Do you need email on your own domain?

Gmail works, so why change?

Plenty of small businesses in Malta run on a Gmail or Hotmail address, and it works. Nobody refuses to buy from you because of it. But there are a few good reasons to move to your own domain, and one or two reasons not to rush.

What the customer sees

An email from info@yourbusiness.com tells the person who it’s from before they open it. A free webmail address can make people hesitate, especially on a quote or an invoice, when they’re deciding whether to pay you. It also matches your website, your business cards and your van, which is a small thing that adds up.

Who actually owns the address

This is the one that matters most. A Gmail address belongs to whoever opened the account. An address on your domain belongs to your business, because you own the domain.

So when someone leaves, sales@ stays with you and goes to the next person. Without it, a customer’s whole history can walk out the door inside one person’s personal inbox. It’s also easier to give each person their own address, plus shared ones like info@ and accounts@, without anyone sharing a password.

What it costs

It comes with our hosting plans. Bronze has 10 mailboxes at €100 a year, Silver has 25 at €140, and Gold has unlimited mailboxes at €180. Business Starter includes two business email addresses along with the website, domain and hosting. Prices are agreed in writing before we start.

Things to sort out before you move

• Check who the domain is registered to. It should be you or your company, not a former web designer.
• Make a list of the addresses you need. One per person, plus the shared ones.
• Don’t start from an empty inbox. Your old mail should come across too. We move mailboxes for free, and mail keeps arriving while we do it.
• Think about phones and Outlook. Webmail, IMAP, POP and Outlook all work, so you can use whatever you’re used to.
• Keep the old address running for a while. Forward it for a few months so nobody who has the old one gets lost.

Why mail ends up in spam

If your messages keep going to junk, the cause is often the domain’s settings rather than the email itself. Mail from a domain that’s set up properly is far more likely to reach the inbox. We manage the DNS records for your domain as part of hosting, and if something of yours is going to spam you can tell us and we’ll look at it.

When it isn’t worth the bother

If you’re a one-person side project sending a handful of emails a month, and you don’t have a website or a domain yet, a free address is fine for now. It starts to matter when customers are paying you, or when more than one person is answering the same inbox.

Next steps

Read more about business email, how we handle migration, or register a domain if you don’t have one. Or just ask. We’ll tell you what makes sense, including when you don’t need to change anything.