Despite the growth of technologies like video conferencing and encrypted messaging, email remains a crucial platform for businesses. It’s often the first channel customers will use to communicate with a company – even ahead of social media accounts or contact phone numbers. Email provides a permanent and legally binding record of contract negotiations, while the ability to search through old messages can instantly resolve queries or disagreements.
Personal email tends to come from an internet service provider or a consumer‐facing brand like Yahoo. However, things are a bit more complex for businesses. The best business email packages need to handle two‐way communications between staff and customers, as well as automated notifications and no‐reply user verification messages. Email must be distributed promptly and reliably, with negligible downtime and expandable bandwidth capacity. As such, a generic consumer‐ focused provider wouldn’t be able to juggle requirements for customised domains.
Fortunately, there are plenty of companies specialising in domain‐related email hosting. Each will offer custom domains, round‐the‐clock support and comprehensive spam filtering. These are some of the best business email packages as of November 2020:
G Suite
Any analysis of the best business email packages has to start with Google. Despite their patchy track record of launching new ventures, G Suite represents Google at their best. It’s effectively a more sophisticated version of Gmail, hosted in the cloud and incorporating Google staples like Calendar. The Microsoft‐aping Docs, Sheets and Slides are also baked into G Suite, while Enterprise‐level subscriptions provide one terabyte of storage.
Office 365 Outlook
Resembling the United to Google’s City, Outlook performs a similar function of dovetailing with proprietary programs like Excel and PowerPoint. It mirrors G Suite in providing 1TB of cloud storage, though costs are significantly greater, and you need a higher minimum number of accounts – five, as opposed to one. As with G Suite, there are mobile apps and desktop utilities for Windows, Linux and macOS, while Outlook excels (pardon the pun) in supporting 10,000 different accounts.
Zoho
In some respects, Zoho has combined the best attributes of other email companies. You can recall sent messages (as with G Suite), and attach 100MB files to outgoing emails (as in Office 365). Zoho offers comparable desktop and mobile functionality, though the number of user accounts is capped at 1,000. You can also make audio and video calls, keeping corporate communications under one roof.
UK2
Surprised to see our name on the list of the best business email packages? You shouldn’t be, since UK2’s Professional Email package offers all the functionality a small business is likely to need. We provide domain‐related addresses for hundreds of standalone mailboxes, with Android and iOS support. Like the other providers on this list, we offer round‐the‐clock technical support, inbound spam and virus protection, plus additional services including calendars and IMAP support. And best of all, our Professional Email service starts at just £2 per month…