a spark, a flame, a fire
Email hosting is one of those recurring business costs that can quietly eat into your small business budget. Many UK small businesses sign up for expensive services without realising there are equally reliable - and much cheaper - alternatives. This post discusses how I switched to a more cost-effective provider and saved over £60 per year.
When I registered my domain with my registrar, I chose the easiest option and got my email hosting through them. While convenient, it turned the initial cheap fees, turned into around £70+ per year — for just me. As a solo enterprise, I realised I was paying far over the odds for email features that I didn't need via Godaddy. So I started to look around for a cheaper alternative. I settled on Zoho Mail and I'll explain why...
There are many factors you might consider when choosing your email host provider, but one of my major concerns was with storage. While bigger businesses might need lots of storage, I found that I was never going to need the large storage amounts on offer. Let's look at what some of the common providers offer and the price once you're past any introductory deals and compare that to my chosen provider Zoho Mail.
NOTE: The prices below are from the 18th of April 2025. They may be different at the time of reading. In fact since I switched, my host, Godaddy is listed as slightly cheaper than I was paying at the time.
As you can see, there's a big difference in price that's worth taking note of. For tiny teams, Zoho actually offer a free plan that may suit your needs.
Storage was my main reason for changing, but actually Zoho did offer some other features that are worth noting.
Of course, with the convenience of signing up with your domain regstrar, there's also the convenience of setting things up. Though I have to say, that I still had to jump some hoops to connect up my original Godaddy email system to my devices.
So switching to another provider can require a bit of set up and techy faff. But there were plenty of instructions to follow and, if it really sounds like the most awful thing in the world for you to tackle, you could always find someone to help you get it set up while still making savings in future. I definitely found it worth it and as you know, with small businesses like ours, savings to add up over time.
Use Aliases: Did you know, with services like Zoho Mail, you can set up what are called "email aliases". These are great for individuals or businesses that want to streamline email communication by having different email addresses for different parts of the business without incurring extra costs associated with additional email accounts. For example, you could have aliases such as "hello@", "sales@", "help@, but have them all direct to the same mailbox for sorting by your email provider into folders etc. Learn about setting up email aliases in Zoho mail.
Clean your inbox: keeping you mailbox clear of old emails helps you to keep within your storage limits.
Choosing the platform I did was based on my personal needs and what works for me. You may find that other providers give you what you need, so please feel free to look around at other options.
That said, If you're currently paying £60/year for email hosting, you could cut that to £9.60 with something like Zoho Mail and not miss a thing. Switching is simple enough, and the savings add up fast-especially for growing teams. Take back control of your email budget and invest those savings where they matter most.