If you're like me you have a simple website and you don't want to pay a lot of money to run it. There are tools out there for hosting a static website for free. But those options do not provide email. What many end up doing is paying for website hosting and using the free email that comes along with paying a discount trial free/mo. Then the trial period is over the charge you WAY more. I just need to get a few emails a month. If that. I am actually very protective of my email and don't give it out often. So if I can find a way to host the site for free and avoid the hosting costs, is there also a free email service for my domain? There is...
Zoho.com has a free email service that I actually use on my static website. I can hear you now. "Yeah but it sucks right?". No its actually a great service IMO. I get no ads. I see no spam. But admittedly I do not publish my email widely so YMMV. They do seem to have Spam Controls a new BETA email-protection service but I have not evaluated those.
What's the catch? The catch is that you can use it for only 1 domain and is limited to 5 users. That will suit many people fine. If you need more domains they offer a LITE plan currently at $1/user/month. (March 2024). See more on "users" vs "emails" below. I think the business model is smart. provide an actual value service to make you want to use them later when and if you have the need.
Go over to https://www.zoho.com/mail/ and click on "Pricing" at the top menu. Scroll down and you see "Mail Lite" if you need multiple domains. Or you can scroll down even further there is a "Forever Free Plan" which is limited to 1 domain.
On the Mail Lite plan I note is says user not email. So if I am the only user logging in for multiple emails, is that only $1/month?
If you are here you probably already have a domain but it looks like perhaps Zoho can also help you Buy a Domain. Though really there are a ton of options. Seach for Domain Registrar. It appears you can even buy a domain inside your admin console Paying for domain registration usually assumes a fee however. Godaddy states this is about $2 to $20 per year. If all you want is email but not a domain, you can use any free email provide Gmail, Proton, or Zoho. Though, you don't need the rest of this post if you are using a personal email.
It has been a while since I set this up, but I believe I used these steps: Setup your domain with Zoho Mail
It essentially required logging into my domain registrar, changing some DNS records to verify my domain and setting up the MX records (MX=Main eXchange) to point to Zoho to handle email for the domain. If this is new to you, its kind of confusing and a pain frankly. The risk is likely that you might mis-configure your MX and get no email while it is in progress. Though most email is store and forward so it will retry for a few hours or days depending on configuration. So it is likely fairly safe. Just be careful to not remove ALL of your other DNS records you use. I HIGHLY recommend you save your setup before you start. If you provider allows for saving the state as a backup you can restore if needed later, do that. If you can export to files do that. If you must copy and paste that is better then nothing but copy and paste can copy and insert bad things in some cases. In my case I took a screenshot of everything AND I copied each record as text. It actually came in quite handy when comparing the old to the new. I am not trying to scare you. It's not really that bad if you pay close attention. Some registrars like godaddy actually have pretty good support. DNS can take a little while to update so pay close attention to the documentation and be a little patient.
You can pretty much follow the Setup your domain with Zoho Mail Table of Contents. I would say the minimum is probably these sections of the linked doc:
After which, you will likely want to read on how to add additional users and possibly configure aliases.
After you setup the above, you may want to actually add other users or email aliases. To do this, you login with admin user, open the Admin Console.
it does appear that emails are tied to users. Which likely answers the LITE account costs. As I currently have 2 users it would cost me $2/mo (may be different when you read this).
However, this topic there is a way create up to 29 Aliases. Aliases are like nicknames. Someone can send an email to nickname@domain.com and the email actually shows up in givenname email box. Which begs the question can you reply or send email as "nickname"? It is documented here dynamic from addresses but I have not tried this. Aliases are quite useful if you want to run a temporary campain or one day want to have an actual sales team and want to get people used to sending to that now. Though, it does get confusing sometimes. Looking at your inbox you may not realize which email was actually the recipient and you may reply with the wrong address. Which if you were trying to keep private you just exposed.
I really like this service. I have never seen a charge. I do not remember if I had to give a credit card. I have not seen spam but I am low exposure. I love that this feels like a first class mail service which is free for my low use domain.I highly recommend. No I am not an affiliate and I do not get a referral fee. This is my own opinion freely given without conflict of interest. Just a currently satisfied user.