Best Custom Email Hosting? | Google Workspace vs. Namecheap vs. Zoho

0:00 you need a custom email address if you want to look professional and have your business stand out but picking the right email hosting is critical especially if you're going to be using that email for business purposes so which email host should you use it may not seem like that big of a deal after all you could just go to Google and find the first email host that comes up and sign up I mean you're getting the same end result right a custom email address hosted on your domain name a domain name you could get from pork bun the sponsor of today's video but more on that later the most important things that email hosting needs are reliability email deliverability tight security and a quality spam filter these all make a big difference in your inbox experience if you don't do it right from the beginning emails could start ending up in people's

0:46 Spam folders you could face downtime or not have emails delivered and you could end up overpaying for simple features and it's easy to feel like your email is held hostage at a particular host and you can't migrate it somewhere else so which hosts are worth your time I've compiled a list of a few options that I think are worth your time and in this video I'm going to help you make a decision on which email host is right for you I want to start out with namecheap's private email hosting this is a solution I've used for years and I find it's reliable affordable and a great starting point for many people the base plan offers 5 gigabytes of inbox storage for 14.88 a year the setup process can be easy if you have your domains held at namecheap but I found that if your domain is not at namecheap

1:32 it's a little bit convoluted I find myself scratching my head and searching for where the DNS records are and since I run all of my DNS through cloudflare for all of my domains I always have to deal with this annoyance and it's a little bit of a headache you can get a two-month free trial with no strings attached and I'm a big fan of namecheap's web client which is powered by open exchange it's a clean and simple interface and it's something I always enjoy using namecheap does offer support for IMAP and smt TP so you can connect it to third-party email apps namecheap spam filter is pretty decent but it's definitely not as accurate as Gmail or other bigger providers they did just launch a dedicated feature called jellyfish which is a spam filter manager where you can whitelist or Blacklist

2:17 emails and set up all sorts of filtering rules based on subject lines or other criteria it is a pretty Advanced system and I think it's cool to see namecheap improving their spam filter in this area overall namecheap private email is a great value for beginners next up is Zoho Mail and Zoho Mail is the only host on this list that offers a forever free plan for custom email hosting it does have some limitations you'll have five gigabytes of email storage per user up to five users you'll also have a 25 megabyte attachment limit on emails and you cannot access IMAP or SMTP which means that you'll have to use zoho's web client or their email apps that you can download for all your devices Zoho Mail offers a really easy setup process their

3:03 Setup Wizard walks you through every step including adding DNS to your domain name and overall it was way easier than the setup process at namecheap the Zoho Mail app is all right I'm not a big fan of the interface and the apps feel a bit cluttered normally I'm not too picky about this because I typically prefer to connect my email addresses to third-party email apps anyway but with the free version of Zoho Mail you can't do that you're forced to use their apps since you cannot access IMAP or SMTP in the free version and if all you need is a free custom email that gets the job done Zoho is going to be just fine but I still feel like overall the interface could be improved on it's worth noting that for 12 dollars per user per year you can upgrade to the mail light plan

3:49 at Zoho which allows you to access IMAP and SMTP for your email addresses the actual reliability of Zoho Mail has been good it's a solid email host and I think it's a great solution if you need a free basic email or if you want IMAP and SMTP compatibility on a budget for only 12 dollars a year Zoho Mail is feature Rich and affordable at the same time making it a great value but you'll still need a domain name to set up your custom email and that's where today's sponsor pork bun can help pork bun is a refreshingly simple domain name registrar with everything you need to make your ideas Bloom to life with over 500 domain name extensions available you're bound to find something no matter your needs or your Niche not only does pork bun have some of the best pricing on domain names

4:35 year round they also offer more free services than any other big name registrar this includes free SSL certificates free who is privacy and much more pork bun isn't just affordable they're trustworthy too with more 5 Star reviews from real customers than any other registrar they back it all with their expert support via chat phone or email so you can get real answers from real people and you can reach them 365 days a year including holidays I love pork bun and use them for tons of domains I own and when pork bun reached out and wanted to sponsor a video I was thrilled you can get your domain at pork bun at the link below thanks to pork bun for sponsoring today's video and now let's get back to the comparison and take a look at Google workspace Google

5:22 workspace is email hosting powered by Gmail it's Google's business email product and it functions just like a normal Gmail address but it's connected to your custom domain for six dollars per user per month you'll get access to 30 gigabytes of Google drive space instead of the 15 gigabytes of drive space you typically get in a free Gmail account you'll also have access to Google Docs sheets forms Google Drive and all the other Google services you know and love Google workspace is definitely designed for corporations and the setup process isn't the easiest that's not to say if you're a solo user you should stay away from Google workspace I have a a lot of friends that use it for their personal Brands and they're not some business or big Corporation so I think it is a good fit

6:08 for a lot of people but you'll definitely want to spend some time digging through Google's admin console and reading help articles to understand the setup process otherwise I think you might be a little bit frustrated and confused it's definitely not the simple elegant setup process that you get with something like Zoho Mail I personally use Google workspace for my company emails and I prefer over the other options for reasons like email deliverability reliability and the spam filter and that's why I'm willing to pay 72 dollars a year per user instead of 12 or 15 dollars a year for a host like Zoho or namecheap one thing that a lot of users forget to consider is security with conventional email hosting there's no way to enforce two-factor

6:54 authentication when using IMAP and SMTP now sure something like namecheaps private email hosting does support two-factor authentication for the web client but at the end of the day when you connect the email address to a third-party email app it's just looking at your username and password and there is no way for IMAP and SMTP to force two-factor authentication so if someone were to guess your password they can get access to your email since Google is Google and they're a tech giant they actually enforce a proprietary authentication method for third-party email apps this means to log in with Gmail or Google workspace you have to do it via google.com in this way they're able to make sure that everybody steps

7:41 through the two-factor authentication screen if you have it set up I personally have a Hardware security key so I have to actually plug it into my computer's USB port and touch it in order to sign into my Google account after I enter the password and I get it not everyone needs this level of security but Google works base can provide this level of security if it makes sense for you very few providers are able to force their own login protocols for third-party email apps but another provider big enough to do this is Microsoft the Microsoft 365 business basic plan provides a custom email address powered by Outlook access to online versions of Microsoft Office and one terabyte of OneDrive space for six dollars a month it's basically the Microsoft version of Google workspace

8:27 it's just a Microsoft account with a custom email address connected to it and it has all of the similar team features that Google workspace offers once you set up your Microsoft email you can access advanced security features similar to Google workspace this allows you to actually enforce two-factor authentication when logging into third-party apps and Microsoft even has this feature where you can use just a security key to log in and actually take advantage of passwordless authentication I think it just comes down to personal preference I'm used to the Google ecosystem so I'm happy paying the Google tax for Google workspace but if you prefer Microsoft and you're used to the features they offer Microsoft email is a great choice so last up I wanted to take

9:13 a look at hey hey is a newer email Provider from the parent company that makes Basecamp let's get this out of the way first hay is definitely a premium option at 12 per user per month it's very expensive and it doesn't support access to IMAP or SMTP if you think that's ludicrous for such an expensive hosting service hey may not be right for you the idea behind hey is to rethink and simplify how email works and they're able to do that by forcing you to use their proprietary mail apps the sign up process was the easiest email hosting Setup Wizard I've ever been through typically when I set up a custom email I think that it may not be the easiest for people who aren't tech savvy but hey hold your hand through the entire

9:58 process they tell tell you exactly how to add the DNS records to your domain and overall I was absolutely Blown Away by how simple it was there's a 30-day free trial if you want to try this Setup Wizard and play around with it and it's worth noting that hey offers a discounted rate of ten dollars per month for the first user so if you're solo and you're the only one who's going to have an email address on your domain name hey is only going to cost ten dollars a month once it's set up you can start accessing your inbox this is what hey calls the inbox in their platform there are a few things that set hay apart from other providers First the inbox is designed where you have to White list every single email so instead of blacklisting spam emails that keep

10:43 sending you newsletters or junk that you don't want to get hey allows you to whitelist emails from the start to make sure you only allow emails through from people that you want to get email from the idea behind this is that you'll get less emails overall and your inbox will be less cluttered when you can say no thanks when you forgot you signed up for that email list and they send you an email for the first time and it pops up in your hay screening you can say no I don't want that and then you're never going to get those email newsletters again in your inbox hey has a big emphasis on privacy vowing not to sell your user data there's a number of things that make their platform so unique and if you're curious you can go check out the hey Manifesto linked below this is the page on their website where

11:29 they talk about what sets them apart from other providers and why they are so unique and committed to innovating the future of email I'm enthusiastically watching hey from a distance but I'm just not ready to use their proprietary email platform right now I prefer to add all my emails to a third-party email app so I can see everything in the same place and since hey does not support IMAP or SMTP it's not a fit for me personally the 12 per user per month price tag is also hard to swallow for my company where I have three email addresses I'd be paying thirty four dollars a month for email hosting which is almost double what I currently pay for Google workspace but hey if hey looks interesting to you I definitely

12:16 recommend trying it out I think it's a solid platform I really like what they're doing to innovate in the space and I hope that they do a lot in the future to continue making email that much better I do want to give a quick honorable mention to FastMail it's another email provider with a big emphasis on privacy and for five dollars per user per month they offer support for IMAP and SMTP so it may be worth considering so in the end which host do I personally use and recommend well I personally use a mix of namecheap private email hosting and Google workspace I have my primary email address on my trailer dot media domain at Google workspace and I'll use namecheat private email hosting for any other small smaller projects that come up where I still want a custom email

13:03 address it's a great value option and it gets the job done without breaking the bank but I've got to say this might be the first comparison video I've ever done where I can recommend just about every option in the video normally there's usually some options that I'm not a fan of but of all the providers I decided to try and today's video I was impressed with all of them in different ways namecheap private email hosting and Zoho Mail are great budget options depending on your needs or preferences in Google workspace and Microsoft email hosting are top-notch world-class email hosting if you want the most reliable best hosting that you can buy if you like with the people over at 37 signals are doing with hey I can definitely recommend it for its smoothness

13:48 reliability and privacy focused Mission I honestly don't think you can go wrong with any of the email hosts featured in this video that's not something I say a lot in my comparison videos but I think you're are in good hands with any of the companies mentioned regardless of the host you pick don't forget to get your domain name from pork bun at the link below and if you're interested in knowing how you can get a custom email address hosted by Apple be sure to check out my other video here