Using a shabby-looking email address (ahem, the types like bigtimemarketing@hotmail.com) is a surefire way to make your business look untrustworthy and unprofessional. You need a business email. And if you’re like most startups and small businesses, you need it to be inexpensive. To help, we reviewed over 20 of the leading providers to find the five best email hosting providers for small businesses for around $5 or less per month.
Top 5 Cheap Email Hosts for Budget-conscious Businesses
- Zoho Workplace: (Best Overall) Value for small businesses that need cheap email hosting for 10 or less email accounts
- Bluehost: Best value for businesses that need 10 or more email accounts as it offers a free domain and unlimited email addresses with unlimited storage for just $5.45 per month
- DreamHost: Best month-to-month cheap email hosting with contract-free plans for $1.99 per mailbox, per month
- Google Workspace (formerly G Suite): Companies that want email and G Suite Office and collaboration tools starting at $6 per user, per month
- IONOS by 1&1: Businesses that don’t need a lot of storage but do need a domain name and cheap email, with plans starting at just $1 per month
However, if the price of email hosting isn’t a key factor in your decision-making, check out our article on the best business email providers.
The 5 Best Cheap Email Hosting Providers Compared
 |  |  |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Price per Month | Free | Free with hosting plan, $5.45 per month | $1.99 per mailbox | $6 per user | $1 |
Billing Cycle | N/A | Annually | Monthly | Monthly | Monthly |
Number of Email Accounts Included | Up to 5 | Unlimited | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Storage | 5GB | Unlimited | 25GB | 30GB | 2GB |
Ad-free | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Connect Your Own Domain | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Unique Feature | N/A | Free domain | N/A | Collaboration and productivity suite | Free domain |
Learn More | Bluehost |
How We Evaluated Cheap Email Hosting Providers
Small businesses are always in need of safe, reliable, easy to use, and extremely affordable communication tools to connect with customers and communicate among their teams. That’s why we searched for email service providers with offerings of less than $5 per month and compared their service plans, any extra features offered like file storage, email protection, and collaboration tools, and customer reviews to determine the best value.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the best cheap email hosting providers for small businesses:
Zoho Workplace: Best Overall Value for Email Hosting
Zoho Workplace offers up to five free business email accounts and costs as little as just $1 per account thereafter. It also includes business productivity and collaboration tools—including calendars, document collaboration, notes, tasks, instant chat, and more—with its budget-friendly $1 per user, per month plans. For this reason, it’s the best overall value for small businesses and startups that need 10 or less business email addresses.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Up to 5 free email addresses | Limited storage space |
Premium plans start at $1 per month | Must own a domain |
Includes collaboration tools | Email may get flagged as spam |
Pricing & Features
Zoho offers a Free Forever plan for up to five users, each with 5GB of storage. If you need more than five email addresses, you can get additional email accounts for $1 per month via the Mail Lite plan. If you need more than 5GB of storage, you can opt for the Standard plan at $3 per month, billed annually, for 30GB storage, 30MB attachments, and G Suite integration—in addition to Zoho’s suite of productivity tools. Learn more about affordable business email, including how to get free business email.
Bluehost: Best for Businesses That Need Many Email Addresses
Bluehost is a web and email hosting provider that offers a full suite of secure email and web hosting features starting at $2.95 per month for up to five free business email addresses, or $5.45 per month for unlimited email addresses with unlimited storage. The package includes a free domain name, desktop, and mobile accessibility, web hosting, and antivirus and spam filters to protect sensitive data. It’s ideal for those who need web hosting as well as those who need a large volume of email accounts.
Prefer the Gmail email interface? You can also connect your Bluehost email to Google and access your business email through Gmail.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Low cost for unlimited email | Requires a 12-month contract |
Includes a free domain name | Does not include collaboration tools |
Connect to Gmail or Microsoft Office |
Pricing & Features
Businesses with a WordPress site will find Bluehost to be a good solution for email hosting because its web hosting plans include free email hosting. Its entry-level plan starts at $2.95 per month and includes five free business email addresses, whereas its Plus plan starts at $5.45 per month and includes unlimited email hosting. Plans also include a free domain name and give users the ability to connect their business email to providers such as Gmail.
DreamHost: Best Cheap Email Hosting Provider for Contract-free Plans
DreamHost is a leading web hosting provider that also offers cheap email hosting. While you can get free email through a web hosting plan, you can also get email hosting-only with 25GB of storage for $1.99 per mailbox, per month on a month-to-month basis, or just $1.67 per mailbox, per month with annual billing. It’s a straightforward and easy-to-use email hosting provider that provides a good value for small businesses that need a high amount of storage at a low cost.
Like Bluehost, with DreamHost email hosting you can access your email through the Gmail interface if you prefer.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
High amount of storage at 25GB | Does not include a domain name |
Commitment-free, month-to-month plans | Does not come with a productivity suite |
Option to save extra with annual billing |
Pricing & Features
DreamHost offers one straightforward email hosting plan with 25GB of storage. It costs $1.99 per mailbox, per month with monthly billing or as little as $1.67 per mailbox, per month ($20 per year) with annual billing. It’s pretty easy to set up and use, can be accessed from all of your devices, offers high-quality spam filters, and is ad-free.
Google Workspace: Best Email Hosting With a Suite of Collaboration Tools
Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) is an industry-leading email hosting provider that is extremely intuitive, starting at $6 per user, per month. With an uncluttered interface, straightforward navigation, and built-in collaboration tools, Gmail makes email setup and customization simple. Given these features, Google Workspace is an ideal email and collaboration solution for non-tech-savvy businesses that don’t want to spend a lot of time on email setup or maintenance.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Easy to use | Does not include a domain name |
Includes Google’s suite of collaboration and productivity tools | Most expensive option |
Large storage limit of 30GB |
Pricing & Features
Google Workspace plans start at $6 per user, per month for a secure email account that uses your own domain (with up to 30 email aliases), productivity tools, and 30GB of storage. While it’s possible to get cheaper email hosting that connects to Gmail, the real selling point is access to Google Workspace, which includes Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, as well as calendars, team messaging, and video conferencing—making it the best option for collaborative teams.
Wondering how Microsoft Office 365 compares? Check out the in-depth look at G Suite vs Office 365.
IONOS: Best Cheap Email Hosting Provider With a Free Domain
IONOS by 1&1 is a web hosting and business application provider that offers low-cost email hosting with an included domain name. It stands out by offering basic, secure email hosting for only $1 per month. This package includes spam protection, modest storage, a domain name, and customer support, but very little else. This service is best for companies working with extremely limited budgets, like freelancers and early-stage startups.
Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Ultra-cheap at just $1 per month | Does not include productivity tools |
Includes a domain name | Can be difficult to cancel the plan |
Pricing & Features
1&1 IONOS offers bare-bones business email hosting. Plans start at $1 per month. However, this only includes 2GB of storage and a maximum attachment size of 6MB. So while $1 per month for business email with a free domain sounds like a great value, it’s not sufficient for many businesses given the restrictive storage limit. It also does not include collaboration tools, which most businesses require and will, therefore, need to purchase separately.
Other Top Email Hosting Providers We Considered
Wondering where some of the other top email hosting providers are? Well, the short answer is we didn’t include them. Why? They simply don’t stack up to the providers that made our list. Either they’re not as user-friendly, cost more money, or offer fewer inclusions and features.
Here are a few of the other email hosting providers we considered (and why they didn’t make our list):
- Microsoft 365: More expensive than Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) at $12.50 per user, month for a plan with comparable features and is widely considered less user-friendly.
- Rackspace: Plans start at $2.99 per user, per month for 25GB of storage, making it 50% more expensive than DreamHost for the same storage and features.
- Hover: Plans start at $20 per year with 10GB of storage, so it costs nearly as much as DreamHost, but with an annual contract and less than half the storage.
- Hostinger: Offers email hosting plans on a per user basis starting at 99 cents per user, per month. This is very competitive with 1&1 IONOS and includes more storage, but it doesn’t include a free domain name. Those who don’t need a domain will likely find Zoho’s free plan to be a better value. It also offers unlimited email hosting with unlimited storage for $9.99 per month, making it comparable to Bluehost’s plan that costs nearly half that at $5.45 per month.
- HostGator: In order to get email hosting through HostGator, you must have a web hosting plan, and email hosting plans are only available at cost an additional fee. Plus, the additional fee is $6 for Google Workspace (which you can get directly from Google for the same price).
- Amazon WorkMail: Pricing starts at $4 per user, per month with 50GB of storage. While this is a very high amount of storage, it’s not necessary for most small businesses. Those that require a great deal of storage would find unlimited storage for just over $1 more per month from Bluehost a better value.
- MXRoute: Good value for businesses that need a high number of email accounts as its plan includes unlimited email addresses with unlimited storage for $40 per year. However, its interface is antiquated and not overly user-friendly.
- Yandex: While it advertises a free business email offer, the free version does not include any storage. In order to get email storage, you need to upgrade to a premium account, which costs around $2 per month. However, the cost of premium plans is displayed in Russian rubles, and the amount per month may vary based on foreign currency rates. In short, avoid the headache and skip Yandex.
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for the best email hosting provider that offers professional, secure, and ad-free email, your best bet is Zoho. Of course, if you need a number of business email addresses, you will likely find that the best value for you is Bluehost, as it offers unlimited email addresses with unlimited storage for as little as $5.45 per month.
You May Also Like…
- Make your life easy by following the step-by-step instructions on how to create a custom business email address.
- Learn what mistakes to avoid by checking out our article on professional email address ideas.
- Rev up your business email by adding one of the following best professional email tools.
- Learn how to market your business and increase your sales with email marketing.
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