[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”on” module_class=”single-post-hero” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_fullwidth_post_title meta=”off” featured_placement=”background” text_color=”light” _builder_version=”4.16″ title_font=”|700|||||||” title_text_align=”center” title_font_size=”50px” title_line_height=”1.1em” use_background_color_gradient=”on” background_color_gradient_stops=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5) 0%|rgba(0,0,0,0.5) 100%” background_color_gradient_overlays_image=”on” background_color_gradient_start=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5)” background_color_gradient_end=”rgba(0,0,0,0.5)” title_font_size_tablet=”40px” title_font_size_phone=”30px” title_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” title_line_height_tablet=”1.1em” title_line_height_phone=”1.1em” title_line_height_last_edited=”on|phone” custom_css_main_element=”height: 70vh;” global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_fullwidth_post_title][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”50px||0|” custom_padding_tablet=”50px|||” custom_padding_phone=”50px|||” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_padding=”0|0px|0|0px” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”0px||0px|” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_post_title featured_image=”off” _builder_version=”4.16″ title_font=”|700|||||||” title_line_height=”1.2em” max_width=”70%” module_alignment=”center” custom_margin=”||30px|” custom_padding=”|||” border_width_bottom=”1px” border_color_bottom=”#f3f3f3″ global_colors_info=”{}”][/et_pb_post_title][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.19.2″ header_font=”||||||||” background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” max_width=”70%” module_alignment=”center” custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding_tablet=”|0px||0px” custom_padding_phone=”” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]Google Apps is quite fantastic in terms of functionalities for your business. It can provide email service, online documents for collaboration, calendar sharing, contact lists that can be shared, a small task management app and much more. We used to refer all our customers to Google Apps to get them started with the email service. Reason were:
- Free!
- Easy to setup
- Compatible on almost any platform (desktop, phone, tablet ..)
- Reliable. (I think we experienced a 1 hour downtime in the 5 years we have been using the service)
However, since December 2012 it is no longer free anymore (for more than 1 user account). Lucky are the ones who got the service in time.
We are still recommending it if you can afford it. Right now it is priced at $50 per user per year. Which is, in our estimation, still a really good deal for these services. It comes with 30GB per user shared across their services (email, drive, picasa). So go for it if money is not an issue, especially if you need only a couple of accounts.
On the other hand, we must also consider the other options. Here is a list of different services which should fit most of your business needs:
Office 365
Office 365 is really awesome if you are one of those who cannot work without the office suite. They also provide Exchange system emails. It is not free but like Google Apps it is a very good deal if you consider you can use it on all your devices and virtually anywhere. You can check their small business plan here.
Outlook.com
Also in the Microsoft family, if you are only looking for email services, Outlook.com could be the right choice. Outlook.com is the successor of Hotmail.com and has been rebuilt from ground up with a new interface. And it is pretty straight forward to set up Outlook.com with your own business domain.
Hushmail
Hushmail is a pretty unknown candidate for business email provider. However, one of their most interesting features is security. They offer encrypted attachment support and email storage using the PGP standard. With their premium business account you get 10GB of space per email address for $5.24/user/month with a setup fee of $9.99.
Zoho Email
Zoho can be considered the underdog of the web business app world, but it is sure worth a try. You can use your own domain name for their email services. You can get 5 users with 5GB of space each for free. They also offer a bonus account when you refer other customers to their services.
If you lean toward the paid service for more space and features, their packages are really good, starting at $2.50 per month with 10GB per account and 5GB doc sharing, it is a sweet deal!
They also offer a myriad of other business apps that will surely fit most of your needs.
Other services
Obviously, there are many other services who are offering the same kind of products but the ones we have mentioned above are the ones we thought are worth considering.
You can also consider getting your email hosted with your website on a shared hosting plan. However, we recommend isolating your email from your hosting service, for the reason that if your hosting company goes into downtime, you can still rely on your email to be up (unless they both go down at the same time, which is unlikely to occur).
So here is a straight list of other service options:
- Rackspace Email
- FastMail
- AtMail
- Pobox
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