The main types
- IMAP or POP hosting — usually bundled with web hosting. Cheap, email only, no shared calendars.
- Hosted Exchange — Microsoft Exchange run by a provider: email, calendars, contacts, shared mailboxes and mobile sync.
- Microsoft 365 — Exchange Online plus Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and Office apps.
- Google Workspace — Gmail on your domain plus Google’s calendar, Drive and Docs.
Our guide to what business email costs in the UK compares them all, and our UK email hosting page explains when each one makes sense.
What to look for
- Mailbox size, and what happens when it fills up.
- Shared calendars and mobile sync, if more than one person needs to work together.
- Security: spam and malware filtering, multi-factor authentication, and help setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
- Where your data is stored, if clients or regulators ask — see our data residency guide.
- Support: who you call when mail stops, and how quickly they answer.
- Migration: whether moving your existing mail is included.
Your domain stays yours
Your email addresses belong to your domain name, not to the hosting company, so you can change provider without changing addresses. See can I keep my email address if I change provider?