We are only human. When we see a bargain, we are drawn to it for that quick dopamine hit as though we’ve won a prize. The reason that bundling in “extras” works for a service is because it represents more for your money (something we all want more in this economy).
Where web hosting is concerned, it’s a very similar deal – Host X offers a free domain for a year, whilst Host Y offers a year’s worth of hosting for half price. Most web hosts have similar offerings in this way to entice you into signing up with them and forgetting it’s all a temporary offer (much like insurance companies that reward new customers more than loyal ones).
One of the things that gets bundled into the offers though is something a lot of people are after from day one – a business email account. Nothing says “professional” quite like an email with your company’s name on it, in place of Gmail, Outlook or even Yahoo. There’s a mental trust that clients leap to when they see that you have gone to the effort of making an email address personal, even though really it’s usually just a different coat of paint on the same product.
Saying that though, there are pros and cons that don’t get spoken about when it comes to using the “Free Email Mailbox” packaged with your web hosting plan. This article will hopefully shed some light on why it’s a good idea to separate email where possible, and why we here at Golden Dog believe it’s always the right move over the free option.
The cons – why a dedicated email isn’t perfect
Before we go into all the positives, in the name of fairness to an argument, it would be remiss of us to not point out the downsides to not going with the free mailbox option.
Additional costs
Firstly, the obvious point – using a dedicated email service is another expenditure to consider when setting up your business email address. It is usually a monthly or yearly subscription, typically between £5 and £15 a month per user depending on what plan you go for (because as we said earlier, bundling extra services is what we all love to see as consumers). For larger teams, this can add up quickly to a hefty bill, but one thing to consider is that the “free email” from your web host usually only covers a limited number of addresses, so you could end up paying more anyway by sticking with your web host.
Setup complexity
To route your email to a third party service, like Gmail or Outlook, you have to dig into your domain’s DNS settings. This involves adding MX records (Mail Exchanger), as well as setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC text records for security and authentication (more on these vague records later). While a lot of web hosts have detailed guides on how to set this all up, it can definitely be an intimidating task for non-technical people. At Golden Dog, we can do the setup for you, but also many services are available out there to do the legwork for you if you don’t fancy it.
More dashboards to manage
Adding another service to the mix adds another thing to keep on top of, in a separate dashboard to your web hosting Most web host mailboxes are found within the hosting dashboard, which makes it a bit easier to keep track of. One unified panel is an appealing concept to many, keeping all the clutter in one place.
The pros – why you should use dedicated email
Now for the meat of the topic – the reason why we always advise clients that want a business email address to use a dedicated email service. There are plenty of benefits to counter the negatives we have outlined so far.
Reliability – no single point of failure
If you do your business online, there is nothing more frustrating than downtime. Services not running, losing access to things that help you get business done, the endless refreshing of pages in the vague hope it all just springs to life again… it sucks. But you know what is worse? Losing both your website and your email in one go.
When your website and your email live on the same server, an outage takes out everything until it is up-and-running again. Not only do you lose out on revenue from the website, you can’t even email customers to notify them about the downtime. Decoupling your hosting from your email ensures your communication channels stay open, even when your website is undergoing issues.
Avoiding the spam folder
Do you remember the series of acronyms from earlier – SPF, DKIM and DMARC? These records, set up on your domain, help general mail inboxes to see that emails are being sent from a genuine source that isn’t a spamming machine.
As web hosts often have thousands of customers on a single server IP address, it takes a single one of those customers to get caught sending spam emails for the whole IP address to get blacklisted. Your emails will then be marked as spam, with no intervention possible to remedy it. Dedicated email hosts strictly protect their reputations, ensuring your emails don’t get bounced back or sent to the sin bin.
Future-proofing for when you want to move to a new host
At some stage, you may outgrow your hosting provider, or fancy switching to another as it’s cheaper or better suited to your needs. Migrating emails, calendar entries and contacts to a new web host is a terrible chore – it is complex, time-consuming and could even be the thing to stop you from moving to greener pastures. Keeping your email separate from your host means you can go wherever you please, and your email setup stays exactly the same.
Advanced security and features
Lastly, standard webmail provided by hosting companies is notorious for being clunky and lacking in security measures. Dedicated email services provide enterprise-level spam protection, native two-factor authentication (2FA), seamless calendar syncing, cloud storage and usually have mobile apps that save many headaches for getting everything to your phone.
To summarise
At Golden Dog for example, we use Google Workspace. We get business email addresses, all of the Google suite of programs (including Meet and Calendar syncing) and all of the goodies mentioned above, all for under £10 a month. I, personally, love the fact I can use my Gmail app on my phone for both my personal and business emails with very minimal setup. Microsoft offers the same sort of package if you are more of an Office user, or you prefer using Windows apps in particular.
Sometimes, free email is all that is required. If that is something you really want, making up a free Gmail or Outlook address with your name isn’t a terrible option (e.g. [email protected]), and you get many features for no added cost. However, if you are after a business email address (e.g. [email protected]), it is highly advised that you allocate some of the monthly budget to use a dedicated email service.
As always, if you aren’t sure what route to take, please feel free to get in touch with us and ask any questions you may have. Happy emailing!