When it comes to professional hosting for your business, one of the most important considerations is email hosting. While Digital Creative Lab does not offer email hosting as part of our Managed Hosting Plans, we recommend exploring the following top email hosting options – Google Workspace and Microsoft Office 365.
Email hosting comparison table
| Google Workspace | Office 365 | |
| Custom domain | yes | yes |
| Pricing per mailbox | $6.48 / month ($77.76 annual) / R120/month / user | $6/ month ($72 annual) R110/month/ user |
| Highlights | ✓ Reliable and robust infrastructure ✓ Ample storage ✓ Enhanced collaboration – Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Calendar. These tools allow for seamless collaboration among team members, enabling real-time editing, file sharing, and scheduling. ✓ Advanced spam and malware protection ✓ Easy migration from your old provider | ✓ Chat, call, host online meetings, and collaborate in real time, whether you’re working remotely or onsite. ✓ Get one integrated solution including Teams, OneDrive cloud storage, and Office apps with advanced security options. ✓ Easy migration from your old provider |
| Mailbox size | 30 GB | 50 GB |
| Storage size | ✓ Store and share files with 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage | |
| See for more details! | https://workspace.google.com/pricing.html | https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/microsoft-365/business |
Google Workspace is a reliable and robust solution, giving your business a professional email experience backed by Google’s infrastructure.
Office 365 provides an integrated productivity solution, bringing together email, file storage, and office software into one platform.
Both Google Workspace and Office 365 allow you to use your own custom domain name (e.g. www.yourdomain.com) for your business email (e.g. [email protected]), giving you a professional, branded email address. This can greatly improve the credibility and trustworthiness of your communications.
When choosing an email hosting provider, consider your business needs, team size, storage requirements, and the broader productivity tools you require. Both Google Workspace and Office 365 offer comprehensive solutions to meet the email and collaboration needs of modern businesses.
Don’t like Google and Microsoft? Below are two excellent email hosting providers
| Fastmail | MXRoute | |
| Custom domain | yes | yes |
| https://www.fastmail.com/ | https://mxroute.com/ | |
| Pricing per mailbox | $5/ month ($60 annual) R95 /month | $59 annual R1100/year |
| Highlight | ✓ Expert support from real people ✓ Add shared addresses like [email protected] ✓ Scheduled Send and Snooze for better focus ✓ Superior spam blocking and spam settings ✓ Easy migration from your old provider | ✓ 25GB Storage ✓ Unlimited Domains ✓ Unlimited Email Accounts |
| Mailbox size | 30GB per mailbox | You decide on the size of each mailbox |
| Email accounts | 25 mailboxes | Unlimited Email Accounts |
| Reviews | https://www.trustpilot.com/review/postale.io | https://www.trustpilot.com/review/mxroute.com |
| See for more details! | https://www.fastmail.com/pricing/ | https://mxroute.com/ |
The Benefits of Separate Email Hosting
Hosting your business email with a dedicated provider, separate from your website hosting, offers several key advantages:
- Reliability and Uptime: Professional email hosting platforms are designed for maximum uptime and performance, ensuring your email service remains consistently available.
- Scalability: As your business grows, a dedicated email hosting solution can easily scale to accommodate increasing mailboxes, storage, and user needs.
- Security and Compliance: Enterprise-grade email hosting providers invest heavily in security measures and compliance standards to protect your sensitive business communications.
- Flexibility: Separating your email hosting allows you to switch website hosts in the future without disrupting your established email infrastructure.
- Specialised Features: Email-focused hosting plans typically offer advanced features like spam filtering, calendaring, collaboration tools, and mobile access that may not be included in basic website hosting packages.
Why Pay for Professional Email vs Using a “Free” Email Account?
While a “free” email account may seem appealing, these services often come with a hidden cost – your personal and business data being monetized by the provider. For example, while your emails themselves might not be directly read by Google in your free Gmail account, automated systems scan your emails for things like keywords to target you with ads. This essentially means your data from your emails is used to build a profile on you.
With a professional email hosting service, your emails, contacts, and other sensitive information remain private and secure.
Contact us today if you would like to upgrade your business email hosting. We can assist with setting up your new account and migrating your emails from your old email host to the new one.
