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Choosing the best email hosting for small business can make all the difference to how your customers perceive the credibility of your brand. Having a professional email service can also affect your day-to-day operations making having secure, reliable Email Hosting non-negotiable. This guide explains what email hosting is, and what features to look for in a provider. Whether you’re a startup or an established small business, the right email hosting service can enhance your productivity, increase your credibility, and provide the essential tools and security for communicating professionally as you expand.

What is Email Hosting?

Dedicated email hosting is a service that provides space on specialized servers that handle all your data while allowing you to manage your email accounts. It is like web hosting but instead of website files and data, it lets you store, send, and receive emails and manage addresses and accounts. Hosting providers maintain the infrastructure, handle security updates, and provide the technical backbone for professional email communications even if you don’t have a website yet.

Free vs Professional Email Hosting

Most of the time, free versions offered by G Suite and Google Workspace only let you use email addresses with domain names like @gmail.com or @icloud.com. They occasionally include ads and don’t offer much storage space. They generally don’t provide dedicated technical support and have limited customization options with basic features and security.

In contrast, professional email hosting lets you use a custom domain name in your email addresses like @yourbusiness.com, with much higher server storage allocations, flexible email forwarding, and webmail access, even on basic plans.

These services come with expert customer support, enterprise-level security features with complete spam and virus filtering, and guaranteed uptime with no ads.

Strip Banner Text - Email Hosting gives you space on a server to manage, send and receive emails.

Why Small Businesses Need Email Hosting

Email hosting is important for businesses of all sizes for several reasons. Firstly, it creates a professional image improving credibility and trust with customers while helping build brand recognition even without a website.

Reliability is enhanced through guaranteed uptime, faster email delivery with better deliverability rates, and a reduced risk of IP blacklisting. You also get custom forwarding and autoresponder options to ensure you don’t miss important messages or leave senders in the dark.

Security benefits include advanced features like SSL certificate encryption, regular backups and updates, and spam and malware protection to protect you and your customers from phishing scams and data theft that could damage your business and reputation.

Professional email plans also support growth, thanks to scalable plans that allow for the easy addition of new accounts, more storage space, and email aliases.

From a cost perspective, even though it has a monthly fee, email hosting offers better performance with less technical knowledge needed than self-hosted email. This is due to your host taking care of server hardware and software maintenance, and automatic updates and backups, saving you time and money in the long term.

Finally, customer support ensures you get technical assistance and resources like guides, blogs, and knowledge bases.

Hidden Costs of Free Email Hosting

While free email services might seem cost-effective if you are on a budget, they can come with hidden costs that affect your business’s bottom line and growth and are usually better suited to personal email.

Using a free generic email address instead of a professional email domain can make you seem less credible and trustworthy, possibly resulting in fewer conversions.

Security is another concern, as free services usually offer basic data protection that may not safeguard your communications, potentially leading to data breaches or compromised information.

There can also be productivity impacts for business owners, such as spending time managing spam, searching for important messages in cluttered inboxes, and dealing with limited storage capacity. As your business expands, scaling, like adding new accounts, managing permissions, and supporting consistent communication, can become difficult.

Even the best free email service providers often have fewer additional features like backup and recovery options. This means accidental deletions or system issues, which can cause the permanent loss of important messages and documents. The time and resources spent trying to recover lost data can often cost you more than paid hosting.

When to Upgrade Your Email Hosting

Using free email or even a free trial may work if your business is in the very early stages of starting up and you don’t have the budget yet for email and website hosting separately.

However, as your business grows, you must upgrade to maintain a professional image and support its expansion.

Your email hosting is due for an upgrade when you notice increasing email volume causing storage issues, increased spam and virus problems, or needing more features.

It can also include running out of email storage space or missing important emails due to filtering issues. Additionally, when managing your email becomes more time-consuming than it needs to be, it’s a sign that it isn’t scaling with your business.

Features to Look for In Email Hosting for Small Business

Once you’ve decided it’s time to upgrade, here are some key features you should look for in an Email Host:

Storage

The best email hosting for small business provides enough server space to accommodate your growing business needs, allowing ample storage of emails, attachments, and shared documents. Consider solutions that offer flexible storage options, allowing you to increase capacity as required.

Security

To maintain your reputation, look for providers offering enhanced security features such as SSL certificate encryption, spam filters, virus scanning, malware protection, authentication to prevent data loss, and email spoofing.

Like a web host, your email solution should include automated daily backups with easy restorations for individual accounts and entire mailboxes; this provides an added layer of security and peace of mind.

Webmail

Reliable webmail options ensure you can access and manage your email from any device or location. The webmail interface should be intuitive, and responsive, with similar features to desktop email clients. It should work smoothly across browsers and mobile devices, with email customization options matching your preferences.

Customer Support

Quality customer support with fast response times and multiple contact channels are essential in case you need help, or an emergency happens. Look for providers offering dedicated technical support teams with self-help resources like a knowledge base, tutorials, and blogs.

POP3 & IMAP

IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol): This synchs emails across multiple devices. When you check your email on one device, the changes are reflected on all the devices connected to that account. This means you can manage and access your emails remotely from anywhere with an internet connection.

POP3 (Post Office Protocol): Downloads emails to a single device. Once you’ve downloaded an email, it’s removed from the server. This means you can only access your emails on that specific device, saving you space on the server and helping reduce unauthorized access.

Strip Banner Text - Free email can come with hidden costs, fewer features, and less security.

Our 6 Tips for Finding the Best Email Hosting for Small Business

Now that you know what to look for in the best email hosting for small business, here are our top 6 tips to find the best option for your small business so you can make an informed decision.

1: Consider Your Business Needs:

  • Volume: How many emails do you expect to send and receive daily?
  • Storage: How much storage space will you need for emails and attachments?
  • Features: Do you need autoresponders, email forwarding, and a control panel to manage your accounts and domain?
  • Scalability: Can the provider accommodate your growing business needs and how many business email accounts are included?

Email Hosting from Hosted.com gives you the server space and features to manage your mail effortlessly and our plans offer easy scaling options to grow with your business. 

2: Security

SSL Certificates encrypt communication and prevent sensitive information from being intercepted and tampered with.

Look for features and filters that help prevent spam, phishing, and malware from reaching your inbox, backup and recovery in case of system failure or human error.

All Hosted.com Email Hosting plans include advanced spam, malware, and virus protection from SpamExperts, a free Email SSL to encrypt sensitive information, and automated backups to protect your inbox, customers, and data.

3: Ease of use & Uptime

Look for a provider that guarantees 99.9% uptime and availability with data centers in various locations and redundancies in place in case of any issues.

They should have an easy-to-use control panel that lets you monitor resource usage, your accounts, and your chosen email domain.

4: Cost & Budget

  • Pricing: Does the pricing give you the features, storage, and support for your needs that fit your budget? Our plans offer everything you need to create and manage your accounts at an affordable price. There are no hidden costs with Hosted.com; everything included in your plan is clearly stated when you sign up.
  • Free Domain Name: Do you need a custom email address? Get a free* domain registration with selected email hosting packages from Hosted.com. Use your business name to communicate professionally and consistently with your customers, suppliers, and partners, even without a website.

5: Customer Support

Ensure the provider offers reliable customer service when you need it with quick response times and multiple support channels available, such as tickets, email, or live chat.

6: Integrations

Check if the email hosting solution offers seamless integration with other business collaboration tools, mobile apps, email marketing platforms, and popular email clients like Microsoft Outlook.

Managing your Email Hosting

Regarding email management – it’s important to pay attention to updates and maintenance.

Regularly check your hosting account to ensure all security patches and software updates are current. Additionally, monitor your disk space usage, clean up old or unnecessary emails on your server that take up file storage space, and refine your filters if necessary.

Maintenance should also include reviewing and updating email forwarding rules, checking for bounced emails or delivery issues, and ensuring all automated responses and signatures are current.

Security Audits

Regular security audits that include checking login activity, monitoring for suspicious patterns, and verifying security settings across all accounts will help keep your accounts safe from spam and phishing attempts. Ensure you use strong passwords and implement two-factor authentication (2FA).

Audits should also include reviewing email logs, checking for unauthorized access attempts, and ensuring that all security features, filters, and SSL certificates are current and configured correctly.

Backups

Having reliable backups in place is essential for business continuity in case of an emergency. Schedule automatic backups of all email data daily, including messages, contacts, and attachments. Store these in a separate location, for example, cloud storage or Google Drive, and regularly test the restore process to ensure data can be recovered when necessary.

User Access

Effective user access management is important for maintaining security and efficiency. Have protocols to add and remove users, set proper access levels, and manage shared files, folders, and resources.

Best practices include reviewing user access rights regularly and immediately removing old business email addresses. Similarly, review any shared mailbox access and document all user role changes.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Email Hosting is a service that provides server space, resources, and management for your company’s emails. It allows you to send and receive emails using your domain name.
  • Professional email hosting is an investment for small businesses, offering better performance, security, and features that free services can’t match.
  • The initial savings of free email services are often outweighed by hidden costs regarding credibility, security, productivity, and scalability, making professional email hosting a more economical choice in the long run.
  • While free email hosting might seem cost-effective initially, the features, security, and credibility included with paid hosting often make it a better investment for small businesses.
  • Email hosting for small business should have comprehensive features, user-friendly functionality, enhanced security, and scalability with dedicated customer support.
  • Researching and evaluating email hosting providers, focusing on your business, security, and growth needs will help find the best solution for your business.
  • Ongoing management and maintenance including security, backups, and access control helps improve the efficiency of your email hosting solution.

FAQs

What is Email Hosting?

Email hosting is a service that provides and manages dedicated email web hosting servers. It allows you to use professional email addresses with your business domain name while providing storage space, security features, reliable delivery, and uptime.

Why do small businesses need Email Hosting?

Small businesses need email hosting to keep a professional image, ensure reliable customer communication, and access business-grade features like enhanced security, better spam protection, larger storage capacity, and dedicated customer support.

What features should I look for in an Email Hosting service?

Features to look for include storage capacity, strong security, spam filtering, backup and recovery options, accounts with custom domains, and scalability.

How much does Email Hosting typically cost?

Email hosting costs vary, depending on the provider and plan. The starting price for basic plans is around $3 per month, while higher-tier plans with more features and storage can range from $20 monthly.

Can I use my custom domain with these Email Hosting services?

Yes, most professional email hosting services allow and encourage the use of custom domains. This means you can use email addresses like name@yourbusiness.com. Many providers include a free domain name or can help you connect your existing domain to their email system.

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