A business email address is your name at your own domain: anna@kellerstudio.com instead of anna.keller88@gmail.com. Setting one up takes about ten minutes when your registrar supports automatic setup, and an hour at most when it does not. Here is the whole process, in order.
The short answer
Six steps: choose a domain, choose an email host, connect the domain (four DNS records), create your mailboxes, set up your devices, and move your old mail. With a host that places the records for you, steps three and four take under a minute. The domain search and the naming decisions are what take the time. Total cost: the domain, about $10 to $15 a year, plus hosting, which is free while you trial it and one flat price after.
- Steps: 6
- Time with automatic DNS: About 10 minutes
- Time with manual DNS: Under an hour
- Cost to start: The domain only
What you need before you start
Three things, and you may already have two of them. Everything else in this guide is arranging these three so that mail for your domain reaches a mailbox you control.
- A domain name. yourcompany.com, or the one your website already uses. If you have a website, you have a domain, and you can add email to it without touching the site.
- An email host. The service that stores your mail and lets you send it. Not the same as web hosting, though some web hosts bundle a basic version.
- Access to the domain's DNS. The login for wherever the domain is managed: your registrar, Cloudflare, or your website platform. This is where four small records get added.
- About an hour, once. Most of it is choosing names. The technical part is minutes, and with automatic setup it is seconds.
Already have a website?. Keep it exactly where it is. Email uses different DNS records from your website, so adding email never moves or breaks the site. The only record to be careful with is SPF, covered in step three.
Step 1: choose your domain name
If you already own a domain, use it and skip ahead. If not, this is the decision that outlives every other one on the page, so it deserves ten minutes.
A good email domain is short, easy to say aloud, and impossible to misspell. You will read it out on the phone, and clients will type it from memory. Hyphens and numbers get lost in speech ("keller dash studio, with a dash"), and clever spellings get corrected by autocorrect into the wrong company.
- Your business name, or the shortest recognisable form of it
- Under 15 characters before the ending, if you can
- .com first; if taken, an ending that describes you (.studio, .design, .law) or your country
- Passes the phone test: say it to someone and watch them type it
- Hyphens, numbers, or deliberate misspellings
- A bargain ending you would not put on a shopfront
- Someone else's trademark with a word added
- A domain registered at a website builder that will not let you edit DNS
Register it wherever the price and the control panel are clear. Turn on auto-renew and WHOIS privacy (usually free now), and use an address you will still have in five years for the registrar account itself. If you buy the domain inside Faivelo, the email records are placed during checkout, which removes step three entirely.
Step 2: choose an email host
The host stores your mail, filters spam, sends on your behalf and keeps your phone and laptop in sync. All mainstream hosts do these things competently. They differ in what they charge, how the price grows, how much of the setup they do for you, and what else comes in the box.
The single most important line on any pricing page is whether the number is per user or per account. Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho, Proton, Titan and Neo all charge per mailbox. A five-person company with hello@ and support@ has seven mailboxes and pays for seven. A flat-price host charges the same whether you have one mailbox or forty.
| Question | Why it matters | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Per user or flat? | Decides your bill in two years, not just today | Flat pricing if you will ever have role addresses or more than a couple of people |
| Does it set up DNS for you? | Manual DNS is where most setups stall | One-click setup with your registrar, or at least a clear record list |
| SPF, DKIM, DMARC included? | Without them your mail lands in spam | Configured automatically, not a tutorial you have to follow |
| Storage | Attachments add up | Pooled storage you can spread across mailboxes |
| IMAP and SMTP | Lets you use any mail app | Standard protocols, not app-only access |
| Migration tool | Your old mail has to come with you | Built-in IMAP migration from Gmail, Microsoft or any host |
| Aliases and catch-all | Addresses that only need to arrive | Unlimited, included |
| Extras you will actually use | Calendar, contacts, newsletters, booking pages | Included rather than a second subscription |
Step 3: connect your domain (the four DNS records)
DNS is the internet's address book. Right now your domain's entry says where the website lives. You are adding lines that say where the mail lives and who is allowed to send it. There are four, and each has a plain-English job.
| Record | What it does | What happens without it |
|---|---|---|
| MX | Points incoming mail for your domain at your host | Mail bounces or keeps going to the old provider |
| SPF | Lists the servers allowed to send as your domain | Receivers cannot verify you; more spam-foldering |
| DKIM | Signs each outgoing message so it cannot be altered or forged | Gmail and Microsoft downgrade unsigned mail |
| DMARC | Tells receivers what to do with mail that fails SPF and DKIM | Anyone can send mail pretending to be you |
The automatic way. Faivelo can place all four records for you at Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify, DigitalOcean, WordPress.com, Google Cloud DNS, Porkbun, Gandi, Name.com and NameSilo. You connect the registrar once and the records appear in about twenty seconds. It is also the safest way, because the records are exactly right and there is no typing.
The manual way. Everywhere else, open the DNS page at your registrar, add each record with the name and value your host shows you, and save. Records usually take effect within minutes, though the old guidance of "up to 48 hours" still applies to a few providers. Faivelo checks the records for you and shows a green tick per record as each one is found.
One SPF record only. If your domain already has an SPF record (from a website form, a newsletter tool or a previous host), do not add a second one. Two SPF records is an error that fails every check. Merge the new include into the existing record instead. Faivelo warns you if it finds one.
Step 4: create your mailboxes
Now the part that is actually about your business: deciding who gets what address. Three kinds of thing exist here, and knowing the difference saves money and confusion later.
A mailbox stores mail and has its own password and storage. An alias is an extra name for an existing mailbox: press@ that lands in anna@'s inbox. A catch-all is a rule that anything at your domain that is not a mailbox or alias still arrives somewhere. A client who types hi@ instead of hello@ still reaches you.
| Address | Kind | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| firstname@ | Mailbox | Small teams where first names are unique. Friendly, short, easy to say. |
| firstname.lastname@ | Mailbox | Teams that will grow, or common first names. Always unique. |
| hello@ or info@ | Mailbox | The public front door. Goes on the website. Give it its own mailbox so it outlives whoever answers it. |
| support@ | Mailbox | Customer help. Kept separate so requests are never lost in someone's personal inbox. |
| billing@ or invoices@ | Alias | Points at whoever does the books. Change the target, not the address, when that person changes. |
| press@, jobs@, partners@ | Alias | Occasional traffic that should still have a proper address. |
| noreply@ | Alias or none | Only for automated mail. Better: use a real address people can reply to. |
| anything else@ | Catch-all | Typos and guesses still land. Turn it off if it attracts too much spam. |
Passwords. Each mailbox gets its own strong password, generated once and stored in a password manager. If two people need the same inbox, give them each a mailbox and forward, or share the role mailbox deliberately, never a personal one.
Step 5: set up your devices
Start in webmail: it works immediately, needs no settings, and proves the mailbox is live. Send yourself a message from another account and reply to it. Then add the account to the places you actually read mail.
Every proper host works with the built-in mail apps on iPhone, Android, Mac and Windows through two standard protocols. IMAP reads and syncs your mail; SMTP sends it. Your host publishes a server name and port for each, and your username is your full address. Faivelo also has its own iPhone and Android apps, and can send Apple devices a configuration profile so the account appears without typing any settings.
- Webmail. Sign in at your host's address. Faivelo also gives each company its own branded login at yourcompany.faivelo.com.
- iPhone and Android. The host's own app, or the built-in Mail app with IMAP settings. Apple devices can install a profile that fills everything in.
- Mac and Windows. Apple Mail, Outlook and Thunderbird all take an IMAP account in a minute. Add the account, not a new inbox.
- Keep using Gmail?. You can read a business mailbox inside Gmail with "check mail from other accounts" and send as it too. Your mail still lives on your domain.
Step 6: move your old email and tell people
Two jobs here. Bring the history across so the new mailbox is not empty. Then make sure nothing sent to the old address falls through the cracks for the next few months.
- Copy the history. A migration tool signs in to the old account over IMAP and copies folders into the new mailbox. Faivelo's runs in the background and reports what it moved. Gmail and Microsoft 365 both allow this; you may need to create an app password first.
- Forward the old address. In the old account, set up forwarding to the new address and keep it on for six months. Anyone who still writes to the old address reaches you, and you will see who needs updating.
- Update where the address lives. Website, signature, invoices, social profiles, the registrar account, your bank, your accounting tool. Search your password manager for the old address to find the accounts you forgot.
- Send an announcement. One short message to clients and suppliers with the new address. From the new address, so replying updates their address book.
- Set up your signature once. Name, role, company, phone, website. Faivelo lets you design one signature and apply it to every mailbox on the domain, so the team matches.
The two ways to do all this: bundled or separate
Everything above assumes you are assembling the pieces yourself. There is a shortcut. Buy the domain and the email from the same place. The records are placed at checkout, and the mailbox exists before you have finished reading the confirmation page. Both routes end in the same place; they differ in how much you do by hand and how much choice you keep.
| Domain and email together | Registrar plus a separate host | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Records placed at checkout; nothing to paste | Add four records at the registrar, or connect it for one-click setup |
| Time to first mailbox | About a minute | Ten minutes to an hour |
| Choice of registrar | The host's own | Any |
| Choice of email host | The one you bought from | Any, and you can switch later by changing the records |
| Cost | Domain at list price plus the email plan | Same, but you can shop each separately |
| Best for | New businesses starting from nothing | Anyone with an existing domain or a registrar they trust |
Faivelo does both. Buy a domain in it and email is live around a minute after checkout; bring a domain from anywhere and connect it. Either way the domain is registered in your name and you can point it elsewhere whenever you like.
Mistakes to avoid
- Numbers and nicknames in the address. anna2024@ and annak@ look like a personal account that ran out of names. Use the naming convention from step four.
- One mailbox for the whole company. It works for a week. Then someone changes the password, someone else archives a client thread, and nobody knows who replied. Give people their own address and share role mailboxes deliberately.
- Skipping DMARC. It is the record that stops other people sending as you. Every host that sets up DKIM should set DMARC too. Faivelo does.
- Buying the domain at a builder that locks DNS. Some website platforms register domains but limit which records you can add. Check that you can add MX and TXT records before you buy, or register at a normal registrar and point the website at the builder.
- Weak or reused passwords. A business mailbox is the reset address for everything else you own. Long, unique, in a password manager, with two-factor on the host account.
- Turning off the old address too soon. Keep it forwarding for at least six months. Old invoices, annual renewals and lapsed clients all surface slowly.
How long it takes, honestly
Choosing and buying the domain: ten to twenty minutes if the first idea is available, longer if it is not. Choosing a host: however long you spend comparing. Connecting the domain: twenty seconds with one-click setup, ten to fifteen minutes by hand, plus a wait for DNS if your registrar is slow. Creating mailboxes: a minute each. Devices: two minutes per device. Migration runs on its own; a 10 GB mailbox typically copies in under an hour.
Or let the setup do itself
Add your domain to Faivelo and connect the registrar. The four records appear in about twenty seconds. The first mailbox is live before you have finished naming the second. SPF, DKIM and DMARC are correct without you reading a single tutorial.
- One-click DNS at ten registrars, clear records everywhere else
- Unlimited mailboxes, aliases and a catch-all on every plan
- Migration tool for Gmail, Microsoft 365 and any IMAP account
- Webmail, iPhone and Android apps, standard IMAP and SMTP
FAQs
What do I need to create a business email address?
A domain name, an email host, and access to the domain's DNS settings. If you buy the domain inside your email host, the DNS part is done for you at checkout.
How long does it take to set up a business email?
Under a minute for the technical part when your host places the DNS records automatically, and ten to fifteen minutes when you paste them yourself. Choosing the domain and naming your addresses is what takes the rest of the hour.
Can I create a business email without a website?
Yes. Email needs only a domain and a host. Many businesses set up email first and add a website later, on the same domain, without touching the email.
Can I create multiple mailboxes for my team?
Yes. On per-user hosts each one adds to the bill. On Faivelo mailboxes are unlimited on every paid plan, so a mailbox for each person and each role address costs the same as one.
What is the difference between a mailbox and an alias?
A mailbox stores mail and has its own login. An alias is an extra address that delivers into an existing mailbox. Use mailboxes for people and important role addresses, aliases for everything that only needs to arrive somewhere.
How is a business email different from a personal one?
The domain. A business address is at a domain you own, so it carries your brand, can be moved between providers, and supports role addresses like support@. A personal address is at the provider's domain and belongs to them.
Will adding email break my website?
No. Email and websites use different DNS records. The one thing to check is that you do not end up with two SPF records; merge them if your website platform already added one.
Can I keep reading mail in Gmail after I set up a business address?
Yes. Either forward the business address into Gmail, or add the business mailbox to Gmail as an IMAP account and send as it. Your mail still lives on your own domain.
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.