While several free email providers may be available for business use, these platforms tend to leave your email addresses looking unprofessional. Moreover, they have restrictive features, including limited storage. And organizations often have very different requirements from individual email owners. This is when a reliable email hosting service steps in.
So, what is an email host? An email host allows you to customize your email address using your domain name instead of a basic address on Outlook, Gmail, or Yahoo. Professional email hosting involves email management by a specified and dedicated mail server.
This article will guide you further into what a hosted email is, the different ways of email hosting, and why you should consider using an email host. We will also provide some of the best examples of hosted email products.
Table of Contents
What Is an Email Host?
An email host is an email management service provider that offers an abundance of webmail functionalities such as
- Unlimited aliases
- Unlimited forwarders
- Automated responders
- Larger attachment capacities
- More secure anti-spam feature
- Robust anti-virus protection
- IMAP and POP3
- Adequate online storage
- Online calendars the save on the cloud
- Mailing lists
- Whitelists and blacklists
- Huge backup capabilities
- Fast archiving attributes
- Convenient folder management
- Easy contacts management
- Optimal folder creation and template usage
You have greater control over an email host service. Email hosting lets you access your email anywhere on webmail using your smart devices. It enables you to change your email domain name to synchronize with any changes in your business or website name.
3 Ways of Email Hosting
Subscribing to a hosted email gives you direct access to your email hosting company’s customer support. It also creates a solid brand identity foundational for making a recognizable and professional impression on your clients. Plus, it impacts your data security, providing your enterprise with complete safety against malicious intruders.
There are three ways of email hosting. They are as follows:
Dedicated Email Hosting
A dedicated email hosting services company covers handling many accounts and offers enhanced features. It does not necessarily use an entire mail server for your domain’s use. Instead, it means that the account focuses on handling emails alone.
With a dedicated email hosting service, you get a set amount of storage space and bandwidth for your business account. These will be separate from your domain’s managed web hosting.
The advantages of this type of email hosting are:
- Extra security and protection
- Automated synchronization with smart gadgets
- Easy setup
- Inclusion of multiple email accounts at an affordable price
Bundled Hosting (Email and Web)
As the name suggests, bundled hosting includes email hosting services with a web hosting account. Depending on your business requirements and changing demands, bundled hosting can significantly help with email management without the extra costs of separate web hosting for website management.
Most bundles allot a singular space and particular bandwidth shared between your web and email hosts. While bundled email and web hosting have generally limited storage capacity, bandwidth, and features, it comes with these pros:
- It has easy-to-navigate settings.
- It can host several small email accounts at a packaged pricing.
- It is a more affordable option compared with a dedicated email hosting service.
Email and web bundled hosting is an excellent option if you are running a small enterprise or just starting with your business.
Enterprise Solutions (SaaS)
Google’s G Suite and Microsoft’s 365 Business are two of the most widely utilized enterprise solutions providers offering excellent email hosting. Both are dedicated email hosting solutions that are intuitive and straightforward to use. At the same time, they are powerful service providers, too. However, Microsoft 365 Business and G Suite require management capabilities separate from your hosting despite their provision of use of customized domain name.
While these enterprise solutions can be a pricier selection, they have their share of advantages as well. These include easy setup and multiple powerful functionalities.
Benefits of Email Hosting
Business email hosting refers to using a custom domain for your professional email addresses instead of the generic and more personal Gmail and Yahoo addresses. There are many advantages of using a professional hosted email address especially when you are representing your organization. These benefits range from showcasing the value of professionalism to guaranteeing data security in your company.
From the business point of view, subscribing to a hosted email service may be quite expensive, but the pros that come with it outweigh the costly expenses.
Here are the benefits to keep in mind when leveraging an email host for your enterprise:
Professionalism
When customers see that you are using a custom domain in your email addresses, they know in an instant what brand you represent and whom exactly they plan to do business with. It evokes a feeling of trust and confidence in you.
Since you own and manage the domain, it will be difficult for anyone to misrepresent themselves and claim to belong to your organization.
Consider these scenarios. Any individual can use and register for a Gmail or Yahoo address as long as the username—with a mention of your company name—is still available. On the contrary, a user name preceding your business’ domain name will be unique to you or your employees.
The latter reflects the value of professionalism and your dedication to your organization.
Data Security and Protection
Having hosted emails for your business means you have complete control over how users behave when using their email addresses. As the company owner or manager, you can implement email usage regulations such as data localization. It enables email storage in specified locations on servers.
Additionally, you get increased security for your inboxes. And this is a key feature of a hosted email. With the threat of breaches striking at any time and their occurrences drastically increasing, data protection is a priority you should understandably never overlook.
Multiple levels of encryption prevent your email correspondences from being intercepted or accessed by malicious parties aside from the intended recipient. This functionality is especially useful when you need to send sensitive information outside of your organization, for instance, to a customer.
After setting up the encryption, you can proceed to laying out extensive spam filters and anti-malware systems.
All these will give you peace of mind that you can safely send, receive, and open messages.
Dedicate Client Support
Communication in corporate organizations heavily relies on emails. Many of these emails include time-sensitive files and information like invoices and contracts which your business could not lose. Loss of invaluable data due to corrupted emails can severely impact your company. By utilizing the dedicated services of an email host, you will be equipped with the necessary tools or customer support to handle technical email concerns.
More Uptime
With email hosting, you are guaranteed near-perfect uptime. This is another crucial differentiating aspect between a standard free email service and a paid email hosting solution.
Uptime is vital for any thriving business in terms of customer service and internal communications. For a successful business to flourish, you will need a reliable and premium quality email host that ensures zero information losses or delivery delays.
App and Tool Integration
Choose an email host solution service that will allow you to integrate it with other tools and applications. An excellent email host offers a wealth of options to improve your workflows.
Here are some typical yet truly useful email hosting integration solutions you will need to succeed:
- Newsletter solution to support marketing for more streamlined campaign and project automation
- Facilitation of subscribers list
- Identification of qualified leads conversion
What Makes a Good Email Host?
Apart from the evident reliability and flexibility, here are the foremost traits of a good email host:
Security
As a business, it is a must to establish your company's integrity and earn your client's trust. After all, they will be handing over information to you in confidence. These details will include their names, addresses, contact information, and financial data when necessary. That is why the security provided by a good hosted email is critical.
When selecting your email host, you should look for integration features such as anti-spam and anti-virus. You should also inquire about any other security-related integration tools you can add to your subscription plan.
Accessibility
You often check your emails on various platforms using different devices without considering that they may have distinct configuration requirements.
Before signing up with an email hosting company, ensure you have access to webmail. Webmail comes in handy for using a web-based email client platform.
POP and IMAP are other features to check when choosing a hosted email. Both enable you to read emails on the go. Unlike IMAP, POP will require downloading before access. Either way, you can access your emails anytime, anywhere, with full encryption.
Blacklist-Free
Avoid this type of email hosting. Check if a hosted email is reputed for blacklisting IP addresses. Unnecessary automated IP address blacklisting can cause major issues especially when transacting with clients. It will be difficult and time-consuming to clean up and get the IP address running again.
Hosted Email Providers to Consider
Taking into account the prices, ease of usage, technical support staff’s efficiency, and uptime, the following are the most recommended bundled and dedicated email hosting providers:
- Interserver
- Hostinger (with VPS hosting available)
- NameCheap
- A2
For bundled-only hosting:
- InMotion
- TMD
Key Takeaways on Email Host: Make the Right Business Decision
Choosing from the numerous free email creation and management options can be tempting. But the advantages of a premium plan with a top-tier hosted email service are more extensive. You can experience high performance and enjoy features that are most fitting for your business requirements.
Professionalweb development agencies can also help you with this process, so we advise looking for the right agency to partner with for your project.
