Between $1 and $10 per person per month, depending on who you ask, with a flat-rate option that is not priced per person at all. Here are eleven providers at the prices on their own pages on 6 October 2026, what five and twenty people pay a year, and why the unit the industry chose is the wrong one for most small businesses.
Eleven providers, from their own pricing pages
| Provider and plan | Price | Billing basis | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace Business Starter | $7 per user a month | Annual commitment ($8.40 on the monthly Flexible plan) | 30 GB pooled per person |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $7.00 per user a month | Paid yearly, auto-renews | 50 GB mailbox + 50 GB archive |
| Microsoft Exchange Online Plan 1 | $4.00 per user a month | Paid yearly | 50 GB + 50 GB archive |
| Zoho Mail Lite | $1 per user a month | Yearly only (5 GB); $1.25 for 10 GB | 5 GB per user |
| Fastmail Business Standard | $5 per user a month | Annual ($6 monthly) | 60 GB per user |
| Proton Mail Essentials | $6.99 per user a month | Yearly ($83.88 per user a year) | 15 GB per user |
| Neo Starter | $2.49 per mailbox a month | Term not stated on the page | 15 GB per mailbox |
| Hostinger email Starter | $1.59 per mailbox a month at renewal | 48-month term, paid upfront ($0.39 intro) | 5 GB per mailbox |
| Namecheap Private Email Launch | $14.88 a year for one mailbox ($1.24 a month) | Renews yearly; first month $0 | 5 GB |
| Rackspace Email | $10.00 per mailbox a month | Monthly commit, no contract | 25 GB mailbox |
| Faivelo Starter | $6 a month for the whole domain | Monthly ($5 a month yearly); unlimited mailboxes | 10 GB pooled, up to 3 domains |
List prices in US dollars from each provider's pricing page, checked 6 October 2026: workspace.google.com/pricing and Google's Flexible-plan help page, microsoft.com Business and Exchange compare pages, zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html, fastmail.com/pricing, proton.me/business/mail/pricing, neo.space/pricing, hostinger.com/email-hosting, namecheap.com/hosting/email, rackspace.com/email-hosting/webmail, faivelo.com. Faivelo is our own product.
Two things the table hides. Several of the cheap rows are first-term prices on long contracts: Hostinger's $1.59 is the renewal rate on a four-year plan paid upfront, and the $0.39 headline on the same page is the first term. Namecheap's first month is free and the plan converts to a yearly one. The Google and Microsoft figures are annual-commitment prices; Google charges $8.40 for the same seat with no commitment.
What five people and twenty people pay in a year
Five people on Google Workspace Business Starter at $7 is $35 a month, $420 a year. On Microsoft 365 Business Basic, the same. On Zoho Mail Lite, $60 a year. On Proton Mail Essentials, $419.40. On Fastmail Business Standard, $300. On Faivelo Starter, $72, because the fifth mailbox costs the same as the first: nothing.
At twenty people the per-seat lines quadruple and the flat line does not. Google and Microsoft: $1,680 a year. Proton: $1,677.60. Fastmail: $1,200. Zoho Lite: $240. Faivelo: still $72 on Starter, or $144 on Growth if you want the 200 GB pool and unlimited domains. The compare page lets you set the team size and watch the rows move.
The arithmetic is simple. The question is whether your business is really twenty people, or five people and fifteen addresses.
Why per user is the wrong unit for a small business
A per-user price assumes every address is a person with a desk. Small businesses do not work like that. The five-person landscaping firm wants five name addresses, plus info@, quotes@, invoices@ and a jobs@ for the hiring ad. That is nine addresses. On a per-seat plan you either pay for nine seats, or you set the four role addresses up as aliases or groups and accept that they cannot have their own inbox, password or sent folder.
The workarounds exist (Google Groups, Microsoft shared mailboxes, aliases everywhere) and they work. But each one is a small decision you make to avoid paying for a seat, and each one has a limit. An alias cannot be logged into, a group has its own settings page, and a shared mailbox needs a licensed user to open it.
Pricing per domain instead removes the decision. Every address is a mailbox if you want it to be, with its own login, and the ninth costs what the first did. That is why the cheapest row for a one-person company (Zoho, Hostinger, Namecheap) and the cheapest row for a nine-address company are different rows. If you are between two and ten people, the cheapest email for a small team works the crossover points out.
The fifth mailbox should cost what the first one did.
What else is in the price, and what is not
Google and Microsoft are selling an office suite with email attached, and if your team lives in Docs or Excel the seat buys more than a mailbox. Proton sells end-to-end encryption between Proton users and Swiss jurisdiction. Fastmail sells an excellent mail app. Those are real reasons to pay per seat, and the honest comparison is against what you would otherwise pay for the same things.
For a business that only needs addresses on its domain that work in Outlook, Apple Mail and on a phone, the flat-rate row is the whole product: mailboxes, webmail, IMAP and SMTP, DNS records placed at the registrar, DKIM and DMARC, a migration tool, and a developer API. Faivelo's Starter plan is $6 a month, free for fourteen days without a card.
FAQs
What is the cheapest business email per user?
On a per-user basis, Zoho Mail Lite at $1 per user a month billed yearly, with 5 GB each and no monthly option. Below about six people it is the cheapest paid plan on this page; above that a flat-rate plan costs less in total.
Does Google Workspace cost $7 or $8.40?
Both, depending on commitment. Business Starter is $7 per user a month on an annual plan and $8.40 on the Flexible monthly plan, according to Google's pricing page and its Flexible-plan help article, checked 6 October 2026.
Is Microsoft 365 Business Basic still $6?
No. Microsoft's compare page lists Business Basic at $7.00 per user a month paid yearly as of 6 October 2026. A version without Teams is $5.40, and Exchange Online Plan 1, which is email only, is $4.00.
What does flat-rate email hosting mean?
One monthly price for a domain, with as many mailboxes as you want on it. Faivelo charges $6 a month on Starter for up to three domains; the price does not change when you add a person or a role address.
Are intro prices worth taking?
They are real savings for the first term, as long as you know the renewal price before you sign and have a date in the calendar. Hostinger's page states the renewal rate next to the intro rate; Namecheap's says the free month converts to a yearly plan. Our piece on why email bills double in year two explains the pattern.
Price the whole domain, not the people
Every address on your domain for $6 a month, with DNS, DKIM and DMARC set up for you. Try it for fourteen days without a card and compare the bill to the one you have.