspending.
While some email hosting providers offer free packages, they’re often restrictive, providing minimal storage for your emails and insufficient security features for sensitive emails. In general, you should only consider these if you’re on a tight budget and have no other choice. Affordable pricing is a key consideration for organizations seeking value without sacrificing security or storage.
Fortunately, there are several cheap professional email hosting options, some of which offer free trials, that can help you manage your emails, showcase your domain name, and provide other useful features as well. Budget email hosting options also help with managing costs for small businesses and startups.
Let’s review some of the best cheap email hosting providers on the market today. Below we’ve listed a side-by-side comparison chart of your best options, highlighting the key features of each provider, followed by a more detailed analysis of what each provider offers. Keep in mind that some of the best cheap email hosting providers are website hosting companies that include email hosting and storage as part of their packages. Many web hosting companies offer shared hosting plans that include email services, making them a cost-effective choice for small businesses. We’ve included them in this list so you have a full view of all your options, especially if you are seeking budget email hosting.
This list includes a variety of email hosts, from dedicated providers to web hosting companies. Shared hosting is a common way to get both website and email hosting affordably.
Best Cheap Email Hosting Providers
| Rating | Provider | Starting Monthly Cost | Storage | Inbox Usability |
| 1 | Google Workspace | $7.00 | 30 GB | Excellent |
| 2 | Bluehost | $1.67 | 10 GB | Fair |
| 3 | Zoho Mail | $1 | 5 GB | Good |
| 4 | HostGator | $1.67 | 10 GB | Fair |
| 5 | Namecheap | $0.99 | 5 GB | Good |
| 6 | Microsoft 365 | $6.00 | 1 TB | Good |
| 7 | GoDaddy | $1.99 | 10 GB | Fair |
Introduction to Email Hosting
Email hosting is a specialized service that enables individuals and businesses to create and manage professional email addresses using their own custom domain. Unlike free personal email accounts, affordable email hosting services allow you to use a business-specific address (like yourname@yourcompany.com), which instantly boosts your professional image and credibility.
Choosing the right email hosting service is essential for any organization looking to streamline communication and present a trustworthy front to clients, partners, and customers. Cheap email hosting providers offer a range of features designed to meet business needs without breaking the bank. These features often include robust spam and virus protection to keep your inbox secure, as well as mobile access so you can manage your emails on the go.
With so many affordable email hosting options available, it’s important to select a provider that not only fits your budget but also delivers reliable service, custom domain email addresses, and security features.
1. Google Workspace
Google Workspace is arguably the most trusted email provider on the planet. Signing up for email hosting services with them makes integrating with their other platforms and tools completely seamless. If you already use Gmail for personal email, you may find it difficult to use any of the other providers on this list, as they easily have the most intuitive and feature-rich email system.
As with many other providers, Google guarantees 99.9% uptime on its servers for business email, including advanced spam filters to minimize time sifting junk email in the inbox. They offer standard security protections to keep data secure and to manage lost or stolen devices. Google plans start at $7 per user per month for one email, including 30 GB of cloud storage, although you can save 15% if you use promo codes.
Their second least expensive package is the Business Standard plan, which costs $14 per user with all the same benefits plus 2 TB of storage per user for files. Features of the basic plan include:
- $7 per user, per month
- 30 GB cloud storage per user
- The user-friendly Gmail inbox
- Video conferencing for up to 100 participants via Google Meet
- Seamless collaboration with your team using Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Drive, and Google Calendar
Integration with other platforms and tools is effortless, and Google Workspace offers a wide range of collaboration tools, such as document sharing, real-time editing, and team communication features to boost productivity.
Visit Google Workspace to learn more
2. Bluehost
Bluehost is a well-known and trusted provider of hosting for those on a tight budget. They offer 24/7 customer service, industry-standard speeds, the requisite security options, and a money-back guarantee.
Bluehost offers 2 plans for email hosting. Their “Professional Email” package has an introductory price of $1.67 per month and renews at $2.50 per month. It comes with 10 GB of email storage, which is enough if you run a very small operation that is not heavily reliant on email communication.
Their “Professional Email” package starts at $2.50 per month and renews at $4.17 per month. This plan comes with 50 GB of storage, which is plenty for professionals at most small to medium organizations.
Once you’ve signed up, you can use any of their webmail tools, which you access via a web browser just like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, and it lets you send and receive emails using your custom domain email address. The email tools provided by Bluehost are not rich with fancy features or beautiful dashboards, but they get the job done and are easy to navigate.
If you want a more professional email inbox that comes with other productivity tools, you can also just configure your Bluehost account to work with a different provider like Google Workspace or Office 365, whichever you prefer. This will allow you to still use your custom domain email address, but you’ll get access to a ton of great features for organizing your calendar, managing your documents in the cloud, and working collaboratively with your team.
- $2.50 per month
- 24/7 Customer Support
- Unlimited email accounts
- 10 GB email storage
- Webmail
3. Zoho Mail
Zoho offers a privacy-guaranteed, encrypted email service free from ads. They claim the highest security and email surveillance, with the standard 99.9% uptime guarantee. For regulated businesses or those dealing with sensitive information, it’s an appealing feature.
The Forever Free plan is free for up to 5 users and includes 5 GB of storage per user with an attachment limit of 25 MB, which is not enough for most people unless you plan to clean out your inbox every week. The plan also includes one domain but excludes the popular email formats IMAP/ POP mail configurations. That means you cannot use this email hosting package with Gmail or Office 365.
That said, Zoho Mail has a great app that’s available for iOS and Android devices and lets you manage your email, calendar, contacts, and files all in one place.
The next level package, Mail Lite, costs $1 per user per month. It includes 5 GB of storage per user, |IMAP/POP access in all email clients, email hosting for multiple domains, email routing, and tons of other great features for managing your inbox.
The most popular plan offered by Zoho Mail is called Mail Premium and costs $4 per month per user. It includes 50 GB of storage per user and allows email attachments of up to 1 GB. They also offer a 15-day free trial so you can try it out before you sign up as a paying customer.
If you are set on only using a free email provider, this is probably your best option, though you can change your mind at any time and upgrade.
It’s worth noting that in the past, we have graded the Zoho inbox as “fair.” However, members of our loyal community of readers have made us aware of impressive upgrades to Zoho Mail over recent months, so we’ve upgraded their scores accordingly. This makes them an affordable email hosting provider that sacrifices nothing in terms of usability or storage space when it comes to their $4 per month Mail Premium plan. However, if you want to bundle an email plan with other business productivity tools like collaboration apps, spreadsheets, etc, Zoho is not quite there yet, and you’re better off using Google Workspace.
- Free for up to 5 users
- 5 GB of storage per user
- 5 inboxes
4. HostGator
HostGator has professional email plans starting at an introductory price of $1.67 per month, renewing at $2.50 per month. This will allow you to use emails with your custom domain name. The email hosting and webmail tools provided by HostGator come with a variety of helpful tools for managing your inbox and day-to-day communication. Included with each package are unlimited email accounts, several webmail platforms for you to choose from, IMAP support (for getting emails on your phone), spam filtering tools, autoresponders, mailing lists, and unlimited email aliases.
- $2.50 per month
- Unlimited storage
- Unlimited email accounts
- Money-back guarantee
5. Namecheap
Namecheap offers a basic, no-frills email plan at a low cost with easy-to-understand pricing and options, and a fair amount of storage for the price.
The lowest cost package they offer, the starter plan, costs just $0.99. You can add more users for $0.74 per month each. For that price, you receive 5 GB of email storage and 2 GB of file storage. If you are a very light email user, this should be enough for a little while. But most full-time professionals will need something more robust, like their Pro plan, which comes with 30 GB of email storage.
Their “Ultimate” plan starts at $3.99 per user per month and comes with 5 mailboxes and 75 GB of email storage.
Namecheap’s inbox is powered by Open-Xchange, a cloud-based software for the management of email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and document storage. It’s more or less comparable with the Outlook platform offered by GoDaddy.
- $0.99 first user, per month
- $0.74 for each additional user, per month
- 5 GB for emails
- 2 GB for files
6. Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a widely used set of business productivity tools that includes email, calendars, communication tools, and much more. If you choose to use them exclusively for business email, that’s fine, but you will quickly find yourself enjoying some of their other features.
Plans start at $6 per month and include 1 TB of storage, far more than anyone else. Their email inbox is managed through Outlook, which is fine, but hard to adjust to if you’re used to using the significantly faster and more user-friendly Gmail inbox.
If you choose to upgrade beyond their Business Basic plan, you’ll get access to desktop versions of their Office apps, such as MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and others.
- $6 per user, per month
- 1 TB cloud storage per user
Visit Microsoft 365 to learn more
7. GoDaddy
GoDaddy has more than 18 million users, and as such, it’s one of the most popular domain, email, and web hosting providers globally. Their Email Essentials plan is the entry-level GoDaddy email hosting plan. It starts at $1.99 per email account per month and goes up to $11.99 after one year. With the Essentials plan, you receive online calendars and syncing across all your devices, as well as 24/7 expert support.
They offer one-click email backup, advanced security, and email archiving to help keep regulated businesses in compliance by storing emails in a secure, easily searchable database.
The second-tier Email Plus plan starts at $5.99 per user per month and includes 50 GB of storage. Your inbox with both of these plans is managed through the Microsoft Outlook web application. It’s user-friendly and comes with lots of features, though still pretty far behind Gmail in terms of usability and convenience.
- $1.99 per user, per month
- 10 GB storage space
- Outlook email web application
Summary
With so many affordable and (almost) free email hosting providers on the market with similar features, the provider you choose will ultimately come down to how much you can pay, your storage needs, the number of email accounts you need, and how picky you are regarding which inbox interface you use. Consider the cost over time versus the entry-level pricing when deciding. Ensure it will have space and the features you’ll need to grow, and will allow you to manage your business or organization effectively.
Good afternoon
I would like to know how much to register a domain and business email for to secure them ? Currently im busy to save a money for website design
In that case, I would sign up with HostGator to host your new website. Their plan is inexpensive and includes free domain registration for 1 year + email via webmail.
Consider the time and annoyance of spam email for yourself and your employees. Google and Microsoft have the best spam filters.
A fair point. All major providers have spam filters these days, though Google and Microsoft are by far the most reliable.