The cheapest options, with the price after the offer
| Provider and plan | Offer price | Regular price | Mailbox size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Mail Lite | — | £0.80 a user (annual only) | 5 GB (10 GB for £1) |
| IONOS, 5 mailboxes | £1 for 12 months | £2.50 for all five | 2 GB each |
| Fasthosts Mail Basic 5 | £1 for 6 months | £3 for all five | 2 GB each |
| Fasthosts Mail Basic 25 | £1 for 12 months | £4.50 for all 25 | 2 GB each |
| IONOS, 1 mailbox | £1.50 for 12 months | £5 | 12 GB |
| 123-reg Pro Light | £1.99 a mailbox, first year | £3.99 a mailbox (£47.88 a year) | 10 GB |
| Microsoft Exchange Online Plan 1 | — | £3.10 a user (annual) | 50 GB |
| 123-reg Premium | £3.99 a mailbox, first year | £6.99 a mailbox (£83.88 a year) | 50 GB |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | — | £5.40 a user (annual) | 100 GB |
| Google Workspace Business Starter | — | £5.90 annual, £7.00 flexible | 30 GB, shared with Drive |
| Fasthosts Mail Business | £2 for 6 months | £7 a mailbox | 50 GB |
| MyExchangeServer hosted Exchange | — | £8.00 a mailbox, no commitment | 50 GB, extendable |
Prices change often and offers come and go, so check the provider’s page before you buy. Where a plan is sold as a bundle, the regular price is for the whole bundle, not each mailbox.
The catches with cheap email
- The renewal price. Most of the eye-catching prices are for the first six or twelve months. Budget for the regular price, because that is what you will pay for as long as you stay.
- Small mailboxes. 2 GB holds a few thousand emails with attachments. It is fine for one person receiving a handful of emails a day; it fills up quickly for anyone who sends quotes, drawings or invoices.
- What it connects to. Free plans often leave out IMAP and ActiveSync, which means webmail and the provider’s own app only — not Outlook, and not your phone’s built-in mail app.
- No shared calendars. Most cheap plans are basic email. If two or more people need to see each other’s diaries or share an inbox like info@, you need Exchange, Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace.
- VAT. UK prices are almost always quoted before VAT at 20%.
- Getting out again. Moving mail from one provider to another later takes effort. A cheap plan you outgrow in a year can cost more than the right plan from the start.
When cheap email is the right answer
If you are a sole trader or a very small business, mostly reading email on one phone and a laptop, and you do not need shared calendars, one of the cheap bundles is perfectly sensible. Pick a provider whose regular price you are happy with, and check that it supports IMAP so you can use Outlook or your phone’s mail app.
When it is a false economy
Once there is a team, a shared inbox or a calendar to coordinate, the cheapest sensible option is a proper Exchange or Google mailbox. Microsoft’s Exchange Online Plan 1 at £3.10 a user is the cheapest full Exchange mailbox on the market, and Microsoft 365 Business Basic adds Teams and web Office apps for £5.40. Both need an annual commitment.
Our own hosted Exchange, at £8.00 + VAT a mailbox, is not cheap email and we will not pretend it is. It is for businesses that want Exchange hosted in the UK, no annual commitment, free migration and a named UK engineer. Our guide to what business email costs in the UK sets out every option side by side.