Hosted mail offers opportunities for businesses, but it is a complex service to provide. It requires airtight security, continuous development, reliable integrations, and more. As ManagedWPHosting, we have made the decision to no longer offer hosted mail services to our clients. It simply doesn’t fit within our proposition. In this blog, we share several alternatives for emailing safely and effectively.

That being said: we will take care of syncing your old emails to your new hosted mail provider and set up the DNS for you (technical speak for: we’ll take care of it). However, you will need to find a suitable mail hosting provider yourself. When choosing a hosted mail provider, there are various criteria you can consider during your search. In addition to budget, security and possible integrations are two commonly used criteria. Let’s take a closer look at those.

Security comes first

Security is a crucial part of hosting – and therefore also of email. Since the enforcement of the GDPR (also known as the AVG in Dutch), a lot has changed. If you’ve followed even a little of it, you’ll know that this regulation has had a significant impact on businesses. The GDPR also affects how you, the recipient, and the hosting provider handle email.

For example, if your company is based in Europe and you want to send (sensitive) personal data to the United States, you must comply with what’s known as the Privacy Shield. When searching for an email hosting provider, make sure they comply with the regulations set by the GDPR.

Note: the Privacy Shield may no longer be what it once was.
Read more here about our GDPR-compliant hosting.

Stand-alone Mail Solution

When talking about secure emailing, ProtonMail may very well come to mind. ProtonMail offers a stand-alone mail solution with end-to-end encryption, making secure communication its top priority. Additionally, the company has no access to user data, which significantly reduces the risk of data breaches.

But it’s not just the features that make ProtonMail a trustworthy service. Its infrastructure is located in one of the most secure data centers in Europe, buried deep underground in Switzerland. If you’re looking for a provider that is fully committed to security, we highly recommend ProtonMail.

All-in-one Mail Solutions

In the context of security, integrations with other tools are often considered just “nice to have.” However, some tools are essential for businesses. In such cases, a stand-alone solution might not be sufficient. All-in-one solutions make it easier to perform specific tasks without constantly switching between platforms. Commonly used tools include cloud storage and document editors.

If seamless integration with certain features is important to you, it might be wise to look for an all-in-one mail solution. Google Workspace (formerly known as G Suite) offers solutions for all types of businesses. It includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Hangouts Chat, Google Drive cloud storage, and Google Docs. Another major player is Microsoft, which offers Microsoft 365 for businesses with access to applications like Outlook, Word, OneDrive cloud storage, SharePoint, and Excel.

Although these two major providers don’t focus solely on security the way ProtonMail does, you can still use their services with confidence. In recent years, their compliance and security measures have been significantly tightened.

Budget

As mentioned earlier, budget is also an important criterion when choosing a (new) hosted mail provider. In practice, the budget depends heavily on other factors, such as company size, specific business needs, and more. To give you an idea of the pricing currently offered by the providers mentioned above:

ProtonMail starts at € 9.99 per user, per month.

Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) starts at € 6.80 per user, per month.

Office 365 starts at € 5.60 per user, per month.

We recommend the above providers as alternatives to our former hosted mail offering, or for new customers. They offer tools and/or support for importing existing mailboxes where needed.

Click the following links to read more about the current features and pricing of these providers:

Providers

Note: For a more comprehensive list, see https://european-alternatives.eu/category/email-providers