Your portfolio is judged in the first ten seconds. So is your email address. For designers, photographers, illustrators and small studios, the address is part of the work. This guide covers what creative businesses actually need from email, and how to set it up in an afternoon.
The short answer
Get a domain that says what you do, like kellerstudio.com or northlight.photography. Put hello@ and your name on it. Host it somewhere that does not charge per address, because studios have more addresses than people. Faivelo gives a creative business unlimited mailboxes for $6 a month. It also includes a signature that carries your mark, a booking page for consults and shoots, large-file sharing and client newsletters, with the DNS done for you. Setup is one afternoon, and most of that is choosing the name.
- Addresses a 3-person studio needs: 6 to 8
- Cost on Faivelo: $6/mo flat
- Same on Google Workspace: $42 to $56/mo
- Time to set up: One afternoon
The address is part of the portfolio
A client who finds you through a beautiful website and then gets a reply from designsbyanna2019@gmail.com has learned something you did not mean to tell them. Creative work is bought on trust and taste, and the email address is the one design decision every client sees on every message.
The fix is not expensive. A domain costs $10 to $15 a year, and the email on it can be free or a few dollars a month. What matters is choosing the address the way you would choose a typeface: deliberately, once.
| Address | Reads as | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| hello@ | Approachable, modern | The public address on the portfolio and social profiles |
| studio@ | A place, not a person | Studios and collectives; survives staff changes |
| firstname@ | Personal, direct | Solo practitioners and small teams |
| bookings@ | Organised | Photographers, shoot and consult requests |
| press@ | Established | Interviews, features, awards |
| invoices@ | Businesslike | Keeps money threads out of the creative ones |
| new@ or projects@ | Open for work | Intake for briefs and enquiries |
What creative businesses need that generic advice misses
Enterprise email guides talk about compliance and admin consoles. A studio's email problems are different: files are big, the calendar is the business, the signature is a piece of branding, and one person wears four hats.
- Big files, sent often. Proofs, layouts, RAW selects. Attachments hit limits at 25 MB on most hosts. Faivelo includes Drive storage per mailbox, so you send a link that does not expire and does not count twice.
- Bookings without the back-and-forth. Consults, shoots, studio visits. A booking link that reads your calendar and confirms in one step, under your own domain, saves the six-message dance. Included on Faivelo Pro and Business.
- A signature that carries the mark. Name, studio, monogram, site. Design it once and apply it to every mailbox so a studio of three reads as one studio. Faivelo ships signature templates built for exactly this.
- One inbox per hat. hello@ for enquiries, invoices@ for money, your name for the work. Separate mailboxes mean a brief never gets buried under a receipt.
- Newsletters to past clients. A new collection, studio news, availability for the season. Sending from your own domain instead of a Mailchimp subdomain, included on Growth and up.
- Two brands, one bill. A wedding brand and a commercial one. A personal name and a studio name. Unlimited domains on Growth and up, unlimited mailboxes on all plans, still one flat price.
Domain ideas by discipline
The .com is still the safest choice, and if yourstudio.com is available, take it. When it is not, the descriptive endings work especially well for creative businesses, because they explain what you do before the client has opened the site.
| Discipline | Endings that fit | Example | Typical yearly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Graphic and brand design | .design, .studio, .co | keller.design, kellerstudio.com | $13 to $40 |
| Photography | .photography, .photo, .pictures | northlight.photography | $15 to $30 |
| Illustration and art | .art, .ink, .gallery | danafox.art | $12 to $30 |
| Architecture and interiors | .studio, .space, .archi | wrightbecker.studio | $20 to $40 |
| Film and motion | .film, .video, .media | northlight.film | $20 to $80 |
| Agencies and collectives | .agency, .co, .works | becker.agency | $20 to $35 |
| Any of the above | .com | yourstudio.com | $10 to $16 |
Say it out loud. You will give this address at openings, on the phone and across a table. "anna at keller dot design" works. "anna underscore keller at keller-studio-design dot co" does not.
A studio's mailboxes, mapped
Here is how a three-person design studio lays out its addresses. Notice that it has six mailboxes and two aliases for three people. On a per-user host that is six seats; on Faivelo it is one plan.
| Address | Kind | Owner | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| hello@ | Mailbox | Whoever is on enquiries this week | The public front door. Its own mailbox, so it is never lost in someone's personal inbox. |
| anna@, ben@, dana@ | Mailboxes | Each person | Client work happens here. |
| bookings@ | Mailbox | The calendar | Booking confirmations and changes, kept together. |
| invoices@ | Mailbox | Whoever does the books | Money threads separate from creative threads. |
| press@, jobs@ | Aliases into hello@ | Nobody, yet | Proper addresses for occasional traffic, no extra inbox to check. |
| anything else@ | Catch-all into hello@ | Nobody | A client who guesses info@ still reaches you. |
What it costs, for a studio
Creative businesses are small teams with many addresses, which is the exact shape per-user pricing punishes. The studio above, six mailboxes, costs $42 a month on Google Workspace, $36 on Microsoft 365, $15 on Titan, and $6 on Faivelo. Over a year that is the difference between paying for email and paying for a lens.
| Provider | Model | Six mailboxes |
|---|---|---|
| Faivelo Starter | Flat | $6 |
| Zoho Mail Lite | $1 per user | $6 |
| Titan via Hostinger | $2.49 per mailbox | $14.94 |
| Fastmail | $5 per user | $30 |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $6 per user | $36 |
| Google Workspace Business Starter | $7 per user | $42 |
List prices, September 2026. Zoho ties at six because $1 times six is $6; add a seventh address and it does not. Zoho Lite mailboxes are 5 GB each; Faivelo Growth at $12 flat gives 200 GB pooled for a studio that sends proofs.
Working with clients through email
- Put the booking link in the signature. A client who wants a consult clicks once and picks a slot from your real availability. The confirmation comes from bookings@yourstudio.com, with the meeting link inside.
- Send links, not attachments, for anything over 10 MB. Upload the proofs to your Drive space, share the link, keep the thread light. The client sees the latest version, not four generations of "final_v3".
- Keep money out of the creative thread. Invoices go from invoices@, briefs go to hello@ or you. When a client searches for the quote, it is in one place.
- Reply from the address the client wrote to. If they wrote to hello@, reply from hello@. Faivelo's webmail switches between your mailboxes in one click, so you never accidentally answer a studio enquiry from a personal address.
- Use a template for the messages you send every week. The brief acknowledgement, the proof delivery note, the invoice cover. Write each once, well, and reuse it.
- Send the seasonal note. Availability for autumn, a new print run, the show opening. One newsletter from your own domain to the clients who already like your work outperforms any ad.
Set it up in an afternoon
- Choose and register the domain. Say the candidates out loud. Check the .com first, then the descriptive endings. Buy it in Faivelo and the email records are placed at checkout; buy it elsewhere and connect it in one click at most registrars.
- Create the mailboxes from the map above. hello@, one per person, bookings@ and invoices@ if you want them separate. Aliases for the rest. It takes a minute each.
- Design the signature once. Pick a template, drop in the monogram or wordmark, set the site and the booking link. Apply it to every mailbox on the domain.
- Connect your phone and laptop. Faivelo's apps, or Apple Mail and Outlook over IMAP. Apple devices can install a profile that fills the settings in for you.
- Move your old mail and forward the old address. The migration tool copies your Gmail history in the background. Forward the old address for six months and update the portfolio site, social profiles and invoice template the same afternoon.
Every address your studio needs, one price
Faivelo hosts unlimited mailboxes on your domain for $6 a month and sets up the DNS for you. It includes the signature templates, booking page, file sharing and newsletters a creative business actually uses. Try it for 14 days without a card.
- Unlimited mailboxes, aliases and a catch-all
- Signature templates with your mark, applied to every mailbox
- Booking page and calendar under your own domain
- Drive space for proofs, newsletters from your domain
FAQs
Do I need a business email if I am a freelancer?
The moment you have a portfolio site or a business card, yes. A domain costs $10 to $15 a year and the email on it can be free with forwarding. It is the cheapest credibility a creative business can buy.
Should I use hello@ or my name?
Both. hello@ is the public address on the site and social profiles, and it survives staff changes. Your name is what clients you work with directly should have. On a flat-price host both cost nothing extra.
Which domain ending is best for a designer or photographer?
The .com if it is available. Otherwise .design, .studio, .photography and .art all read well and explain what you do. Avoid bargain endings for a name you intend to keep.
How do I send large files to clients by email?
Send a link rather than an attachment. Faivelo includes Drive space per mailbox for exactly this; the client gets the latest version and the thread stays small.
Can several people share the studio's hello@ address?
Yes. hello@ is its own mailbox that the team can sign in to, and Faivelo's webmail switches between mailboxes in one click. Each person still has their own address for their own work.
Can I run two brands on one email account?
Yes. On Faivelo Growth and up, domains are unlimited. A wedding brand and a commercial brand, or a personal name and a studio name, sit on one plan with one bill.
How much does business email cost for a small studio?
On per-user hosts, the number of addresses times $1 to $8 a month. A three-person studio with six addresses pays $42 a month on Google Workspace. On Faivelo the same studio pays $6 flat.
Can I keep using Gmail for my studio address?
You can read a business mailbox inside Gmail over IMAP and send as it. Your mail still lives on your own domain, so you can move it later. Many creatives start this way and switch to the host's own apps when they want the signature and booking tools.
Set up your business email today
Unlimited mailboxes on your own domain for one flat price, with DNS, DKIM, SPF and DMARC configured for you. Live in a few minutes, free for 14 days, no card needed.