Email is essential to every business because it’s a way we communicate both internally and externally. It’s where critical information and shared files are stored, making it a hub for business.

True, they are many email providers out there, and it can become quite tricky to know the email hosting providers that standouts especially with everyone claiming to be the best.

The best email hosting offers more than just sending and receiving emails to your domain. But also extends to providing additional tools like calendars, shared contacts, team chats, etc.

In this article, we’re providing an in-depth review of the best email hosting providers so you can make a definitive decision for your business. 

Before we dive into that, we have outlined some crucial factors we’ve looked out for and tested in these email hosting providers we’re about to review.

  • Custom Domains

All the email hosting providers in the review allow you to create email accounts with your business website domain effortlessly. 

  • Around the clock support

You don’t have to pay an external body or subscribe to another tool to manage your emails. The email hosting providers we’ve outlined provide 24/7 support to users regarding any questions or issues.

  • Security Features

Yes, you could use a third-party application to route all your email, getting features like virus filtering and spam, but with these providers, you don’t need any third-party application because they have those features built-in.

  • Mailbox Storage

Businesses with lots of employees who communicate with clients via email will require a lot of storage space for archiving old emails. The email hosting providers we selected provides at least a minimum of 2GB storage space per user.

  • Sending Size Limits

Each of these highly-vetted emails hosting provider let you send attachments and emails with sizes up to 25MB. Some even offer FTP or file-sharing tools that allow you to transfer larger files.

Using these criteria, we’re reviewing the six best email hosting providers that stand out from other competitors and are unique to your business email needs.

The Best Email Hosting (Top Providers Reviewed)

1. Office 365

If you’re a business that uses Microsoft Office apps like PowerPoint, Excel, and Word, then this email hosting provider is tailored for your business needs,

Office 365 brings lots of features to the frontline compared to other competitors out there. It provides email sending and receiving, data and spam loss prevention, custom domain addresses, etc.

That’s not all. With Office 365, you’ll get hosted web and email, mobile and desktop access to Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, Word, SharePoint, Outlook, Skype, OneDrive, and OneNote apps.

Asides from the standard Office apps that this email hosting provider offers, your business will also have access to Microsoft’s workplace tools like Yammer, Microsoft planner, and Microsoft Teams ( a premium chat tool for your team).

Office 365 ensures that your business gets an efficient storage space for all the emails and attachments, which is why it features 50GB of storage per account. 

Office 356 Tools

  • Email
  • Calendar
  • Contacts
  • File storage and sharing
  • File editing and collaboration
  • Voice and video conferencing 
  • Internal social network
  • Instant messaging
  • Team chat and Intranet

Office 365 Pricing 

Its lowest-priced plan is the Exchange Online Plan 1, which costs $4 a month per user. The highest plan is the Business Premium plan, capped at $12.50 per month for each user.

Office 365 premium plan will get you all the tools outlined above, plus 50GB of storage space per user and hosted email for 300 accounts.

2. G Suite

If you’re a business that prefers cloud-based tools, G Suite is the email hosting provider you should opt-in. 

G suite offers its users a minimum of 30GB storage space per user for its lower-priced plan, while higher plans will get you unlimited storage space, calendars, shared contacts, etc.

When it comes to features, it’s an email hosting provider that offers a lot like communication and collaboration tools, video and voice conferencing, Google Drive shared cloud file storage and more.

You’ll have access to Google tools like Google Docs, Slides (an easy collaboration and file editing tool), Sheets, and Google Vault for compliance archival. G suite new redesign even let users view their calendar in the Gmail inbox. 

Unlike some email hosting providers that have a steep learning curve, Google collaboration tools like G Suite are effortless to use even with their advanced features.

G Suite Tools

  • Email 
  • Contacts
  • Calendar
  • File editing and collaboration
  • File storage and sharing
  • Video and voice conferencing
  • Instant Messaging
  • Internal social network
  • Intranet and Tasks

G Suite Pricing

G Suite provides two plans – Basic and Business plan. Its basic plan costs $5 a month per user, where you’ll get 30GB f storage space per user. 

The Business plan goes for $10 a month per user. G Suite premium plan gets you unlimited storage space, vault, audit report, and the tools outlined above. 

Yeah, as you may have observed, both Office 365 and G suite offers almost the same features, with the primary difference being their storage space per user, pricing.

3. Rackspace

Rackspace is another top-rated email hosting provider with various features, communication, and collaboration tools than most of its competitors at a relatively more affordable price. 

It’s a provider that offers you more for less, which is a good thing, especially if you’re a start-up business on a slim budget but need a premium email hosting tool.

Rackspace provides you with all the basics your business will need to manage your email, contacts, and calendars. 

It offers advanced features like shared calendars, push email, archival tools, instant messaging, cloud storage, and Microsoft Exchange.

Rackspace is a cost-effective email hosting that gets you Microsoft running exchange without the need to pay for a third-party app. 

Although this provider offers its tools at a more affordable rate than most email hosting, you have to pay a bit more for its Microsoft Exchange tool.

Rackspace Tools

  • Email
  • Calendar
  • Contacts
  • Instant Messaging
  • File storage and editing
  • Microsoft exchange
  • Cloud storage
  • Archival tools

Rackspace Price

Rackspace provides two priced plans for its email hosting – Basic and Plus package. Its basic package costs $2 a month per user, which provides up to 25GB of storage space per user.

The higher tier, the Plus plan, costs $3.50/month per user, where you’ll get 30GB of cloud storage, instant messaging, and other tools outlined above.

If you want more, like its Microsoft hosted exchange tool, you have to pay $7.99/month per user. You’ll have access to 100GB mailboxes, instant messages, and other Exchange features.

4. FastMail

FastMail is an email hosting provider that places its core focus on basic email essentials like email messages, contacts, and calendars. It’s an excellent option for small businesses and individuals alike. 

It’s straightforward to use, providing web and mobile apps that allow you to carry out smooth email conversations. 

FastMail allows you to add multiple domains to each team member’s account and even give your team custom email addresses that match their department if you like.

You don’t need to spend hours sorting through the mail because FastMail allows you to add advanced program filters and quick filters so that you can easily organize your emails.

Though this email hosting focuses on basic email experience, it also provides business collaboration tools that businesses will need, such as shared calendars and contacts, custom branding, and even custom company footer to every member of your team emails.

Asides from all this, FastMail has a unique feature that stands out from all other competitors – customizing storage space for different users.

Yes, with FastMail, you can allocate different storage spaces across every user in your company. Some users don’t really need 25GB of storage space, while others, like a developer in your team, may require more than 25GB. 

You can reduce the allocation of storage space for other users and increase that of the developer, so you don’t have to pay extra for everyone else. 

FastMail Tools

  • Email 
  • Calendar
  • Contacts
  • Custom domain
  • Push mail
  • Advanced and quick filters

FastMail Price

FastMail price starts at $5 per month for every user for the standard plan, where each user will get 25GB of storage space, custom domain, contacts, calendar, and push mail. 

The Professional plan is capped at $9 per month for each user. It offers 100GB of storage space for every of your team and data retention policies.

5. GreatMail

GreatMail is yet another remarkable email hosting provider small businesses and individuals can use for their email needs. It offers primary email hosting at an affordable price than any other email hosting. 

Nevertheless, GreatMail features a relatively more minor space than most provider especially for its lower-tier plan which cost only a dollar.

Even with that giveaway amount, you’ll be provided with 10GB of storage space, built-in spam protection, POP3, and SMTP connections for client’s email connection. 

GreatMail provides basic features, but that would be perfect if basic is all your business need and not loads of features. 

However, if you want more storage space for your mails, this provider also offers a higher price tier, which we wouldn’t consider to be very high, being that this plan costs $2 per month.

The higher plans provide you with 25GB of storage space and feature shared contacts, calendar, and Exchange ActiveSync (EAS).

GreatMail Tools

  • Email
  • Calendar
  • Shared contact
  • Spam protection
  • SMTP/POP3 connections
  • Exchange ActiveSync

GreatMail Pricing

The standard plan costs $1 per mailbox, which gives you 10GB of storage space and email access features. Its Groupware plan goes for $2 per mailbox a month, offering 25GB of storage space, calendar, and shared contact features. 

6. IceWarp

IceWarp is an email hosting tailored to meet the needs of both small and large businesses alike. 

For example, if you run a web development company and provide your clients with an email account, IceWarp allows you to do that. 

With IceWarp, you’ll have the tools you need to manage each client email account on multiple domains. 

Another stand-out feature of IceWarp is the Team Chat, a feature similar to that of Microsoft Teams. It also provides two smartphone apps – IceWarp IceChat and Authenticator. 

Your security is never compromised with this provider because it features two-IceWarp provides excellent third-party integration for users through its application programming interface (API). 

So if you’re a developer that requires such integration features, you should consider sticking with this hosting provider actor authentication (2FA) for added privacy and security.

That’s not all. The email’ hosting provider supports white labeling, a tool that allows you to add your company’s branding for each of your clients’ webmail accounts. 

Aside from email hosting, contacts, and shared calendars, IceWarp provides you with collaboration tools when you subscribe to it. 

The collaboration tool lets you access IceWarp’s custom document, presentation editors, spreadsheet, team chat, and video/voice conferencing.

IceWarp Tools

  • Email
  • Contacts
  • Calendar
  • Instant Messaging
  • Team Chat
  • Tasks
  • File storage and sharing
  • File Editing
  • Voice and video conferencing

IceWarp Price

The standard plan goes for $3.50 per month for a user, which gives you 50GB of storage space, team chat, support, and voice/video conferencing. 

The higher plan (Professional plan), which costs $7 per month, gives up 200GB storage space per user and 99.99% uptime.

Conclusion

We’ve provided in-depth insight on the best email hosting providers following different essential criteria so you can make a more informed decision.

The email hosting providers we have reviewed is not just the best because of their unique features but is also budget-friendly. 

So, if you’re a developer in need of an email host that offers lots of integration other than standard email features, we recommend you go for a provider like IceWarp.

Nevertheless, for those on a slim budget but who want something decent from an email hosting provider, you can consider G-suite. 

It’s an email hosting platform that offers you all the essential features you’ll require and even more but at a cheaper rate when compared to other competitors out there. 

Overall, you must pick a host that provides all the features your business will need in the long haul.