Business email on your own domain, from £2.99 a month

A business email address just means one on your own domain name. So instead of daveselectrical@hotmail.com, you’re dave@daveselectrical.co.uk. With us, you get that through our cPanel web hosting. Web Starter is £2.99 a month with 10 email accounts, and Web Plus is £4.99 with unlimited accounts. If you haven’t got a domain yet, a .co.uk is £8.01 a year.

Why not just use Gmail?

There’s nothing wrong with Gmail as a mailbox. The problem is the address. Picture a plumber in Shrewsbury sending a quote for a new bathroom from plumberdave77@gmail.com. He might be brilliant, but it doesn’t look like a proper business. Send the same quote from dave@ and his firm’s name, and it does. Customers notice that, and so do letting agents and builders you might want work from.

There’s a practical side as well. Email sent from your own domain through a proper mail server has a better chance of landing in the inbox rather than the spam folder. Outgoing mail from our servers goes through MailChannels, which filters it before it leaves. It also helps to have the standard email records set on your domain (SPF, DKIM and DMARC, if you want to look them up). If you’re not sure what those are, have a look in our help centre or get in touch.

And if you ever change broadband provider, an address tied to them can be a pain to hang on to. An address on your own domain isn’t tied to anyone’s broadband.

Can I keep my old address while I switch?

Yes, and we’d say you should. Don’t close the old account the day the new one’s working. Start putting the new address on quotes, invoices, your website and the side of the van, and keep an eye on the old inbox for a few months. Most free email services let you set an automatic reply telling people your new address.

It’s worth updating the places people find you too: your Google Business Profile, Facebook page, any directory listings and your email signature. Our free email signature generator will make you a tidy one.

Will it work on my phone?

Yes. Once you’ve made the mailbox in cPanel, you add it to the mail app on your iPhone or Android phone like any other email account. Set it up as IMAP and it stays in step with your other devices, so an email you’ve read on your phone shows as read on the laptop too. Outlook and Apple Mail on a computer work the same way, and there’s webmail for when you’re on someone else’s computer.

Say you’re an electrician in Welshpool. You could have dave@ on your phone in the van, accounts@ on the laptop at home where the invoices get done, and quotes@ going to both. That’s three of the 10 accounts on Web Starter.

Microsoft 365 or hosting email?

Honestly, it depends what you need. Microsoft 365 is the better choice if your firm works in Teams, wants the Office apps like Word and Excel on everyone’s machine, or shares calendars and diaries between staff. It’s built around all of that, and hosting email isn’t.

If you just want proper addresses on your own domain that work on your phone and in Outlook, hosting email does the job, and Web Starter is £2.99 a month for up to 10 of them. If you already pay for Microsoft 365 and you’re happy with it, keep it. Your website can live with us while your email stays where it is.

Do I need a website as well?

No, but the space is there if you want one. Both plans include room for a website, and you can put WordPress on with a couple of clicks. If you’d rather not build it yourself, our managed website is £47 a month and we design it, write the words and host it. That includes your domain and email forwarding into the inbox you already use, but not separate mailboxes. See domains and email for how that works, or our domain name prices if you just need a name.