The free options compared
| Option | Your own domain? | Send as your domain? | Outlook and phone apps? | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Mail Forever Free | Yes | Yes | No — webmail and Zoho apps only | Up to 5 users, 5 GB each, one domain; not offered in every region |
| Email forwarding (Cloudflare Email Routing, many registrars) | Yes, to receive | No | Through your existing inbox | Receive only; replies come from your personal address |
| Email included with web hosting | Yes | Yes | Usually, by IMAP | Not really free — part of the hosting bill; small mailboxes, no shared calendars |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic trial | Yes | Yes | Yes | One month; card required; becomes £5.40 a user (annual) unless cancelled |
| Google Workspace trial | Yes | Yes | Yes | 14 days, then from £5.90 a user (annual) |
| A free Gmail or Outlook.com address | No | No | Yes | Not on your domain, so it looks less established |
Zoho Mail Forever Free
The closest thing to genuinely free business email. You get proper mailboxes on your own domain for up to five people, with 5 GB of storage each. The limits matter: the free plan does not include IMAP, POP or ActiveSync, so you read and send mail in Zoho’s webmail and Zoho’s own mobile app, not in Outlook or your phone’s built-in mail app. Zoho also says the free plan is only available in some of its data centres, so check it is offered when you sign up.
Free forwarding: receive on your domain, reply from elsewhere
Forwarding passes mail sent to you@yourbusiness.co.uk on to an inbox you already have, such as a personal Gmail account. Many domain registrars include it, and Cloudflare Email Routing does it free for domains whose DNS is on Cloudflare. It does not let you send as your domain: replies go out from your personal address unless you add a separate sending service. Forwarded mail can also fail SPF checks along the way, so some of it may land in junk.
Free trials
Microsoft 365 Business Basic has a one-month free trial; it needs a card and becomes a paid subscription when the trial ends unless you cancel. Google Workspace offers a 14-day trial. Both are a good way to try the real thing before committing, not a way to run email for free.
When free is good enough
- You are testing an idea or a side business and need an address on your domain today.
- You are happy to use webmail or the provider’s app rather than Outlook.
- Nobody else needs to share your calendar or an info@ inbox.
When it costs you more than it saves
Once you have customers, staff or invoices going out, the limits start to cost time and credibility: mail you cannot read in Outlook, replies from a personal address, no shared inbox, no one to call when it breaks. The step up is small. Zoho’s paid Mail Lite is £0.80 a user a month on an annual plan; small mailbox bundles from IONOS and Fasthosts cost £2.50–£3 a month for five after their offers; and Microsoft’s Exchange Online Plan 1 gives a full 50 GB Exchange mailbox for £3.10. Our cheap email hosting guide compares them, and how to get a business email address walks through the set-up.