TOP 10 email services for business 

Small businesses do not want to spend a lot of money on email hosting. They don’t require thousands of email addresses and they don’t want hundreds of dollars hosting their email.

What is Email Hosting? Why use it?

An email hosting company is responsible for running an email server. Sign up for the email hosting service to get an email server. To use an email service, all you need is a domain. An email hosting server can be used to manage, send and maintain your email accounts. Many large e-commerce sites have their own email servers that ensure that emails get to the intended recipients promptly. Small businesses can use the email hosting solutions offered by companies such as Google, Zoho, and Rackspace. Cloudways is one example. It provides managed cloud hosting services and an email hosting solution from Rackspace.

Email Hosting Options for Small Businesses

There are many types of email hosting options, each with a different purpose. Let’s find out which email hosting solution is best for you.

1. Email Service and Shared Web Hosting

This email service can be used with shared hosting services. Due to limitations on the server, you can’t send/receive bulk emails from it.

2. Third-Party Email Hosting

Third-party email hosting is preferred by most digital businesses. These email servers are highly scalable and easy to use, with excellent support. Remember that email hosting will be charged separately. If you choose to get a shared web hosting with email, your cost will be higher than if you go for a dedicated server.

3. Self-hosted Email Servers

These servers are highly complex and need technical expertise from the people who manage them. These servers are reliable and allow you to send, receive, or maintain email with ease.

Which business email hosting provider is best? Features, prices, and limitations

The following table compares email hosting for small businesses.

Why should you host email on a separate server?

Experts recommend that email not be hosted on the same server as web files and databases of business websites. This is a common mistake. Many businesses view a separate email server to be an unnecessary expense. They host their email on the same server. If disaster strikes and the server is down for whatever reason, the business can’t email the providers as the email system was also offline.

Hosting email is bad from a technical standpoint. Web hosting and email hosting have very different requirements. Hosting them both on the same server can lead to competition for resources, which could result in a slowdown in application performance.

The tricky part of support is last. The support team may be well-versed in handling web hosting issues but their knowledge of troubleshooting email hosting might be limited.

IMAP vs. POP3 vs. SMTP – Comparing Email Protocols

Let’s find out the differences between different email protocols. This is the list of protocols you will need in order to send emails.

1. IMAP

It’s also known as the Internet Access Message Protocol. It is used to retrieve email messages from the server and manage them. It is not possible to use IMAP protocol for email sending. You can instead use it to send email messages and store them on the server.

2. SMTP

The SMTP protocol stands as (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). It is the industry standard protocol for sending email messages. SMTP lets you send and relay email messages or forward them to other mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook to Gmail. To send email messages, the SMTP server can be used to complete the transmission.

3. POP3

POP3 allows you to receive email messages and then download them to your server. Although it has the same functionality and features as IMAP protocol, POP3 doesn’t save these emails messages to the server. It downloads them from the server to the user’s PC and deletes the server copy.

IMAP protocol, on the other hand, stores an email message on an email server and syncs it across multiple devices.

Q. Q. Should You Use IMAP or POP3?

It all depends on how you wish to receive emails. Both functionalities are offered by most email service providers. It is best to choose IMAP protocol. Your emails will be saved on the server so you can access them at any time. You won’t have access to any emails if you use POP3 email protocol.

Best Email Hosting Services for Business

This list contains the best email hosting services for small businesses that you can use to increase your email campaigns.

1. Google Workspace

Google Workspace is our first choice. Gmail is a well-known tool. Google Workspace is a more advanced, sophisticated, and feature-rich version Gmail. Google Workspace is a collection of Google cloud-based apps that can simplify many of your tasks. It includes Calendar and Chat, Drive, Docs Sheets Slides Sites, Meet, Google Docs, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

With over a billion users, it is one of the most widely used email services. You can also use third-party apps on Google Workspace to improve your productivity without additional charges. Google Workspace isn’t free. You will need to pay a small fee for the use of Google Workspace apps. Prices start at $6 per user per month for the Business Starter plan and can rise to $18 per person per month for Business Plus. Each user receives 30GB of storage space in Google Workspace. This includes Google apps such as Gmail, Drive, and Photos. You can also get a 14-day free trial.

2. Zoho Mail

Zoho mail service offers an alternative to Microsoft Office 365 business email and Google Workspace. It has almost all the same features, including hosted email, office suite and other tools for working. Zoho offers both a paid and free version of its mail service. Basic features like a web-based client that sends and receives emails are available in the free version. The free version does not allow you to set up a business account or get a custom domain. The paid Zoho mail service allows you to easily create a custom domain for your email. It supports email forwarding and POP/IMAP. A third-party app can be used to check your email. Zoho Mail, which starts at $12 per year and offers 5GB of email storage, is a great option for small businesses. Zoho Mail Plus plans offer 30GB storage per user and Zoho Docs cloud storage.

 

3. Office 365 Outlook

The Microsoft Office Suite 365 service is best for you if you’re a Microsoft user. Office 365 offers all the tools you need, including Outlook, Word Excel, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. The Office 365 Business Premium will be available for your email hosting account. This service can be used with a custom domain. Office 365 Business Premium offers 50GB storage and uses the custom domain to create an email address. The Office 365 Outlook version includes Outlook, Word Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This will allow you to improve your productivity. You will also get 1TB OneDrive cloud storage for your files. Office 365 Outlook is $100 per year

4. Yandex Mail

Yandex, a Russian search engine, also offers email hosting. This is the perfect tool for anyone who wants to set up an email server with a custom domain. It’s fast and flexible, as well as cheaper than other providers. A paid account costs as little as $3 per month. You can have up to three email users for a website. However, you can sign up as an organization and get 1000 free accounts. Yandex provides unlimited storage for all email accounts. Yandex Mail can be connected to your email account. Collaboration tools include track issues, calendar, forms, and messenger. Yandex gives each user 10GB of online storage space for an annual fee. It comes with anti-virus and spam technologies to protect your mailbox. Two-factor authentication (2FA), for better login security and migration, is also available.

5. Mailgun

Mailgun, an SMTP email service provider, was created primarily to serve software developers. Cloudways users love it because they can send bulk emails easily and it dramatically increases engagement.

Mailgun isn’t an email marketing tool, it’s a mail API. It is a transactional service that allows you to send, receive and track emails. You can use it to send burst emails and it uses secure protocols to ensure your email is always safe.

It also includes a performance prediction tool that will give you an indication of where your email is likely landing when it arrives at your recipient’s mailbox.

Mailgun is not free. The Flex tier offers three months of unlimited email. After the initial period expires, you will be charged according to how many emails you send. After the initial three months, $0.8 per 1,000 emails will be charged.

6. SendGrid

SendGrid allows users to send email without having to set up or maintain their own email servers. Cloudways users love it because it handles all technical issues from setting up the infrastructure to scaling your email requirements.

It offers real-time analytics data and reputation monitoring tools. SendGrid has more than 45,000 customers and sent over 1 trillion emails, making it a trusted and reliable choice.

7. MXRoute

MXRoute, a simple, no-frills email hosting solution for small businesses, is a great option. MXRoute is also extremely affordable, at $60 per year or $5 per month for unlimited domains and email addresses. You get a 50GB server for this price.

You can also access it via Webmail, SMTP and POP3 for easy access. It also has built-in support to filter out spam mails. MXRoute gives you access to NextCloud for each email that you send. NextCloud offers file storage, calendars, contact management and project management solutions. It even has photo galleries.

8. PostMark

PostMark is another popular service provider for email. It focuses primarily on transactional emails and doesn’t offer bulk email marketing. This has helped it to build a strong reputation.

PostMark is an easy-to-use email service provider that provides metrics for email performance and tracking. It also has email automation, making it a great tool for small businesses. Pricing starts at $10 per month for PostMark, which is somewhat expensive compared to other providers.

For $10, you get 10,000 emails. Pricing varies depending on how many emails you receive. For example, $1,200 per month for 5,000,000 emails. If you wish, you can even obtain a dedicated IP.

9. FastMail

FastMail, one of the most established email service providers in industry, is a great choice for anyone looking for a premium service at a fraction of the cost of a basic service. Although it supports IMAP/PGP, it doesn’t offer encryption at the end. FastMail offers two-factor authentication and spam filtering to protect your email.

Pricing starts at $3 per month. There is no free version. There are several levels you can choose from.

10. Amazon SES

Amazon SES (Simple Email Service), is an affordable, flexible and cost-effective email service that can be scaled to meet your business’s needs. Amazon is not unfamiliar with cloud-based services and the SES seamlessly integrates into their business.

Amazon SES offers a reputation dashboard to help you track the performance of your email campaigns and to get more spam feedback in order to improve your emails’ performance. It comes with a variety of security options built in, such as the DomainKeys Identified Mail and the Sender Policy Framework that authenticate both the sender and receiver.

Conclusion

We have reached the end of the article. This concludes our article on the best email hosting options for small and medium-sized businesses. Email marketing is now an integral part every digital business. This is the time to invest in email hosting services if you are looking to grow your business. An excellent email hosting service can help you grow, improve support, and reach more customers via new marketing channels.

FAQs to Help You Choose the Best Email Hosting Services

Q1. Should you use a separate server for email hosting?

It depends. It all depends. Cloudways provides email hosting as an optional service. All charges will be deducted directly from your Cloudways account. If your hosting server doesn’t provide email hosting, you will need to use a separate server for sending and receiving mail. Depending on your needs, you can either use Google Workspace (or Microsoft Office 365).

Q2. Which bandwidth server should I get for small business email hosting

You rent space from email servers to send emails. These servers have SMTP and IMAP interfaces. Email hosting servers handle both incoming and outgoing mail. If you send large quantities of emails, bandwidth is not an issue. Cloudways Rackspace is the best choice for you if you send less than 10,000 emails per month.

Q3.  Why do I need SMTP and IMAP?

To send and receive email easily, you will need to have SMTP and IMAP protocols installed on your email server. Many email hosting providers, such as Cloudways Rackspace email hosting and Google Workspace email hosting, offer additional features like slides, docs sheets, hangouts, and presentations.

Q4. Which email hosting service is best for small businesses?

There is no one “best” email host. However, there are many popular email hosting services. These include:

• Google Workspace
• Cloudways Rackspace
• Zoho Mail
• Office 365 Outlook
• Mailgun

Q5. Q5. How much should email hosting costs?

Email hosting can be very affordable. When evaluating email hosting providers, be aware that even if the price seems low, you should still look at the features as they could leave out essential features like security and space.

Q6. Why should small businesses have email hosting?

It is a good idea to keep web hosting separate from email hosting. This way, in the event of an unfortunate incident with your web host, your emails would still be accessible. Email hosting is different and one server may not be able cater to all of them.

Introduction

Marketers have incredible resources and the pace at which innovation is happening is amazing. According to VentureBeat, there are 1,876 companies in 43 marketing categories including SEO, social media, video marketing, and sales enablement.

Moreover, many categories were not included in the report a year ago.

Only one category performs well year after year: Email marketing. Email marketing has been generating the best ROI for marketers for ten consecutive years. Email marketing generates $38 in ROI for every $1 spent. It gives marketers the most reach out of all channels. Email marketing, despite the many tools marketers have at their disposal, is the best way to grow your business.

This guide will discuss seven reasons email marketing is essential to your digital marketing strategy. It will also show you how experts use it as a core tool in their digital strategies.

7 reasons email marketing can help you grow your business

Marketers today need to do more with less. Marketers must be able to communicate with their target audience in a highly personal way while remaining within budget. Marketers who can connect with prospects and customers in a highly targeted manner will be able to deliver ROI and revenue back into the business.

VentureBeat’s report shows that email marketing is the most durable marketing channel. Email marketing is still the most effective channel for modern marketers, despite some marketing trends passing.

Here are seven reasons:

1. Email marketing is more popular.

It’s easy to believe that social media is the best way to reach the masses, with Facebook boasting more than 1 billion users and Twitter boasting about 255 million. These numbers are amazing, but statistics about email usage are not often shared.

According to Radicati, the global number of email accounts is 3.9 billion. It is projected that it will reach 4.9 billion by 2017.

This may seem strange at first but think about your online behavior. When you sign up to a website (like an internet store), you must enter your email address in order to create the account. To create a Facebook account or Twitter account, you will need to have an email address. Facebook and Twitter also allow users to be notified of activity via email, such as when someone has been tagged in a photograph.

Email is the currency for the internet. Anyone who is online has an active address. While Twitter and Facebook may seem ubiquitous, privacy concerns and data breaches mean that many people have stopped using some social media platforms.

Email is the best channel to connect with prospects and customers.

2. Email marketing delivers your message.

Marketers should choose the email subscriber whenever they have to make a choice between adding an email subscriber or gaining new Facebook fans.

Two reasons are key:

First, 90% of emails are delivered directly to the recipient’s inbox. Only 2% of your Facebook friends see your posts on their News Feed. In an effort to encourage brands to use paid advertising, Facebook restricts the number of times that your posts appear on the News Feed.

This is an important step in getting your message across to the right audience.

If you send an update to your 10,000 Facebook friends, only 200 will see it in their News Feed. You can also send an email campaign reaching 10,000 subscribers and at least 9,000 will see it in their inbox.

This means that email is 45 times more likely than Facebook to see your message.

Your email subscribers have also indicated that they are interested in hearing from you after signing up for your mailing list.

There are strict laws and regulations regarding SPAM laws. If you email a prospect or customer it is because they have given you permission. Think about your Facebook News Feed ads. Did you ask these companies to market to me?

Most likely not. You probably did a Google search and visited their website. This is a far different experience than signing up for an email newsletter.

Email has been proven to deliver your message to your audience.

 

3. Email marketing drives conversions.

Marketers are focused on converting customers. Marketers are determined to convert potential customers into paying customers, regardless of whether this is done in the form or sales leads, memberships, or any other metric that suits your business strategy.

Email is the most powerful channel for conversions.

The average click-through rates for an email campaign are around 3% (of total recipients), while the average click-through rate from a Tweet is about 0.5%.

This means that you have 6x the chance of getting someone to click through via email to your site than you do via Twitter. Your email subscribers already told you that they want to hear from you, which is not the case with social media.

According to Monetate, email marketing is more popular than search engines (2.49%) and social media (0.59%), respectively.

Email is also highly quantifiable. Campaign Monitor customers have access to real-time metrics such as opens, clicks and bounces, forwards, and social shares.

Those who integrate email marketing into Salesforce are able to see firsthand how email marketing affects business opportunities and deals.

Email marketing is the best communication channel for business if you are a marketer who is focused on driving leads and conversions.

4. Email marketing is more effective than other forms of marketing.

Email’s unparalleled ability to drive conversions makes it easy to see why email is the best channel to increase your company’s ROI. Email marketing has an average ROI of 3,800% for businesses. The average return on investment for email marketing is $38.

These statistics show that email is cost-effective for marketers. But, why does it perform so well when it comes to ROI?

Delivering relevant and personalized messages is the key. Email allows you to be highly targeted with your communications, unlike social networks that send status updates to everyone, regardless of where they live, what interests or purchase history.

Campaign Monitor has a lot of data about customers. This includes insights from your CRM and customer service system. The more data, the more targeted you can become.

Campaign Monitor customer Rip Curl used segmentation and dynamic content in order to get the right message to each person. They know the gender and location of their subscribers so that they can send emails about summer bathing suits to females in the United States and winter wetsuits to males in Australia.

The use of segmentation with dynamic content allows recipients to make informed decisions about the content they send. This helps drive people to click through, make purchases and improve the ROI of email marketing campaigns.

5. Email marketing is the preferred channel of communication.

Many people use social media networks to communicate with their friends and family. People log into their social media accounts to view photos and updates from those they care about.

Email is, however, a more professional medium. People expect to be able to get information about products or services via email.

MarketingSherpa reports that is the preferred method of receiving promotional content via email. This compares to 17% who prefer social networks.

6. Email marketing can be done from any device.

Many brands have spent millions on social followings over the years to engage and communicate with their audience.

Facebook is constantly updating its algorithm to decrease the number of people who see posts from brands, even though they are investing in social media platforms.

This has been so common that 98% of brand followers won’t see these posts in their News Feeds. Twitter appears to be heading in the same direction with its announcement that it will also introduce an algorithm-controlled feed.

Channels like Twitter and Facebook are owned and controlled by third parties. This means that marketers are subject to any changes made by the platforms.

Currently, email is not owned or controlled by any particular entity. It is an open communication platform, and many services allow you to send and receive emails.

Email marketing is a multi-faceted industry. This means that not one person can make significant changes. And unlike Twitter and Facebook, if you spend the time and money to build and nurture a great list, you will have an asset. You’ll be able to leverage your list without fear of it being hampered by others.

7. Email marketing will continue to be popular.

Do you remember MySpace? What?

It was once the most popular social networking site in the world, with over 500,000 users between 2005 and 2008.. In June 2006, it surpassed Google to become the most visited website within the United States. But where is MySpace today? All of those users moved on to other social networking sites, so MySpace is now the 1,500th most visited website in the United States.

Imagine spending significant time and money building an audience on a platform, only to discover it abandoned a year later. It would have a devastating impact on your ability to reach and engage potential customers.

Email has a long history. Email has grown steadily since then, with the first promotional email sent to 400 people.

It is interesting to note that the email industry has changed from one where you had to hire a developer to build email campaigns to one where Campaign Monitor allows modern marketers to easily create beautiful, branded emails. This has allowed more people to have access to business email.

Building an email list is not like building a social following. It’s a long-term, stable investment that will pay dividends for many years.

Marketing experts’ take on it

Many top marketers at some of the most successful companies around the globe believe email is the best channel to grow your business.

Here are the top marketing thought leaders of today:

Email marketing for 2021

Are you ready to take your email marketing to the next level with the latest innovations and trends?

2021 will be a great year for tech due to the many changes that it brings to email marketing. COVID-19 has certainly accelerated the rate of adoption. By 2022, there will be 4.2 million email users. New possibilities exist in email design, delivery, and content thanks to technological advances.

These are the top 5 ways to make your email marketing more relevant and effective in the next year.

1. Interactive content is finally here.

Email marketing is not about sending out a message. It’s more about creating an experience for your subscribers.

Since a long time, we know that interactive content can increase engagement rates by up to 70%. Interactive content is now being used to allow customers to experience brands at a whole new level.

This potential will be fully embraced in 2019. As marketers discover new ways to keep their subscribers engaged and convert, expect to see dynamic design features as well as gamification engagement.

2. Consumers value authenticity, connection and trust.

In 2021, being real matters. Your cause must be authenticated and committed to by your customers.

As consumers increasingly place more value on brands’ beliefs and values, it will be crucial for them to communicate their values with consumers.

More than 60% of consumers base their buying decisions on whether a brand shares their values. These consumers don’t believe in fanciful promises or catchy phrases. They want to see that your brand is walking the talk .

Learn more about the impact of authenticity on your reader engagement.

3. Mobile optimization is essential.

Your message, email or website won’t function on mobile devices in 2021. Newsday reported two years ago that more than half of all email messages are now read on mobile devices. However, nearly half of those emails were not formatted for mobile display.

If you want to present your message flawlessly, mobile compatibility is essential. Try to make sure your design and your content look great on every device this year.

4. Email campaigns that use triggers are powerful and easy to implement.

Many marketers find automation a lifesaver when it comes to email campaigns. You can have even greater control and power over automated processes using trigger-based emails.

This technology monitors the subscriber’s interactions with a website or email and sends emails based on this behavior.

Campaign Monitor provides such services. You can use our segmentation tool to create rules that will sort your subscribers into different groups. You can assign them to segments based on how they interact with your email messages. This powerful feature streamlines list management and maintains reader relevance.

You’ll be able to send more targeted and more effective emails in less time.

5. How to stand out in a world where everything is personal.

personalization will reign supreme in 2020. It will be an integral part of any email campaign that succeeds in 2021 and beyond.

How can you be different when everything is personal?

Marketers must establish a rapport with customers while not sounding creepy or chummy. This balance can only be achieved and maintained if you continue to put effort into humanizing your interactions.

Take a bow

Marketers have many channels to reach their audience. However, they also have limited resources and time so you must prioritize your efforts.

Email marketing is the best channel to reach, engage and connect with your audience in order to increase sales and revenue.

Use email marketing to increase your sales and revenue today.