Best email hosting services for small and medium-sized businesses

What marketing strategies do the leading companies across the world employ? People are likely to think that they use social media marketing, paid ad campaigns, mobile push notifications, and even SMS marketing techniques only. And people also believe that email marketing is something brands used to do early in the days of digital marketing, back when people used AOL to check their mail and only a few individuals used Hotmail and Gmail. But that’s not true! Large corporations and small businesses still rely heavily on email marketing techniques for the activation of new products, introducing new offers, and intimating dedicated subscribers about discounts. Email never went out of fashion and SMBs know that fact all too well. It is one of the most cost-efficient ways to send notifications to registered users, and most importantly, companies can categorize the email lists according to consumer demographics. It allows them to send different emails across to the different users in the various categories. Email has evolved significantly in the last 40 years. Business email hosting services are different from personal email services. Since businesses have to send out email in bulk, tackle different scheduled email delivery, track email opening rates, and monitor responses in real-time, small businesses need an email service provider that is reliable, customizable and economic.

What are the factors that determine good email hosting services?

Good email host

Email hosting is the service that allows the user to send and receive emails across the networks, whereas the email client  (or app) you use usually allows you to only read and write emails. Choosing the first email hosting for a business might not be easy. While shopping for email hosting services, here are the three things you should be looking for:

  • Web hosting as a part of shared web hosting

Many web hosting partners of the day also offer email hosting services. If you are searching for web hosting plans for your small firm or indie business, make sure to ask about their email hosting services as well.

  • Self-hosted email services

Private hosting might be the costly alternative to shared hosting, but you can host your email service privately instead of utilizing a third-party service. If you can manage the additional costs of maintaining the servers and employing system admins, self-hosting email services is the best way to go about it.

  • Third-party hosting

Third-party email hosts usually provide additional services at reduced costs. Third-party email service subscriptions usually come with other tools including built-in video conferencing, team project sharing platforms, chat options, shared contacts and email scheduling options.

Email hosting services perfect for small businesses

Here are nine of the top email hosting services that small businesses around the world use for marketing and communication:

Office 365

Office 365 is the go-to email hosting service for all the small companies that use a melange of Microsoft applications. Whether your employees rely extensively on Word, Excel and PowerPoint, or they use SharePoint, Skype and OneNote apps regularly, your company will benefit from leveraging the features offered by Office 365. It provides one platform that can unify the functions and features of almost all Microsoft applications at a competitive subscription rate.

G Suite

G Suite is the one-stop solution for all startups and SMBs that believe in keeping important business data on the cloud. If your company infrastructure relies upon cloud-based tools for regular functions, then G Suite should be your email host of choice.

The various tools provided by G Suite includes contacts, shared contacts, email, calendar, file storage and sharing, voice and video conference options, team chat, internal social network, instant messaging, file editing and collaboration, intranet and tasks.

Rackspace

If your company already has the best web host, you need nothing more than a dedicated email hosting service. In that case, you should always check out Rackspace. This dedicated email hosting service comes with multiple tools with the monthly subscription.

Rackspace puts forth two great options for all users — hosted exchange and email hosting. The email hosting service has all the tools and services necessary to manage a team’s emails, contacts and calendars. Advanced email features like shared calendars, contacts, archival tools and push email come with the hosted version of Microsoft Exchange.

IceWarp

If your company is interested in creating email accounts for their clients, then you need not look further than IceWarp. It provides the user with the tools required to manage multiple email accounts and addresses on multiple domains. It is a supporter of white-labeling. Therefore, you can add your company’s logo and headers to the webmail accounts for your clients. It provides the users with contacts, team chat, instant messaging, calendar, email, file editing, file storage, tasks, file sharing, voice and video conferencing at budget costs.

Greatmail

Greatmail is the best low-cost email hosting for small businesses that require minimal features. Greatmail offers the most basic hosting services along with custom domain addresses. It has two plans for the subscribers — standard plan and Greatmail’s Groupware plan. It is a very cost-effective email hosting service for businesses in search of only a few features.

FastMail

FastMail comes with customizable storage options at manageable costs. It is an email hosting service that focuses on all the essentials of email hosting services including contacts, calendars and events. The Standard Plan is the basic FastMail subscription plan that includes 25GB storage space, push email notifications, calendar, contacts and custom domain. Small businesses typically opt for the Professional Plan that provides the companies with 100GB of storage space per user.

Intermedia Exchange Email

Intermedia Exchange Email

Are you unhappy with your existing email host? Are you in search of a new one? Then you should consider Intermedia Exchange Email. This email host uses Microsoft Exchange for the migration of business email to a new host. Therefore, it comes with value-adding features including calendars and shared contacts. It is a great option for small businesses as well as medium ones since it provides the user with unlimited mailbox storages with even the most budget-friendly plans.

Zoho Workplace

You can think of Zoho Workplace as the Zoho-version of Office 365. It is akin to G-Suite and it has several features inculding shared contacts, office suite, spreadsheets, collaboration platforms, Cliq for team communication, and calendars. Zoho is a modern service provider with a social networking twist on email services. You might find its admin panel a little complex or even intimidating, if you are a first-time user. However, smaller businesses with only five or fewer employees can get the Zoho business email hosting service for free!

Bluehost

Bluehost is ideal for all SMBs that want an email hosting service, web hosting, and email client in one neat package. It offers free domain and site building services along with email hosting services. With 24/7 tech support, Bluehost is an economically feasible choice for almost all small businesses aspiring to succeed.

While getting the business email hosting provider for your company, always compare their prices, customization options, spam filtering options, attachment limits, maximum number of supported accounts, technical support, storage space, uptime guarantee and applications (desktop and mobile).

Email hosting services: Lots of good choices

Go with the email host that provides the highest number of features at competitive pricing. Always go through their reviews carefully, before believing their claims. It will help you find the best services at the best prices.

Images: Pixabay

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1 thought on “Best email hosting services for small and medium-sized businesses”

  1. I wouldn’t touch Intermedia with a 10 foot pole. When they go down, they go down hard. My experience with them has been a disaster.

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