What is Email Hosting and How Does it Work?

Email hosting is a service that allows you to use custom email addresses through an email provider instead of your internet service provider. It offers more options and control over your business email to appear professional.

I’ll explain everything you need to know about email hosting services, choosing providers, setting up accounts, using your new email, and more.

What Does an Email Hosting Service Do?

An email hosting service operates servers that process and store all data for email accounts hosted on their platform. This includes sending, receiving, and organizing messages in mailboxes.

Instead of using your internet provider’s basic email address, email hosting lets you create custom addresses matching your brand using your own domain names.

Email hosting service providers maintain their own dedicated email servers separate from websites to reliably handle the demanding requirements of business email correspondence.

Email hosting services take care of all hardware hosting, security, software needs, backups, deliverability guaranteeing, and features so you can focus on simply using your professional email account.

Why Should I Use Third-Party Email Hosting?

Relying on your internet service provider’s default email gives you limited control, privacy, and a less than ideal @ispname.com email address.

Switching to a specialized email hosting provider lets you use your own domain name to get a professional business email address like contact@yourcompany.com.

This lends far more credibility when contacting customers than an obscure ISP email would. Plus you get access to more advanced email functionality.

Email hosting services offer superior spam filtering, storage space, security certifications, email branding, analytics, automation, integrations, and expert support.

What Are the Benefits of Email Hosting?

There are many excellent reasons to use third-party email hosting services:

• Custom Email Addresses – Use your domain names to get professional addresses
• More Credibility – Match sender domain to brand so emails reach inboxes
• Improved Deliverability – Hosting services optimize servers for email
• Higher Email Storage – Get upwards of 50 GB per mailbox from hosting providers
• Enhanced Security – Email firewalls, encryption, anti-spam/malware protection
• Better Functionality – Email signatory branding, analytics, integrations
• Convenience Features – Calendaring, contacts, tasks, notes, automatic replies
• Reliability Guarantees – Financially-backed uptime and delivery guarantees
• Expert Support – 24/7 email troubleshooting from hosting provider

How Does Email Hosting Work?

Email hosting works by companies renting space on specialized email servers from a hosting service provider instead of hosting email themselves.

The hosting provider operates data centers with fleets of powerful email servers and software. Companies Point their MX records to the hosting provider’s email servers.

Once this DNS setup is complete, the email hosting servers accept messages destined for hosted addresses. The servers organize inboxes, filter spam, enable features, and store messages securely.

Users access inboxes online or sync emails to native apps like Outlook using protocols like IMAP/SMTP. Everything happens behind-the-scene on remote infrastructure monitored by the hosting company.

Here is the basic process overview:

1. Sign-up for email hosting plan with provider
2. Point your MX records to hosting provider’s email servers
3. Emails send/receive through hosting servers into hosted accounts
4. Manage email online through webmail or email client synced via IMAP/SMTP
5. Hosting provider handles hardware, security, software, deliverability

What is Included in Email Hosting Plans?

• Email hosting services offer a variety of feature-packed plans to meet different business sizes and needs. Typically included:
• Mailboxes – Number of custom email accounts allotted for users
• Email Storage – 50 GB to unlimited capacity per mailbox
• Support – 24/7 technical assistance via phone, chat, tickets
• Uptime Guarantee – Financially-backed 99.9% delivery assurance
• Webmail Access – Intuitive browser-based interface for managing email
• Email Client Integration – Sync popular clients via IMAP/SMTP
• Contacts Sync – Address book synchronization across devices
• Email Signatures – Customizable branding for corporate signature consistency
• Calendar & Scheduling – Shared calendaring, event invites, appointment reminders
• Spam Filtering – Machine learning filters quarantining 99%+ junk automatically
• Email Archiving & Retrieval – Legal/compliance mailbox data retention tools
• Security – SSD storage, georedundancy, HIPAA compliance, backups

And much more – CDN caching, analytics, automation rules, reports, etc.

How Much Does Email Hosting Cost?

Email hosting prices vary widely depending on included support, features, storage, domains, and addresses needed. At the low end, shared hosting plans start around $3-10 per month including basic email capabilities.

Dedicated email hosting service providers offer more robust solutions from $5-20 per user per month. Enterprise-grade options run $50+.

Paid email hosting specialized providers generally offer far superior reliability, storage, security, and features compared to the limited email bundled with cheap web hosting companies.

You get what you pay for. Pay more for quality email infrastructure or get an unsupported afterthought service prone to issues. For professional use, paid plans are recommended.

Should I Get Shared or Dedicated Email Hosting?

The two main options are shared and dedicated email hosting:

Shared Email Hosting uses open servers supporting hundreds of domains. It’s affordable but less reliable with occasional slowdowns during traffic spikes. Still, it works for personal and microbusiness use.

Dedicated Email Hosting grants isolated servers only processing your domains. More expensive but excellent performance, security controls, and scalability for growing businesses and large enterprises.

If email hosting seems intimidating, ease into it with shared hosting included with website plans. Upgrade later as your reliance on reliable business email grows. Jumping straight to dedicated hosting also makes good sense for many small companies.

What is the Best Email Hosting Service?

The leading dedicated email hosting services today based on features, value, and satisfaction ratings:

• Rackspace – Reliable enterprise email hosting
• Zoho Mail – Affordable small business hosting
• Fastmail – Top independent hosting provider
• Intermedia – Exchange-based office productivity suite
• MXRoute – Inexpensive mailbox hosting & archiving

The best solution depends on your business specifics like how many mailboxes, storage needed, budget, required features, integrations, use case – receiving sales inquiries or communicating internally, etc.

Research providers thoroughly before choosing the optimal email hosting service aligning with your current and future business needs.

How Do I Set Up Email Hosting?

Once signed up with your chosen email hosting provider, you need to configure your DNS records to point email to their servers and set up user accounts.

The key steps for basic email hosting:

1. Add MX Records – Enter the Mail Exchange subdomain pointing to provider’s server IP
2. Adjust SPF (Sender Policy Framework) & DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) – Strengthen sender validation pointing to new servers
3. Create Mailboxes – Set up custom addresses, through hosting control panel
4. Sync Email Client – Download IMAP/SMTP credentials connecting Outlook, etc

That covers accessing email. For sending cold emails, also consider these sender reputation steps:

1. Enable DMARC – Enact sender policy framework protocol
2. Use Address Warming – Gradually send more emails achieving good mailbox provider rates

When you set up email hosting for your domain, you configure DNS records to direct your domain’s email to the hosting server. This ensures that emails sent to your domain are routed through the hosting provider’s infrastructure.

By using a professional email address that matches your domain name (e.g., john@yourdomain.com), recipient spam filters are less likely to trigger warnings or block your emails, as the email appears to come from a legitimate, professional source rather than a mismatched consumer email provider.

Frequently Asked Email Hosting Questions

Summing Up

Ok so you now understand the value of email hosting services over lackluster ISP-provided consumer email.

The dedicated infrastructure and custom domains lend professional credibility – justified by higher costs for quality hosting capabilities safeguarding critical communications.

Choosing suitable storage limits, features, integrations, and pricing meets your budget and business requirements now plus scalable growth later.

With your DNS records newly directing email to reliable hosted servers, you present far greater trust and deliverability – achieving your communications objectives.

Email hosting ticks all boxes providing the officer-level digital postage stamp today’s world demands. Your business correspondence now consistently lands efficiently in recipient inboxes.

Neil Beckett

Neil is an accomplished web, designer and developer with over 15 years of experience in creating and optimizing websites for small businesses and online entrepreneurs. Read full bio

Get Notified of the Latest Hosting Deals, Discounts and News!

Subscribe

By subscribing, you agree to get emails from me. I'll respect your privacy and you can unsubscribe any time.