Basic IMAP email — from about £1
Usually bundled with a domain or web hosting. Fine for one person on one phone. No shared calendars, no shared mailboxes, and small mailboxes that fill up.
Business email hosting
UK email hosting for businesses, on Microsoft Exchange
Professional email on your own domain, hosted in UK data centres: 50 GB Exchange mailboxes with shared calendars, contacts and push email to every device, for £8.00 + VAT a mailbox, per month. And where basic email or Microsoft 365 would suit you better, this page says so.
Your options
Three kinds of business email hosting
All three give you addresses on your own domain. What differs is everything else.
Hosted Exchange — £8.00 + VAT
Microsoft Exchange run for you: email, calendars, contacts and tasks kept in step on every device, shared mailboxes with proper permissions, and your own administration.
Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace — from £5.40
Email as part of a wider suite with video calls, file storage and office apps. Excellent value if you will use the rest of the suite.
What Exchange adds
Where basic email hosting runs out
The moment a second person joins, IMAP email starts to show its limits. These are the things Exchange does that basic hosting cannot.
-
Shared calendars and contactsSee colleagues’ availability, book meetings and share a company address book.
-
Shared mailboxesOne sales@ or accounts@ inbox handled by several people, with per-person permissions.
-
Everything in syncRead, deleted and filed on your phone means read, deleted and filed on your laptop.
-
Push email to phonesNew mail arrives immediately, rather than when the phone next checks.
-
Delegate accessAn assistant can manage a director’s inbox and calendar without sharing a password.
-
50 GB mailboxesRoom for years of mail, extendable if you need more.
When you do not need us
If you work alone and only need email, the IMAP mailbox that came with your domain is probably enough. Keep it until it gets in your way.
If your team will use Teams, OneDrive and the Office apps, Microsoft 365 is better value. Business Basic is £5.40 a user on an annual plan with a 100 GB mailbox — bigger than ours and cheaper. The same goes if your PCs will run the new Outlook for Windows, which does not support hosted Exchange from any provider.
We also supply Microsoft 365, so we will tell you which fits rather than steer you to one.
Small business email hosting: what to compare
The best email hosting for a small business is the one that fits how you work, not the one with the longest feature list. Our comparison of the main UK providers names names; these five things separate the options:
- Mailbox size — 2 GB fills in months for anyone sending quotes or drawings; 50 GB lasts years.
- Shared calendars and inboxes — essential once there are two of you; basic IMAP email does not do them.
- The price after any offer — compare the renewal price, not the first-year one. Our cheap email hosting guide lists both.
- Commitment — monthly, or locked in for a year.
- Who answers the phone — when email stops, a named engineer who knows your setup is worth more than a feature.
When hosted Exchange is the right choice
- Your data needs to stay in the UK, and you want that in writing for clients, insurers or regulators. See our UK email data residency guide.
- You are leaving your own Exchange server and want the same Exchange, without the hardware and the updates.
- You want to run your own email — create mailboxes, reset passwords and set permissions yourself in SolidCP, not through a ticket.
- You want a named UK team to call when something goes wrong, rather than a global support queue.
Moving your email across
Your addresses stay the same — they belong to your domain, not to any provider. We copy your existing mail, calendars and contacts, switch your domain’s mail records over out of hours, and help you reconnect Outlook and phones the next morning. There is no charge for the migration, whether you are coming from IMAP, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or your own Exchange server.
Questions
Email hosting FAQs
How much does business email hosting cost in the UK?
From about £1 a mailbox a month for basic IMAP email bundled with web hosting, to £5.40 for Microsoft 365 Business Basic and £5.90 for Google Workspace Business Starter on annual plans. Our Exchange mailboxes are £8.00 + VAT a month with no minimum term. Our business email cost guide compares every option.
Can I keep my email address if I move to you?
Yes. Your address belongs to your domain name, not to your email provider. Moving changes where your domain’s MX records point; the addresses stay the same. We migrate your existing mail, calendars and contacts free of charge.
Do I need to move my website as well?
No. Email hosting and web hosting are separate services. Your website can stay exactly where it is; only the DNS records for email change.
Does it work with Outlook?
Yes, with classic Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web and the built-in mail apps on iPhone and Android. Outlook for Mac works too, though Microsoft is still rolling out support in its newest Mac version, so we check yours before you move. The new Outlook for Windows does not support hosted Exchange from any provider; classic Outlook is supported until at least 2029. More on the new Outlook.
Is hosted Exchange the same as Microsoft 365?
No. Microsoft 365 runs Exchange Online in Microsoft’s cloud and adds Teams, OneDrive and the Office apps. Hosted Exchange is Microsoft Exchange Server run for you by a provider — here, in UK data centres, with you administering it through SolidCP. See hosted Exchange vs Microsoft 365.
Where to go next
Ready to move your email to a UK Exchange platform?
Tell us how many mailboxes you have and who hosts them today. We will send a written quote, a migration plan and a fixed cutover date — usually within one working day.
- Free assisted migration
- No set-up fee, no minimum term
- UK data centres, UK engineers