Your email address is not the thing you are about to lose. The mailbox behind it is. If you cancel a Bluehost or HostGator hosting plan, every mailbox created inside that plan closes with the account. The domain, and with it the address, can carry on somewhere else. Here is how to tell the two apart and leave without losing a message.
Your inbox stops loading the day the plan ends
A mailbox on a shared hosting plan is a folder on the hosting server. When the plan is cancelled, the server account is removed, and the folder goes with it. Webmail returns a login error, Outlook or Apple Mail starts reporting that the server cannot be reached, and nothing new is delivered because the mail server that used to accept it no longer exists.
This catches people out because the address still looks fine. you@yourbusiness.com is a name that lives on your domain, and the domain is a separate purchase with its own renewal date. The hosting plan only supplied the place where that name's mail was stored. Cancel the plan and you keep the name, but nobody is answering the door.
The fix is to give the address a new home before the old one closes: copy the mail out, point the domain at another mail server, then cancel. The order matters.
Old messages are gone unless you copied them first
Hosts delete account data on cancellation, sometimes after a short grace period, sometimes immediately. Do not count on getting it back. Copy every mailbox before you cancel, while the server is still answering IMAP.
Three ways to do that. Any desktop mail app that already has the account over IMAP has a copy on disk; make sure every folder has finished downloading, then export (Apple Mail: Mailbox, Export Mailbox; Thunderbird: the ImportExportTools add-on, or simply keep the profile). A migration tool that reads the old mailbox over IMAP and writes it into the new one does the same job without touching your laptop. Or, slowest, forward important threads to yourself.
The migration route is the one to take if you have more than one mailbox or more than a few gigabytes. Faivelo's wizard connects to the old server over IMAP with the mailbox password, shows the folder count and size before it starts, and copies in the background while the old account keeps working. The sequence for doing this without a gap is in how to move your email without losing a message.
The domain survives, and so does its DNS
If you registered the domain at Bluehost, cancelling hosting does not cancel the domain. It stays in your Bluehost account with its own renewal, and its DNS zone stays editable there. If the domain was registered elsewhere and only pointed at Bluehost by nameservers, the DNS currently lives on Bluehost's nameservers. Move it back to the registrar (or to another DNS host) before the hosting account closes. Otherwise the whole zone, website records included, disappears with it.
Check which case you are in before anything else. Look up the domain's nameservers (the free email DNS checker shows them). If they end in bluehost.com and the domain was bought elsewhere, change them at the registrar first. Once the DNS is somewhere stable, you can put any mail provider's MX records on it.
The new provider gives you an MX record and a few TXT records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). At Bluehost the DNS editor is under Domains, then the domain, then DNS. At most other hosts it is a similarly named page. Faivelo shows the records to paste, checks each one as it goes live, and at registrars with an API writes them for you.
What Bluehost sells instead, and what it costs after year one
Bluehost's current email offer for business addresses is Google Workspace resold. On bluehost.com/google-workspace (checked 6 October 2026) Business Starter is $3.50 per user a month on a 12-month term and renews at $7.00 a month per user; Business Standard is $7.00 renewing at $14.00; Business Plus $11.00 renewing at $22.00. The page is explicit that the promotional price is for the first term only.
That is fine if you want Gmail, Docs and Drive and have one or two people. For a business with a handful of role addresses it is a seat for each of them, every month, after the first year. A flat-rate host charges one price for the domain however many mailboxes you create: Faivelo is $6 a month for unlimited mailboxes on up to three domains, and $12 for unlimited domains. The compare page runs the numbers for different team sizes.
HostGator: same parent company, same rules
HostGator and Bluehost both belong to Newfold Digital, and HostGator mailboxes behave the same way: created inside the hosting plan, gone when the plan goes. HostGator's own help pages list the regular rates for its email add-ons, which are what you pay once an introductory term ends. Google Workspace is $7.20 a month or $72 a year. Professional Email is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, and Professional Email Plus $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year (hostgator.com/help/article/addon-price-chart, checked 6 October 2026). HostGator has also stopped offering Microsoft 365 email (hostgator.com/help/article/microsoft-365-email-pricing, same date).
The exit steps are identical: export or migrate every mailbox, make sure the domain's DNS is not about to vanish with the account, put the new MX records in place, confirm mail arrives at the new home, then cancel.
The order that avoids a gap
- Sign up with the new mail host and add your domain. Do this while the old account is still live. Create the same mailbox names you have today.
- Copy the old mail. Run the migration from the old IMAP server into the new mailboxes. Keep the old account open until it finishes.
- Secure the DNS. If the domain was only pointed at the host by nameservers, move DNS back to the registrar now.
- Switch the MX records. Replace the host's MX with the new provider's. New mail starts arriving at the new mailboxes within minutes to an hour.
- Send yourself a test, then cancel. Once a message from an outside address lands in the new inbox, cancel the hosting plan.
Give the address a new home before the old one closes
Add your domain to Faivelo, create the mailboxes, run the migration from your Bluehost or HostGator server, and switch the MX records when it is done. Unlimited mailboxes for $6 a month, free for fourteen days, no card.