Choosing the best email hosting provider for your organisation is important, as your business communication depends on the features of the services.
So, what is email hosting? Keep on reading to find out what it includes, and to get some handy tips for choosing the best email hosting in Australia.
What is Email Hosting?
Email hosting is the service of providing a mailbox and other email-related services to a customer by a web hosting company. The mailbox can be accessed through the internet, and the interface allows users to send, receive, and store emails.
Why Does Your Business Need Email Hosting?
Using email hosting services will bring many benefits to you and your business. By hosting your email externally, you can have more control over your domain and branding and access more features than you could have with an internal email server.
Additionally, email hosting can be more reliable and secure than relying on an internal email server.
Email hosting providers offer additional features such as spam filtering and virus protection, which is essential in today’s digital world. You will have an unlimited number of email accounts while still maintaining a professional image with SSL encryption certificates.
Shortly, email hosting adds the following benefits to your business:
- Support
- Easier and simple email access
- Security
- Flexibility
- Storage
- Availability and uptime
- Improved communication and collaboration
Email hosting providers
There are a number of email hosting providers available, ranging from those offering free services to those whose paid options include additional features. Some of the most popular email hosting providers include:
- Google Workspace
- Microsoft Office 365
- Rackspace Email
- Zoho Mail
- Amazon WorkMail
- Fastmail
- Hostinger
- Dream it Host
Types of Email Hosting
Providers offer different types of email hosting services:
- Cloud-based email hosting
- Dedicated email hosting
- Shared email hosting
Cloud Email Hosting
This type of hosting is also known as “hosted email” or “in the cloud.” As its name suggests, your emails are hosted on a cloud.
This means that your emails are stored on a remote server, which can be convenient if you want to access your emails from any device with an internet connection.
Dedicated Email Hosting
With dedicated email hosting, your organisation’s email messages are stored on a server devoted specifically to your company’s email communication. This can be a good option if you need a high level of security for your email data or a large storage space.
This type of email hosting service is usually used by larger businesses because it costs more. However, it has a high-performance level.
Shared Email Hosting
Shared email hosting includes sharing disk space and bandwidth with other businesses or users who use the same server. This type of hosting can be a cheap email hosting option compared to other options, but it can also be less reliable.
Even though it’s not so costly, this type of email hosting service does have some disadvantages, namely its speed.
Paid vs Free Email Hosting
Let’s go through the pros and cons of free and paid email hostings.
| Free email hosting | Paid email hosting | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
| Free of charge, accessible to anyone | Often comes with limited features | Offers many additional features | Can be costly |
| Great option for individual and personal use | Not that great for professional use and business | Filtered email secure from malware and spam |
Note: Before choosing, you should double-check if the email platform you plan to use is compatible with the other organisations you’ll be working with.
Differences Between Domain, Email Hosting, and Web hosting
Domain, email, and web hosting are all different services and sometimes it is hard to distinguish between them.
With domain hosting, you are provided with a web address, also called a domain name. It is the process of housing a website’s files on a web server. When someone types in your website’s domain name, the webserver sends the requested files back to the person’s computer.
Web hosting essentially is the service making your website and its content available on the Internet. You are provided with storage space and bandwidth on a server.
With email hosting services, you are provided with a mailbox and other email-related services.
What is my email server?
Your email server is the computer system responsible for sending, receiving, and storing emails. This could be a free version of an email provider, such as Gmail, Outlook, or other paid email hosting plans. It’s important to find the one that best meets your needs.
Costs of Email Hosting
Email hosting providers offer different prices, so it’s important to compare the various offered features to find the best provider for you.
Most providers offer a range of pricing plans with different features, so you can find one that fits your budget. If you want to know the cost of email hosting in Australia, take a look at some of the providers and their prices:
| Email hosting provider | Monthly costs |
| Google Workspace | Business starter $8.40 Business Standard $16.80Business Plus $25.20 |
| OzHosting | Exchange Online $7.26Microsoft 365 Basic $10.16Microsoft 365 Standard $22.70 |
| VentraIP | Email Starter $2.95Email $3.95Email Plus $4.95 |
| Dream It Hosts | StartUp $2.97Essential $5.97Business $11.97Business 150GB $17.97Business 200GB $23.97 |
Bottom Line
Email hosting services facilitate digital communication by bringing more security and digital storage capacity. However, not all email hosting providers offer the same features; paid ones usually have more advanced features, and free ones have fewer.
Since it’s up to you to choose the best email hosting provider for your organisation, we hope we helped you learn everything you need to know about what is email hosting.
FAQs:
1. How much does email hosting cost?
This depends on which email hosting service you opt for. Many providers offer free email hosting services. However, the cost of paid email hosting in Australia ranges from $2.90 up to $25.20.
2. What is email hosting used for?
Email hosting is used for email services, such as sending, receiving, and storing emails.
