An honest comparison
Hosted Exchange vs Microsoft 365
We sell both. That is unusual, and it is the reason this page is not written to make one of them look ridiculous. Here is how they genuinely differ for a British business of ten to two hundred people, and which one we would actually recommend.
Side by side
The comparison in one table
We compare against Business Standard because it includes the desktop Office apps. If your team only needs email and the web apps, Business Basic is the fairer comparison — and it is cheaper than us. The section below the table deals with that honestly.
| Feature | MyExchangeServerYou are here | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Shared POP / IMAP hosting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailbox size | 50 GB, extendable in 50 GB blocks | 100 GB | Typically 1-10 GB |
| Price per mailbox, ex VAT | £8.00 per month | £10.80 per month (annual commitment) | £1-£3 per month |
| Where your data lives | UK data centres only, contractually | UK region for UK tenants; global service and support | Varies, often unclear |
| Who administers mailboxes | You, in SolidCP, or us | You, in the Microsoft 365 admin centre | A support ticket |
| Shared calendars and free/busy | Full Exchange, included | Full Exchange, included | Not available |
| Push sync to phones | Instant ActiveSync push | Instant push | Manual polling |
| Attachment limit | 150 MB | 150 MB | Usually 10-25 MB |
| Public folders | Included | Included | Not available |
| Migration | Free, planned and run by us | Self-service or a paid partner | Do it yourself |
| Support | Named UK engineers, direct dial | Global ticket queue | Email only, best effort |
| Minimum term | None, monthly rolling | Annual commitment for the best price | Usually annual |
| Desktop Office apps | Optional £9.40 add-on | Included | Not available |
Microsoft 365 pricing shown is the published UK list price for Business Standard on an annual commitment at the time of writing; check Microsoft's site for the current figure. Ours is £8.00 + VAT with no commitment.
The honest bit
Which one should you actually pick?
Most comparison pages are written by someone who only sells one of the two. This one is not.
Choose hosted Exchange if…
- UK data residency is a requirement rather than a preference — a framework, a regulator, a client contract or an insurer asks where the data sits.
- You want a named engineer who answers a direct number, and you have been burnt by a global ticket queue.
- You are coming off your own Exchange server and want a like-for-like move — public folders, shared mailboxes and permissions intact — done for you.
- You want your IT team or IT partner to administer mailboxes without a support ticket in between.
- You would rather pay month to month with no commitment, and talk to a person about your bill.
Choose Microsoft 365 if…
- You genuinely use Teams as your main communication tool, and replacing it would cost more than the licence saves.
- SharePoint and OneDrive are load-bearing in how your business stores and shares documents.
- You need the desktop Office applications for everyone, and have no existing licences.
- Your organisation is already deep into Entra ID, Intune and conditional access, and email is one part of a bigger identity estate.
- You want Copilot, Power Platform or the wider Microsoft cloud stack.
If that describes you, ring us anyway — we are a Microsoft reseller and will quote you for it. We would rather sell you the right thing than the thing with our name on it.
The cost question, worked through
Microsoft raised UK prices on 1 July 2026, taking Business Standard from £9.60 to £10.80 per user per month on an annual commitment. For a 25-person business that is £3,240 a year, ex VAT. The same 25 mailboxes with us are £2,400 a year monthly-rolling, or £2,160 a year if you pay annually — a saving of roughly £840 to £1,080 a year. Our guide to the July 2026 price rise has the full before-and-after table.
But be clear about the other comparison. If your team only needs email, a calendar and the web versions of Office, Microsoft 365 Business Basic is £5.40 per user per month on an annual commitment and includes a 100 GB mailbox. For 25 people that is £1,620 a year — cheaper than we are. If price is the deciding factor and email-only is what you need, Business Basic is the better buy, and we will happily sell it to you. The reasons to choose hosted Exchange are the ones further down this page, not price.
Whether that saving is real depends entirely on one question: do you use the rest of Microsoft 365? If your 25 people live in Teams and store everything in SharePoint, moving email away and keeping the rest is usually a false economy. If your 25 people use email, a shared calendar and a file server — which describes a great many British SMEs honestly — then you have been paying for a suite to get a mailbox.
The control question, which people underestimate
The Microsoft 365 admin centre is genuinely capable, and if you have someone who knows it, you have as much control as you do with us. The difference shows up at the edges: when something is wrong at the platform level, your route to a human is a global support queue and a case number. Our route to a human is a Birmingham phone number and an engineer who can look at the specific server your mailbox sits on.
For most days that difference is worth nothing. For the two days a year when mail is not flowing and nobody can tell you why, it is worth a great deal.
The data residency question
Microsoft offers UK data residency for core Exchange Online data under its regional commitments, and for many organisations that is sufficient. Where it stops being sufficient is when an assessor wants a named processor, a specific facility, a sub-processor list and a support model that keeps content within the UK end to end. That is straightforward for us to evidence and considerably harder to evidence for a hyperscale platform.
What we would say if you rang us
We would ask three things: how many people, do they use Teams and SharePoint properly, and does anyone external ask you where your data lives. From those three answers the recommendation is usually obvious, and about one enquiry in six leaves us recommending Microsoft 365 instead. That is a worse outcome for our monthly revenue and a better one for our reputation, which over 25 years has turned out to be the better trade.
Questions
Comparison FAQs
Is hosted Exchange better than Microsoft 365 for my business?
It depends on what you need. Microsoft 365 Business Standard bundles Teams, SharePoint and the desktop Office apps, and if you use all of that it is good value. On price alone, Microsoft 365 Business Basic — £5.40 per user per month on an annual commitment, with a 100 GB mailbox and the web versions of Office — is cheaper than we are for email-only users. Where hosted Exchange wins is on what sits around the mailbox: UK-only hosting and UK-only support, a named engineer who answers the phone, mailbox administration without a global ticket queue, a like-for-like move off on-premises Exchange, and no annual commitment. We will tell you honestly which one suits you, including when the answer is Microsoft 365, which we also resell.
How much does hosted Exchange cost per mailbox in the UK?
A full Exchange mailbox with MyExchangeServer is £8.00 + VAT per mailbox, per month. That includes 50 GB of storage, shared calendars and contacts, instant push sync to every device, anti-spam and anti-virus filtering, and self-service administration through SolidCP. There is no set-up fee, no minimum term and no minimum mailbox count. Paying annually saves 10%.
Can we keep our existing domain name and email addresses?
Yes, and that is the normal case. You keep your domain, your addresses and your signatures. We add your domain as an accepted domain in your Exchange organisation, pre-stage everything, and change the MX records at cutover. You can host as many domains as you like on one organisation at no extra cost.
Not sure which one fits?
Tell us your headcount, whether Teams and SharePoint are load-bearing, and who asks you about data residency. We will tell you which of the two we would put you on, and quote you for it either way.
- Free assisted migration
- No set-up fee, no minimum term
- UK data centres, UK engineers