Most "cheap email" prices are first-year promotions that double or triple at renewal. This page prices ten hosts at the price you pay from year two, for one, three and ten mailboxes on one domain. The cheapest is not us, and the table says so.
Ten hosts, priced for a year at renewal
| Host and plan | 1 mailbox | 3 mailboxes | 10 mailboxes | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purelymail | $10 | $10 | $10 | Advanced pricing if you use a lot; no marketing mail |
| Migadu Micro | $19 | $19 | $19 | 20 outgoing messages a day for the whole account |
| Zoho Mail Lite, 5 GB | $12 | $36 | $120 | Per user, yearly only |
| IONOS Mail Basic | $24 | $48 | $48 | 2 GB per account; intro price is for a 3-year term |
| Namecheap Private Email | $14.88 | $41.88 | $271.28 | Per mailbox bundles; extra mailboxes cost more on bigger plans |
| Hostinger email Starter | $19.08 | $57.24 | $190.80 | Per mailbox; renewal rate on a 48-month term |
| MXroute Small | $59 | $59 | $59 | 10 GB; 400 emails an hour per address; no marketing mail |
| Faivelo Starter | $60 | $60 | $60 | 10 GB pooled; three domains; yearly billing |
| Microsoft Exchange Online Plan 1 | $48 | $144 | $480 | Per user, paid yearly; email only |
| Google Workspace Business Starter | $84 | $252 | $840 | Per user, annual commitment |
Yearly totals in USD at the price charged after any introductory term, from each official pricing page, checked 6 October 2026. Taxes extra. Namecheap 10 mailboxes = Scale ($71.88 for five) plus five extra at $39.88.
Two hosts are in a league of their own on price: Purelymail at $10 a year and Migadu Micro at $19, for any number of mailboxes. After them the per-user hosts look cheap for one person and expensive for a team, and the flat hosts, MXroute and Faivelo, stop moving at all. By ten mailboxes the gap between the flat hosts and the per-user ones is hundreds of dollars a year.
What the cheapest prices leave out
Price is the easy column. The harder ones are sending, setup and support. Migadu Micro's twenty messages a day is fine for a personal domain and tight for a business. Purelymail and MXroute forbid marketing mail, so a newsletter needs a second provider. IONOS Mail Basic gives each account 2 GB, which a busy inbox fills in a year or two.
Then there is the work. With the cheapest four, someone has to put the MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records into the registrar by hand and fix them when mail starts bouncing. Migadu will set the records up for you if you ask, which is a kindness most cheap hosts do not offer. If the person doing this is you and you enjoy it, the cheap end of the table is excellent value.
Read the renewal line. If a pricing page shows a struck-through price, the struck price is usually what you pay from year two. Hostinger's Starter is $0.39 a month on a four-year prepay and renews at $1.59; IONOS Mail Basic is $1.10 for three years, then $2.
Which cheap host to pick
- One technical person, personal domain. Purelymail. Nothing is cheaper and it does the job well.
- A club or holding company that barely sends. Migadu Micro, as long as twenty messages a day is truly enough.
- Many domains, ordinary mail, DIY DNS. MXroute. Unlimited domains from $59 a year.
- A small business with no one to run it. Faivelo. Flat $60 a year, DNS placed for you, phone apps, support, newsletters from Growth.
If you are one person who wants a polished app more than a low price, the per-user hosts make sense at one mailbox. Once there is a second or third person, a flat price is almost always cheaper. For a team-shaped version of this table, see the cheapest email for a small team. If price is not the only thing that matters, the best email hosting by what you need sorts the same hosts by privacy, domains and setup, and the compare page covers the bigger suites.
Where Faivelo sits, plainly
Faivelo is the cheapest host on this table that places your DNS records itself, gives you webmail plus iPhone and Android apps, and has a support desk. It is not the cheapest host on this table. We think $50 a year more than Purelymail is a fair price for not spending a Saturday in a DNS panel, and for a business that does not have a technical person it usually is. If you do have one, take the $10 option with our blessing.
Cheapest is a column. Cheapest that you will not have to fix is a different column.
FAQs
What is the cheapest email hosting for a custom domain?
Purelymail, at $10 a year with no hard limits on users or domains. Migadu Micro is next at $19 a year for 5 GB and twenty outgoing messages a day.
Is free email hosting an option?
Zoho's free plan covers one domain and up to five users with 5 GB each, but without IMAP or POP, so you are limited to Zoho's own apps. Faivelo's free plan is forwarding only, with no mailboxes.
Why do prices jump after the first year?
Registrar-bundled email is usually sold below cost for the first term to win the domain sale, then renews at the full price. Always compare the renewal price, which is what this page uses.
What is the cheapest business email?
For a business with several addresses, a host that charges per account rather than per user: Purelymail at $10 a year, Migadu Micro at $19, MXroute at $59 or Faivelo at $60, each for unlimited mailboxes. Among the per-user suites, Zoho Mail Lite at $12 a user a year is the cheapest.
What is the best cheap email host for a business?
For a business with someone technical, MXroute or Migadu. For one without, a flat host that does the setup for you, such as Faivelo at $60 a year for unlimited mailboxes.
Sixty dollars a year, setup included
Unlimited mailboxes on your domain, the DNS records placed for you, and your old mail copied in. Fourteen days free, no card.