The options side by side
| Option | Typical price | Mailbox | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| IMAP email with your web hosting | £1–£3 | Often 1–10 GB | Email only. No shared calendars, no proper sync. |
| Exchange Online Plan 1 | £3.10 (annual) | 50 GB | Exchange mailbox only. No Teams, no Office apps. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | £5.40 (annual) | 100 GB | Exchange mailbox, Teams, OneDrive, web and mobile Office apps. |
| Google Workspace Business Starter | £5.90 annual, £7.00 flexible | 30 GB pooled | Gmail on your domain, Meet, Drive, Docs. |
| Hosted Exchange (MyExchangeServer) | £8.00, no commitment | 50 GB, extendable | Exchange mailbox in UK data centres, SolidCP control, free migration, named UK support. |
| Microsoft 365 Business Standard | £10.80 (annual) | 100 GB | Basic plus the desktop Office apps. |
| Google Workspace Business Standard | £11.80 annual, £14.00 flexible | 2 TB pooled | Starter plus more storage and Meet recording. |
Microsoft and Google prices are their UK list prices as of October 2026; Google regularly runs introductory discounts, so check the current offer. Resellers set their own prices. Our guide to Exchange Online Plan 1 vs Plan 2 covers the email-only plans.
The cheapest option: IMAP with your web hosting
Most web hosting and domain companies throw in email. For a sole trader who just needs you@yourbusiness.co.uk on one phone, it is fine. It starts to hurt as soon as a second person joins: no shared calendars, no shared mailboxes with proper permissions, mail that reads on the phone but stays unread on the laptop, and small mailboxes that fill up. Our guide to moving from IMAP to Exchange covers the way out, and cheap email hosting in the UK lists the cheapest plans by name, with the price you pay once the introductory offer ends.
The cheapest proper business email: Microsoft or Google entry plans
For most small teams, the sensible floor is Microsoft 365 Business Basic or Google Workspace Business Starter. Both give you real shared calendars, mobile sync and video calls. Basic includes a 100 GB mailbox; Starter gives 30 GB per user, shared across email and Drive.
If you only need Exchange email with no Teams or Office apps, Microsoft’s Exchange Online Plan 1 is cheaper still, with a 50 GB mailbox.
Where hosted Exchange fits
Our hosted Exchange mailbox at £8.00 is not the cheapest email you can buy, and we will not pretend otherwise. People choose it for things the cheaper options do not offer together:
- Mailboxes hosted in UK data centres only, with UK-only support access, written into the contract.
- A named engineer on a direct Birmingham phone number rather than a global queue.
- Your own team managing mailboxes in the SolidCP control panel.
- No annual commitment, and migration done for you at no charge.
- A like-for-like move off your own Exchange server, with public folders and permissions intact.
Our UK email hosting page sets out when it is the right choice, and when it is not.
The costs that are not on the price list
- Migration. Moving existing mail can be free, a per-mailbox fee, or a weekend of your own time.
- Desktop Office apps. Several options above do not include desktop Outlook, Word or Excel.
- Archiving and retention, if you need to keep mail for years — see our guide to how long to keep business emails.
- Security add-ons such as advanced filtering or attachment sandboxing.
- Annual commitments. The lowest Microsoft and Google prices assume you commit for a year; paying monthly costs more.
- Your own time administering it, or someone else’s time doing it for you.
How to choose
- Just you, on a budget: IMAP with your hosting, or an entry Microsoft/Google plan.
- A small team that needs shared calendars: Microsoft 365 Business Basic or Google Workspace Starter.
- A team that lives in desktop Excel and Outlook: Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
- UK-only hosting, personal support, or leaving your own Exchange server: hosted Exchange.
Our comparison of Microsoft 365 Basic, Standard and Premium goes into the Microsoft plans in more depth.