Every "best email hosting" list ranks the same three suites. The honest answer depends on what you refuse to compromise on, so this page starts there and names one or two hosts for each, including the small independent ones the big lists leave out.
Nine hosts and what each does best
| Host and plan | Best at | 1 mailbox, a year | 5 mailboxes, a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purelymail | The lowest price, for a technical owner | $10 | $10 |
| Migadu Micro | Many domains on a tiny budget, light sending | $19 | $19 |
| Zoho Mail Lite | The cheapest per-user suite | $12 | $60 |
| MXroute Small | Many domains with ordinary sending | $59 | $59 |
| Faivelo Starter | Setup done for you, unlimited mailboxes | $60 | $60 |
| Fastmail Business Standard | The best mail app | $60 | $300 |
| Proton Mail Essentials | End-to-end encryption | $83.88 | $419.40 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Outlook, Teams and Office on the web | $84 | $420 |
| Google Workspace Business Starter | Gmail with Docs, Drive and Meet | $84 | $420 |
Yearly prices in USD on annual billing, at the price charged after any introductory term, from each official pricing page, checked 6 October 2026. Faivelo is our own product.
The column that matters most is the last one. Hosts that charge per mailbox look cheap for one person and expensive the moment hello@ and billing@ need their own inboxes. Hosts that charge per account do not move at all. Read the row for the number of addresses you will have in a year, not the number you have today.
If price comes first: Purelymail, then Migadu
Purelymail charges $10 a year with no hard limits on users, domains or storage, and nothing on the market undercuts it. Very heavy use moves you to its advanced pricing, which bills storage and messages separately, and its terms rule out marketing mail. Migadu Micro is $19 a year for 5 GB and any number of domains and mailboxes, with a cap of twenty outgoing messages a day for the whole account. That is plenty for a personal domain and tight for anything with customers.
Both expect you to put the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records into your registrar yourself. If you can, they are the best value in email. We compared the two of them, plus MXroute, side by side in Faivelo vs Purelymail, Migadu and MXroute.
If you run many domains: MXroute
MXroute Small is $59 a year for 10 GB with unlimited domains and mailboxes, and larger storage tiers go up to 1 TB. Each account can send 400 messages an hour, which suits ordinary mail across a portfolio of sites and rules out newsletters. It is the host that resellers and people with a drawer full of side projects tend to settle on, and for good reason.
Purelymail and Migadu also allow unlimited domains. On Faivelo, Starter covers three domains and Growth, at $10 a month on yearly billing, covers unlimited domains.
If privacy is the requirement: Proton Mail
Proton Mail Essentials is $6.99 a user a month on yearly billing, with 15 GB per user and up to three custom domains. It is the only host on this list built around end-to-end encryption, and the trade is convenience: ordinary desktop mail apps connect through Proton's Bridge app rather than plain IMAP. If encryption is a preference rather than a requirement, a host with a clear privacy policy and no ad business will do. If it is a requirement, choose Proton. Our Proton comparison has the details.
If your team lives in Docs or Teams: stay in the suite
Google Workspace Business Starter and Microsoft 365 Business Basic both come to $84 a user a year on annual billing. That buys far more than email: shared documents, video calls, an admin console, and an app everyone already knows. If your business genuinely runs on those, the mailbox is the cheap part of a good deal. If you only want email on your domain, it is the expensive way to get it, which is what the Google Workspace comparison and the Microsoft 365 comparison put in numbers.
For one person who simply wants the nicest mail app, Fastmail Business Standard at $5 a user a month on yearly billing is the pick, with 60 GB and custom domains included.
If nobody will touch the DNS: Faivelo
This is the one we make, so read it with that in mind. Faivelo Starter is $60 a year on yearly billing for unlimited mailboxes and aliases on up to three domains, with 10 GB pooled across them. At supported registrars it writes the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records for you, copies your old mail in over IMAP, and gives you webmail plus iPhone and Android apps. It is not the cheapest host on this page. It is the cheapest one that does the setup for you.
If you are a small business choosing between the suites, our eight best email hosting providers for small business ranks them for a team of eight, and business email providers compared gives each one an honest paragraph.
Count your addresses before you count your people. Most of the price difference between hosts lives in that gap.
FAQs
What is the best email hosting overall?
There is no single winner. Purelymail is the best value for a technical owner, MXroute the best for many domains, Proton the best for encryption, Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 the best if you need their office suites, and Faivelo the best if you want unlimited mailboxes with the setup done for you.
What is the best email hosting for a personal domain?
Purelymail at $10 a year or Migadu Micro at $19 a year, as long as you are comfortable adding DNS records yourself. Both allow unlimited mailboxes and domains.
Is free email hosting good enough?
Zoho's free plan covers one domain and up to five users with 5 GB each, but it has no IMAP or POP, so you must use Zoho's own apps. For anything you rely on, a paid plan is worth the few dollars.
Should I buy email from my domain registrar?
Usually not. Registrar email is often priced low for the first term and charged per mailbox at renewal. Compare the renewal price for the number of addresses you will need, which is what the table on this page shows.
The setup is the part we do
Add your domain, and Faivelo places the records, copies your old mail and opens as many mailboxes as you need for $60 a year. Fourteen days free, no card.