How to set up business email on your own domain

An email address like hello@yourbusiness.co.uk looks more established than a free webmail address, and it keeps working whichever email service you use, because the address belongs to your domain rather than to the provider.

Choosing an email service

Most small businesses use one of the big hosted services, such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Both charge a monthly fee per mailbox and include calendars and file storage. Some domain companies also sell cheaper basic mailboxes. Pick the one whose apps you and your staff already know; prices change, so check each provider's current pricing.

Mailboxes and aliases

You don't need a paid mailbox for every address. A single mailbox can usually receive mail for extra addresses (called aliases), such as bookings@ and info@, so a one-person business can look organised without paying for several accounts.

The records that keep you out of spam

When you connect email to your domain, your email provider gives you some DNS records to add. Getting these right matters more than ever: since 2024, Google and Yahoo have required senders to authenticate their email, and unauthenticated mail is much more likely to be rejected or filed as spam.

• MX records tell the world which service receives your email.
• SPF lists the services allowed to send email as your domain.
• DKIM adds a digital signature that proves an email really came from you and wasn't changed.
• DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with email that fails those checks, and sends you reports.

Remember to include every service that sends email for you in SPF, such as your booking system, invoicing software or newsletter tool, or their messages may be treated as fake.

Protecting a domain that doesn't send email

If you own extra domains that never send email, publish SPF and DMARC records that say so. That stops scammers sending convincing fake emails from those names.

We don't run email servers ourselves, but as part of our hosting we add and check these DNS records for whichever email service you choose. See also choosing a domain name.

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Last reviewed 2026-10-30 by the IceWork team.