r/businessemail

For small businesses, setting up a business email is not a straightforward methodology. From what I have seen the easiest setup is usually:

1. Get a custom domain and website so your business looks professional

2. Pick the provider that does the job - simple and easy setup and easy to manage

3. Setup your branded mailbox

Providers I see recommended the most:

- Google Workspace: Best If you want to remain in Google's Ecosystem and it's a long term solution that offers familiarity and ease.

- Neo Mail: Best for small businesses, solo founders with 1-10 employees as it allows you to create an email without owning a domain, easy and cost-effective solution but not a long term solution.

- Outlook: Best for enterprises who are a part of Microsoft ecosystem and are extensively using Office 365. Can be used for years.

- Protonmail: Best workspace alternative with solid security and privacy. They have everything that workspace has but layered with security.

Honourable mention: Zoho Mail - known for its forever free 5 users. This is an entrance to the entire Zoho ecosystem.

This has been my personal takeaway based on products that I've tried so far.

Would like to know what this community thinks.

My sister needs a professional email setup so when we researched, we kept seeing SMEs and startup owners complain about google workspace for things like pricing, setup issues and same old stuff.. but in most cases, they did not switch.

Why is that?
From my end, I suggested her a few other email providers but she thinks that because moving business email is too risky to newer options, she wants to stay with google workspace only.

I do not feel this is the right logic but the ones who stayed on Workspace, was it really the right choice or was it more about not wanting to deal with the change?

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I tried setting up free custom domain email via Cloudflare but it was too technical for what I needed. I am also tired of YT videos promising "business email for $0". At this point I would rather pay for something reliable over popular and ideally a smaller provider instead of google or microsoft for a professional domain setup.

Any suggestions?

I run a small business, it's never been busier but I am overwhelmed by my inbox. I literally can't keep up and I feel like I'm drowning.

We aren't earning enough to hire more staff, so I'm leaning towards an AI email assistant.

My biggest problems:

• Volume of emails

• Repeat emails from clients (sometimes multiple a day)

• 30 projects on the go at any given time, so 30+ clients, plus freelancers, so I can deal with 60+ different people a day.

I don't need help with:

• calenders

• meetings

• sharing with a team (I'm essentially a solo project manager)

• I don't really want AI to write my emails for me. It's one of the few things I enjoy about my job.

I want something that can tell me:

• "What does this person actually want?"

• "Summarise the last 18 emails in this thread."

• "What's changed since I last looked?"

• "What decisions are waiting on me?"

• "Who needs a reply today?"

I use Notion for project management, project tracking, updating the team (I love Notion). I use Gmail, chat GPT and Claude, but I prefer to write majority of my own emails.

I'm leaning towards Shortwave? But I'm open to ALL suggestions.

Hi guys, I have my own small business. It's not a shop, but its a home thing. I sell goats milk soap, (mostly) T-shirts, (mostly), diaper cakes, flower pens, gift packings. Just wanna know how to promote it more. If you know anyone, please help. Instagram Facebook

I have been in residential sales for a while now and have always managed viewings and site visits through my email calendar only. Last week I booked 2 clients into the same slot without realizing it and only found out when both showed up. The one I had to let down viewed another property that evening and made an offer there. The part that bugs me is that my calendar did nothing to stop it, it just sat there and let me book over myself, no warning, nothing!

This made me question if a basic email calendar is enough when handling multiple devices, clients, listings and especially last-minute changes.

So, is it better to keep doing this manually or move to a booking tool where clients pick from available slots themselves?

How do I handle this?

This was a topic I was chatting with a friend about earlier, as they're part of a band which needed a photographer and said 'why not hire my friend instead, as he needs a job anyway?'. Brilliant stuff, cost was agreed as I'm only just getting back into photography as they were the ones who said about paying for it so they can establish socials to promote their band.

During that discussion, however, he mentioned about setting up my own profile to promote myself so that I can potentially be hired by others for photos. But the thing is, I'd rather have my personal email kept as such, and create a business email for others to contact me by. I've been sat on the fence for this for quite a while, and might actually get myself back into photography, starting with volunteer work while I sort out my business mail. Which is why I'm here, as I'm not sure on where to start. Or is it too soon for me to think of such things?

If further knowledge helps, I'm from the UK, got an A grade for photography in my GCSEs and will be starting ny second year of BTEC media this year.

I know I could've Googled about this, but just want to know what this community thinks is the best?

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I run small yoga group classes + 1:1s. The pattern is always the same, someone shows up twice a week for a few months, totally into it and then gone (new job, baby, injury etc). This always bugs me because these are the people I would want back the most since they already know that they like it and they are not some cold lead off IG.

So I have been thinking about how to stay on their radar without being the person who is obviously chasing a booking. Maybe a quick "happy b’day, hope you're moving well" note or a "hey, it's been a year since your first class!".. these kind of stuff.

But does that actually bring people back or is it a formality that does nothing? Also, do you do this by hand or automate it?

Curious if anyone has actually seen this work. Thanks!

I am helping a friend’s e-commerce startup to establish a basic tech setup. For context, he started with one gmail inbox and handled everything manually. He has just bought a domain so setting up a website and domain email should be easy.

I feel that his gmail setup worked when orders were low but since the business is growing and he is bringing in a few employees, he needs proper email addresses. His main concern is avoiding a full office suite, shared passwords, poor deliverability and confusion over who handles which customer.

Also, he will need roughly 4-5 mailboxes and I can handle the DNS/MX records myself.

What would you recommend?

For years, one of the biggest arguments for using an email client was storage and backup.

You could keep years of email locally, effectively limited by your computer's storage rather than your provider's mailbox quota. Plus, having a local copy felt like a safety net.

Now, most business email providers offer massive mailboxes, and reliable backups. At the same time, AI features are being built directly into webmail platforms.

So, do you still run Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, eM Client, Mailbird, etc.?

If yes:

What does it do that webmail still can't?

Is local ownership of your email data still important?

How do AI features factor into your decision?

And if you've moved entirely to webmail:

Have the new AI assistants, search capabilities, and storage options made desktop clients unnecessary?

P.S: We have added an option for users to connect their non-branded email to their GreenmorMail accounts, offering our webmail as a partial web-based email client.

I plan custom trips for clients and just spent 20 minutes scrolling a whatsapp thread to find someone’s airport transfer time because I could not remember which of the 5 versions we agreed on.

Most clients want everything on whatsapp since it is quick and personal, but itineraries never stop changing & every edit is another message buried in a thread that is already weeks long, always making it one endless scroll.

The part that scares me is missing something that actually matters, like if a transfer time changes, things get lost in the chat and a client ends up stuck outside airport at 6am. That's on me.

Email feels like it would fix half of this with real threads and a record of what we agreed, but clients prefer whatsapp and I do not want to make it harder for them just to make my life easier.

So what do you all use: email or whatsapp? Has anyone gotten whatsapp to work for this, or do you just give up and move everything to email?

Is using email to contact bank is better than calling them about bank issues? Issues that is small and big in the bank. Because I was told that using email to contact bank is more professional and better and its the best way for owning a liqour store to contact bank? What do you guys think?