If you have a business, you need a personalized email; you can just go with something like ‘CompanyNameSales@gmail.com.’ It seems lucrative to opt for the free email from Gmail and other providers, but when it comes to business, you can need something like ‘Sales@CompanyName.com.’ You can expect to run a successful email marketing with Gmail or outlook domain name on your company email ID.
Plus, you will be dealing with sensitive materials and credentials exchanged over the email and you don’t want to lose it with a free email id. This is where email hosting services come in; they will give you your custom email id with your company name and you also get industry-level security and infrastructure without having to spend it in-house. Along with that, you will get other features such as online storage, 24/7 support, email backup, encrypted security features and a lot more for just a few dollars a month.
Today, we will discuss on the top 10 cheapest email hosting services in the USA. However, a word of caution is that the cheapest doesn’t necessarily mean the best. Still, considering overall performance, features and security ‘Liquid Web’ provides the cheapest email hosting services at just $1 per month.
Top 10 Cheapest Email Hosting Services in the USA
Here are the top 10 cheapest email hosting services in the USA
- Liquid Web – $1/month
- iPage – $1.99/month
- 1&1 IONOS – $1 – $2/month
- Zoho – $1/month
- Rackspace email – $2/month
- Fasthosts – $2.54/month
- Greatmail – $1/month
- IceWarp – $2.5/month
- FastMail – $3/month
- G Suite – $5/month
01. Liquid Web
Liquid Web is best known for its managed and dedicated server packages, but it is also one of the best email hosting services starting at just $1 per month. That said, they don’t have a stand-alone service, and you get access to their low-cost email hosting plans only if you buy their Premium Web Hosting services.
- Standard – $1/month
- Plus- $3/month
- Microsoft Exchange – $10/month
The Standard plan provides POP, SMTP, IMAP as standard and supports up to 50 MB of attachments. The company also provides 25 GB of free storage space. Some of its striking features include importing contacts from Gmail, Outlook and other email services. It employs Cloudmark technology to detect and handle spam, whereas you can set up custom email filters and rules as per your business needs.
Liquid Web provides low standard mailbox services which should be enough for a startup. However, for established businesses, you will have to avail the Plus plan that will give you 30 GB of cloud storage, mobile contacts sync, calendars, and online editing of documents. This will cost you a $3 per mailbox per month with an upfront one-time payment of $10 service fee.
The Microsoft Exchange plan is for the enterprise companies who will get 100GB of mailbox storage, ActiveSync compatibility, and even a free copy of Outlook. This is cost you $10 per mailbox per month.
The attractive feature of Liquid Web is its multiple mailbox packages. Even at as low as $40, you can get multiple Starter mailboxes and a couple Exchange mailboxes, which is still cheaper than most of its competitors.
02. iPage
iPage is one of the best value for money email hosting services in the USA. Be it a startup or an established business, you would love iPage for its features and price. For just $1.99 per month, you get unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited emails. In fact, with just $1.99, you can host your own website as well as have custom emails for your business. They provide virtually everything ‘unlimited.’
The email hosting services provider is aimed primarily at new businesses; which is why they also offer a custom website builder and mobile-specific website builder. You can also build an e-commerce store with iPage. If you don’t have a domain yet, you can avail one from iPage for Free for 1 year. With iPage, you also get email forwarding, autoresponder, and WebMail as standard.
It will appeal to many first-time business owners as they will get $300 in marketing credits to help businesses get started on digital marketing. This makes it one of the most opted web hosting and email hosting service providers. The company offers great hosting features and server performance at an unbeatable price.
03. 1&1 IONOS
1&1 IONOS has become a trusted email hosting service providers since its inception in 2000. Being a successful web hosting service provider it has also emerged as a reliable email hosting services. The company provides 3 plans to meets all business sizes. The cheapest is the Basic plan which charges $1 per month for the first 12 months and then $2 per month.
- Mail Basic – $1/month for 12 months then $2/month
- Mail Business – $7/month
- Microsoft Exchange 2013 – $10/month
The basic plan will give you access to 25 email accounts each with 2 GB of storage. Plus you get a free domain, ad-free email, spam filter, Webmail, device synchronization, and a rock-solid 24/7 support. With higher plans, you will get premium virus protection and team collaboration tools.
With its hosting plans, customers can get up to unlimited storage, email accounts, website builder, $50 worth of credit for paid advertising and more. The company is focused on startups and emerging businesses. The company also provides cutting-edge security features against DDoS threats along with malware scanning.
04. Zoho
Zoho is one of the big names in the web tools and hosting services. When it comes to Zoho, you can certainly rely on the company’s infrastructure, uptime, and security features. The company provides 3 custom email hosting services:
- Mail Lite – $1 per user per month (only for a yearly subscription)
- Standard – $3 per user per month
- Professional – $6 per user per month
At just $1 per user per month, you have had a custom email ID for your business, hosted by Zoho. With the Mail Lite option, you get 25 MB email attachments with 5 GB for each user. You can have email hosting for multiple domains with IMAP and POP support for email clients. There are other extras such as access to Zoho Cliq. Moreover, you get Exchange Activesync, Email forwarding, email recall, business calendar, tasks, notes, bookmarks and a lot more.
For the ‘Standard’ and ‘Professional’ plans, you get access to other Zoho tools and get more cloud space. With the ‘Standard’ plan, you get access to Zoho Docs, and Zoho office suite. With the ‘Professional’ plan you get access to Zoho meeting, Zoho connect, and Zoho ShowTime.
Zoho provides email hosting plans for both startups and enterprises. For all the features and security, $1 per user per month from Zoho is a great deal for startups.
05. Rackspace Email
Rackspace email is one of the best and cost-effective pops and IMAP service providers that work with Outlook. The company has two plans
- Rackspace Email – $2 per mailbox per month
- Microsoft Exchange – $7.99 per mailbox per month
Rackspace is a Texas-based cloud computing giant with a good rapport for its cloud services. From a company like Rackspace, you can expect the best support, security, and uptime. The basic plan alone is enough for startups which gives you 25 GB of mailbox space along with spam detectors, virus filters with email access from Outlook, webmail, and mobile phones. However, the basic plan is $2 per mailbox per month but businesses have to order at least 5. Email services from Rackspace at just $2 per month is a lucrative option for new businesses.
For enterprises, the Exchange plan would be a comprehensive solution. With this, you get 100 GB inbox space with support for 50 MB attachments.
There are other cheaper options available but you $2 per month is not a bad deal, and considering the fact that you get 100% uptime, 24/7 support and industrial-class infrastructure.
06. Fasthosts
Email hosting can be expensive especially when you are looking for the best email hosting companies. But they come with large inboxes and more file storage space along with other features and tool, a startup would probably never need. This is where Fasthosts offers reliable but bare essential features at a low price. The company provides 3 email hosting plans:
- Standard Email – £0.99/ $1.26 per month for the first 3 months and then £1.99/$2.54 per month.
- Exchange Email – £4.99/$6.37 per month for 25GB and £9.99/$12.75 per month for 50GB.
- Office 365 – £7.99/$10.20 per month.
No strings attached, Fasthosts provides reliable, secure, bare minimum essential at the best price in the industry. The Standard plan alone will give you two 2 GB extra mailboxes with five 100 MB lite mailboxes. Along with that, you get Webmail, antivirus, POP/IMAP support, email encryption, and 24/7 support.
Its higher plans only give you extra space and an additional anti-spam feature. For a startup, Fasthosts is a great option when they only have a low volume of email to work with but need industrial-grade security, infrastructure, and support.
07. Greatmail
Greatmail is yet another basic email hosting provider at just $1 per mailbox per month. The company offers two plans:
- Standard Edition – $1 per mailbox per month
- Groupware Edition – $2 per mailbox per month
The standard plan gives you all the basic features you need to start a company at just $1 per month. It also gives you 10 GM of storage for each mailbox. This stripped-out plan is perfect for new companies and they also get built-in spam protection, webmail client access, POP/IMAP/SMTP support with the most email client.
The Groupware plan gives you additionally shared calendars, contacts, 25 GB storage per mailbox. It also supports EAS which enables the business to access their email from both desktop and mobile email apps. This basic offering provides enough features for a company to start without investing a fortune on email hosting.
08. IceWarp
IceWarp is the best email hosting service for agencies who create multiple email accounts for their clients. Many web and mobile app development companies need to provide an email account to their clients, in such cases, IceWarp gives you the tools to help you manage your email accounts and email addresses on multiple domains. The company offers 3 plans:
- Lite – $2.5 per user per month
- Standard – $3.9 per user per month
- Professional – $7 per user per month
IceWarp focuses on established businesses who have a high volume clientele. It supports white labeling, thereby enabling companies to brand themselves in the webmail account. Along with features such as shared calendars, contacts, it also offers its own collaboration tools in the subscription. You also get the document, spreadsheets and other editors on all plans. Moreover, you get voice calls, conferencing, outlook integration and more.
The range of IceWarp tools includes calendar, chat, file edition, notes, file storage, file sharing, video conferencing etc.
With the standard plan, you will have access to ‘Chat’ with API & Free guest access as well as Exchange ActiveSync for iOS and Android. The professional plan gives you access to additional administration & API Console, email archiving, and IceWarp desktop office.
09. FastMail
The FastMail focuses on email essential such as messages, contacts, calendars etc. and provides customizable storage options to manage costs. The company provides 3 plans:
- Basic – $3 per user per month
- Standard – $5 per user per month
- Professional – $9 per user per month
FastMail is a great tool for both individuals and businesses. It’s secure, fast and provides web and mobile apps to easy email conversations. You can add multiple domains and subdomains for each team member. The interface also comes with filters that will help organize your personal messages as well as store archive.
The company focuses on improving email experiences and provides essential features such as calendars, contacts, custom branding to the app and login screen etc. It also provides a feature that lets you store email attachment files and access them through FTP.
The most unique feature is that businesses can customize their storage options for multiple users. You can allow more space to specific users just by paying the extra price for the storage without subscribing to a higher plan.
10. G Suite
G Suite from Google is perfect for the organization who prefer cloud-based tools. It provides email hosting as well as other communication and collaboration apps. G Suite is perfect for medium size to enterprise companies. It offers three plans:
- Basic – $5 per user per month
- Business – $10 per user per month
- Enterprise – $25 per user per month
With the basic subscription, you get 30 GB storage per user, video conferencing, voice conferencing, shared calendars, team messaging app, Google docs, support and admin tools. Higher plans give you unlimited file storage.
Being a service from Google, you can’t expect better service and support at $5. Along with your own business email ID you get, file sharing, file edition, collaboration, internal social network, tasks, intranet etc. which you will need for your business. These tools you get along with the subscription for just $5 and you don’t have to pay for similar third-party tools. Moreover, you get you to access your account from Gmail. The admin tools are simple and easy-to-use, which gives complete control to the business owners.
Hosting Your Own Email Server
Until the 2000s, all companies had to host their own email server and is still the most cost-effective way to get email on your company’s own domain. You will find a number of tools to host your own email and to your surprise, many of them are free. That said, self-hosting your email is not easy because you have to set-up and maintain your own mail server which demands skilled admins, and is also complicated and time-consuming.
Both Linux and MacOS come with Postfix, which you can use to run an email server. If you have a Windows Server, you have access to its built-in SMTP server for basic email communication. However, there are other ways to configure a feature-packed mail server on your office premises as well. You can use open source tools such as Roundcube, Zimbra and add webmail as well as management tools to the basic email. There are pre-made VPS tools such as Mail-in-a-Box which will enable you to set up a hosting service in a few clicks and it’s free.
Although hosting your own email server is cheaper, it does take up some investment and space; which is why hiring a professional email hosting service provider would be a much better option. With only a few dollars per month, you can avail the advantage and uptime of industrial quality infrastructure, data security, customization and more. For email hosting services, you will not need an in-house IT team.
3 Types of Email Hosting Options for Your Business
Before you subscribe to an email hosting service, you have to know what are your options. You will have to choose between 3 types of email hosting services:
- Shared Web and Email Hosting
- Self-Hosted Email
- Third-Party Email Hosting
01. Shared Web and Email Hosting
These are basically web hosting provider such as GoDaddy who also offer email hosting at a ridiculously low price. Technically you get the email hosting free with the web hosting service subscription, which is ridiculously cheap. For just $3 per month, you can host both your website as well as avail an email hosting.
Examples:
- Bluehost – $2.95/month
- InMotion – $3.99/month
- iPage – $1.99/month
- 1&1 IONOS – $1/month
02. Self-Hosted Email
Self-hosted email is typically done by medium to large companies who have their own infrastructure and host their own email from their servers without subscribing to a third-party provider. It provides more control and customization option but also needs maintenance and server admin to manage. For self-hosted email, uptime, data security and spammed emails are the biggest challenges.
03. Third-Party Email Hosting
These basically the email hosting services you subscribe. Their subscription-based models let you have your own email without the complication of self-hosted email platforms. For a few dollars per month, depending on the pricing of the service provider, you can have a myriad of features including shared contacts, calendars, video conferencing, collaboration tools and a lot more.
Examples:
- G Suite – $5/month
- Rackspace – $2/month
- Office 365 – $12.50/month
- Greatmail – $1/month
Features to Look for in an Email Hosting Service
When you subscribe to shared email hosting service along with the web hosting, you will get most of the features at a low price. But not all shared email hosting is the same. Email often times contains sensitive information which needs to be protected from data hackers.
If you choose to self-host, you can have your own features and can customize your email as per your need. However, for email hosting services, you have to check up if they are suitable for your business. For example, business in healthcare and banking have strict security benchmarks that email service providers have to meet; however, that may not be the case for a digital marketing company.
So, here are the top features you should look for while subscribing to an email hosting service.
- Custom Domains – You should be able to create email accounts using your company name for domain address.
- Support – If you are subscribing to a third-party email hosting service, they shouldn’t expect you to have an IT admin to fix issues. Your email hosting service provider should have a 24/7 support who will respond to your tickets, email, and phone clocks. You should be able to talk to them around-the-clock.
- Data Security – Nothing is more important than data security, especially if you have an ecommerce website. It should be able to route all email through other application and have spam or virus filtering tools.
- Storage – Even if you are a startup, if you have a large customer base the mailbox storage will quickly get used up. You should get at least 2 GB storage per user, even with the basic plan.
- File size – All files you send or receive should be accessible through FTP tools and your service provider should support at least 25 MB of attachment for each email.
- Email access – You should be able to receive and send emails via an email client from anywhere on both desktop and mobile devices.
- Webmail – Your email hosting service provider should enable you to access your email using webmail i.e. a web-based email interface which can be accessed via a browser.
- Email Protocol Support – Your email service provider should support at least POP (Post Office Protocol) and IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). Microsoft Exchange protocol is expensive and you will need higher plans to have the Microsoft protocol.
Conclusion
To be honest, the cheapest email hosting service would be the shared hosting services. You get to host your website, get website builder, marketing tools, email hosting and other features for just a few dollars a month. For third-party email hosting, it gets comparatively expensive but you will have the peace of mind. You may find email hosting services providing solutions at $1 per user per month, but take note that they could have a minimum of 10 quantities or have to subscribe only their yearly plans. Deciding on the cost of the email hosting service depends largely on your business needs and company strength. Service from one company could be cheaper for some but expensive for others. So, do tally up the above-mentioned email hosting services list and find out the one that best fits your business needs.