Free Business Email Address: How to Set One Up In 5 Minutes

Creating a free business email address that uses your own domain name is something every business should do. A business email address adds credibility to your business by presenting a professional image through email. It’s also easy to create your business email address and can be set up in as little as five minutes.

Most business email address providers come with a cost, but you can get a free business email address from Bluehost. First, you’ll need a website and a domain name. Bluehost includes a free email and domain with their $2.95/month web hosting package, making them a great choice for those just starting out in need of a website. Click here to check it out.

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What a Business Email Address Is & Why It’s Important

A business email address is one that uses your businesses domain name, such as yourname@yourbusinessURL.com. Every business should use business email addresses because they give your business a much more professional look, one that helps you appear more trustworthy and giving contacts more confidence in doing business with you.

Here are the top reasons why it’s important to have a business email address:

• For a Professional Appearance – If you want your business to be taken seriously, then you need to present yourself professionally in all aspects—including via email. On top of that, every employee should have a business email address to maintain brand consistency.
• Instill Trustworthiness – One effect of having a professional image is that it gives people more confidence and trust in your business. This makes them more likely to do business with you.
• Increase Brand Awareness – A business email address uses your domain name, putting it out there every time you send an email, as opposed to a generic email that says yourname@gmail.com. This increases brand awareness.
• It’s Free – Even businesses on a tight budget benefit from using a business email address; as there is no cost, there is no reason not to use a free business email address.

How to Get a Free Business Email Address

There are very few options for finding a truly free business email address. However, we have found a couple great free options to choose from: Bluehost and Zoho. Bluehost is best for businesses that need to buy their website domain and a place to host their new website.

There are two primary ways to get a free business email address:

Below, we’ll walk you through the exact steps you need to take, including instructions on how to connect your new business email with Gmail or Outlook. We’ll start with Bluehost, then move onto Zoho and a bonus option later in this article.

Option 1: Set Up a Free Business Email Account Using Bluehost

Bluehost provides a free business email and a free WordPress website when you use their hosting service, which costs just $2.95/month. You can claim your business website name, host your website, and build it for one low price. Check out Bluehost’s packages.

Here’s how to set up your free business email account using Bluehost in four steps:

Step 1: Sign Up with Bluehost & Choose a Domain

The first step is to head over to Bluehost. Click “Get Started Now” and select the subscription package you want. The basic plan should be sufficient if you don’t need more than five email accounts. If you need unlimited email hosting, you will only need to pay $2.50 more per month.

Next, choose a domain for your website and email address. The domain is the second half of your email address: yourname@yoursite.com. Once you’ve decided on a domain name, you can use the Bluehost domain search tool below to see if it’s available. You will be taken straight to the registration page if the domain name is available. If it’s not, you’ll be prompted to keep searching.

Check if Your Domain Name Is Available

This is one of the most important steps, since your domain name will be the name of your business online. It will affect how people perceive your business. For example, it will be confusing if your URL name is different from your business name, and may affect your rankings on the search engine results page.

Tips for Coming Up with a Domain Name

• Use .COM – People tend to assume that websites end in .com, and are also more trusting of .com over other top-level domains (.net, .co and .io).
• Include Keywords (Such as Location) in Your Domain Name – Adding your location not only increases the chances that the domain will be available, it also means there are more keywords in your URL that you can potentially rank for on search engines. For example, if your domain is www.maggiespizzanyc.com, when people conduct a search for “pizza nyc,” you will have more keywords in your domain that match the search.
• Consider Adding a Prefix or Suffix – If your current business name is unavailable as a domain, don’t give up. You can add prefixes, such as “the,” “my,” or any short adjective, or suffixes like “”biz” or “co” to increase your chances of finding an available domain. If people have heard of “Cornerstone Bakery” and your domain is “bestcupcakesintown.com,” it will be harder for people to find you when they do a Google search of your business name.

For even more tips, check out our top 25 tips when choosing a domain name.

Finish Registration

Next you’ll enter your account information and finalize the order. Pay attention to the add-ons under “Package Information.” You might want to consider Domain Privacy Protection to avoid spam in your mailbox. By law, your contact information becomes public after registering a domain. By selecting “Domain Privacy Protection,” however, Bluehost will add their own information to the registry rather than your own.

Example of how Bluehost will conceal your information

Step 2: Head to the Mail Manager

Once you’ve selected a domain and created your account, you’ll land on Bluehost’s dashboard. On the left menu, click the link that says “Email.”

Bluehost Welcome Page

Simply enter an email name and password to create a new email account. On Bluehost’s “Basic” hosting plan, you can create up to five email accounts. On the “Plus” plan, you can create an unlimited number of accounts.

Create a New Business Email Address with Bluehost

Tips for Choosing Your Professional Email Address

• Use a Standard Format for All Employees – For example, you might include their first initial and last name (JSmith) or full first and last names (JoeSmith). The format you choose will depend on how many employees you have and the amount of privacy you want to maintain.
• Create Special Email Addresses for Your Website – Giving visitors special email addresses to contact for support, sales, press, and general questions looks professional and keeps your business better organized. These are set up on a separate menu (the “Forwarders” tab), which we’ll explain a little further down.

Learn more about how to choose the right email address for you in our article, The 3 Rules to Choosing a Professional Email Address.

Once everything looks good, click “Save.” Repeat this step for each employee for whom you want to provide an email address.

How to Check Your Email

A little further down on the Email menu, you’ll see a list of email addresses you created. To access your inbox, click “More,” then “Access Webmail.”

Or, you can click “Set Up Mail Client” to set up an Outlook, Mac, or iOS inbox. A little further below, we’ll also show you how to sync Bluehost with your Gmail inbox.

Access Email Through Bluehost

To quickly access your webmail inbox, head to Bluehost’s login page and click “Webmail Login” instead of Hosting Login.

Step 3: Set Up Email Forwarding

You’ll also notice an option called “Forwarders” on the Bluehost email manager menu. Email forwarding sends a copy of all mail from one address to another. This step is optional, but it’s helpful if you’ll be sharing an email address with other employees (say, a generic Contact@YourBusiness.com) and you want messages to forward to each of your inboxes.

Setup Email Forwarding with Bluehost

Setting this up is easy. Simply enter the new email address up top (e.g., contact@yoursite.com or sales@yoursite.com). Then, below that, enter the personal address mail should forward to. If you want emails to forward to multiple addresses, simply click “submit” and create another forwarder.

Step 4: Connect Bluehost Email with Gmail, Outlook, & Third-Party Clients

If you don’t want to log in to a new mail account to check your email, you can connect your new business address with your current inbox, including Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, iOS, or Android Mail.

How to Use Bluehost Email with Gmail

Log in to or create your Gmail account. When you reach your inbox, click the gear in the upper right-hand corner (below your user picture) and then select “Settings.”

How to Connect Bluehost to Gmail

Select the “Accounts and Import” tab at the top, then scroll down to “Add a mail account.”

This will open a pop-up window, where you’ll enter your new Bluehost business email. In order to connect it to Gmail, you will need to enter your Bluehost password.

Add Mail Account to Bluehost
IMPORTANT: Be sure to enter your FULL email address under Username (e.g., yourname@yourdomain.com).

In addition to receiving mail, you can select to send mail from Gmail using your new company email address. When you send a message, you can choose which address you want to display in the “From” field.

On the following screen, Bluehost will ask if you want to set this up:

Bluehost Mail Account Success Page

The process only takes a minute. First, you’ll enter the name you want to appear on outgoing messages. On the next screen, you’ll enter your email address and password once again (like before, be sure to enter your full email address, username, and domain.) Lastly, you’ll confirm your new email address by copying/pasting a code.

Head back into your Bluehost account. Select “Email Manager” and click “View Inbox.” You should see an email from Google with your verification code. Copy/paste this code and enter it back into Gmail.

How to Verify Email with Bluehost

Once you’ve combined your accounts, you’ll be able to navigate between your professional and personal email addresses. Just choose which “From “address you want to use while composing your email.

Bluehost Email Example

Wait a little while, then send a message to your new email address. You should see it appear in your Gmail account, and have the ability to respond using your new address.

How to Use Bluehost Email with Outlook

If you want to connect your new Bluehost business email with an Outlook account, the process is very similar. It will vary slightly, however, depending on which edition of Outlook you’re using.

For instructions on how to connect your email with an Outlook account, click on one of the following guides from Bluehost below:

• Outlook 2016 for Windows
• Outlook 2016 for Mac
• Outlook 2013
• Outlook 2011

How to Use Bluehost Email with iOS, Android, or Another Client

Below are instructions to connect Bluehost with even more inboxes:

• iOS Devices (iPhone, iPad)
• Android Devices
• Windows Phone
• Mozilla Thunderbird
• Windows Live Mail

Option 2: Get a Free Business Email Address from Zoho

If you have a business domain and website already, Zoho is the last remaining service that offers truly free business email accounts without having to purchase any other parts of their service. In fact, they offer up to 25 free business email accounts, each with 5 GB of data. That should be plenty for the average small business owner.

Here’s how to create a free business email address using Zoho in five steps:

Step 1. Create a Zoho Mail Account

Head over to Zoho Mail and click “Sign Up Now.” On the next page, select the Free Plan, which is listed below the paid options.

Domain Registration with Bluehost

Enter your domain and account information, then click “Sign Up.”

Step 2. Verify Your Domain

Next, you’ll need to verify that you own your domain. The exact steps will vary depending on which provider you used to purchase your domain. We’ll use GoDaddy as an example. If you want instructions for a different provider, just select your provider from the list and Zoho will supply directions below on the same menu.

The first step is to make note of the CNAME and Destination values, which will appear on the following screen:

Domain Verification with Bluehost

Then, head over to GoDaddy (or whatever your domain provider is) and click “Manage” next to Domains.

Manage Domains on GoDaddy

Click on your domain to bring up the domain submenu. Select the “DNS Zone File” tab on the top, then find “Add Record” a little further down.

GoDaddy Add Record

For the Record type, select “CNAME (Alias).” Then, in the following window that pops up, enter the CNAME and Destination Values you noted from Zoho before. Enter them like this:

Add Zone Record to GoDaddy Domain

Don’t forget to click “Save” when you’re finished.

Now head back over to Zoho and click “Verify by CNAME” at the bottom of the screen.

GoDaddy Verify CNAME

Step 3: Start Adding Users

In the next window, you can set up as many as 25 free business email addresses. You’ll start with your own email address, which will also serve as your login.

Next, you can create accounts for your employees, and create email “groups” which forward messages to multiple inboxes at once. You can make changes later, so don’t worry about setting everything up right now.

Step 4: Change Mail Record with Your Domain Provider

Now that your domain is verified, you need to head back and adjust the codes you entered into GoDaddy (or another domain provider). Head back to your domain and click the “DNS Zone File” tab.

Scroll down to the MX Records section and delete any MX Records listed:

GoDaddy DNS Zone

Next, you’re going to add two new records. Scroll back up to the top and click “Add record.” For record type, choose “MX (Mail Exchanger).”

Add the following record:

Add Zone Record in GoDaddy

And then one more:

Add Zone Record in GoDaddy Example 2

These changes will complete the mail record setup process. It generally takes around 30 minutes for these changes to take effect, at which point you can head back over to Zoho and start sending and receiving email from your new business email address.

Step 5: Forward Zoho Emails to Another Account

You may want to set up mail forwarding if you’re setting up a new email address for work and wish to be able to forward messages to your current email address. This way, you don’t have juggle multiple inboxes. Zoho no longer allows free accounts to link to Gmail or Outlook, so you will have to either use Zoho Mail’s own web client or upgrade to a paid plain.

Setting up mail forwarding through Zoho Mail is incredibly easy. Simply click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, then select “Email forwarding and POP / IMAP” in the lower left column.

Email Forwarding with Zoho Mail

In the next step, you’ll enter the email address you want to forward messages to at the top. Zoho will send a confirmation code to that email. Simply click “verify” and enter the code.

Zoho Email Forwarding Verification

Now you’ll receive messages sent to your new business address in your main email inbox.

Bonus Option: Free 14-Day Trial from Gmail

Google offers business email addresses through Gmail with a free 14-day trial. After the free trial, the monthly fee will be $10 per month per user for a month-to-month contract, or $4.95 per month for an annual plan.

Get started with your free 14-day trial with Gmail in five steps:

Step 1. Create a Gmail Account

Go to G Suite and click the blue “Get Started” button to begin the process of creating your business email address. Follow the new account registration steps, such as inputting your business name, company size, and your personal contact information.

G Suite Registration Step 1

Step 2: Input Your Business’ Domain

If you have already registered your business’ domain name, select the “Yes, I have one I can use” button. This will prompt you to input your business’ domain. If you do not have an existing domain, you can buy one by clicking the “No, I need one” button, or by visiting Bluehost.

Caption: G Suite Registration Step 2

Step 3: Select Your Business Email Address Username

Choose the name of your email address. Remember to keep all of your company email addresses unified, so maintain the same email format across all addresses.

Common business email address formats:

• First Name – john@yourbusiness.com
• Last Name – smith@yourbusiness.com
• General Inbox – info@yourbusiness.com or hello@yourbusiness.com

G Suite Registration Step 3

Step 4: Confirm Your Free Trial & Check Out

Confirm your free 14-day trial and continue to the next screen. Confirm your business details and input your payment information. You will automatically be charged on a monthly basis after your free trial period expires. However, you can cancel anytime before that point if you choose to use a different business email provider.

G Suite Registration Step 4

Step 5: Sign In to Your Account

Go to Gmail to log in to your new account. Once you sign in, you can go to your new inbox and start using your new business email address. If you would like to set up email forwarding, follow the steps outlined by Google.

Gmail Sign In Page

Set Up Your Email Signature

Now that you have a business email address, you will want to think about what you should include in your email signature. This is prime real estate that many people don’t think to do anything with.

This is a great place to promote an upcoming event, include a sign-up to your newsletter, or add testimonials. If you email with prospective clients frequently, this is a chance to get their eyes on something you want them to see, without seeming overly promotional.

Check our 25 business email signature examples from the pros to see even more awesome examples!

Email Signature Example Promoting Newsletter Sign-ups

Bottom Line: Free Business Email Address

A free business email address gives you a way of presenting your business in a professional light by connecting your business domain name to your email. It helps make potential clients and customers feel more confident in your business, as it instills credibility in your business. Every business should take advantage of the opportunities listed to get their own free business email address.

Creating a professional email address is a good start for your business. However, it’s equally, if not more, important that your website is hosted on a reliable and secure host, such as Bluehost. This helps ensure the security and integrity of your website, further helping to present your business professionally to prospective customers and clients. Click here to get started for as little as $2.95 per month.

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