SHIPMAIL: best for small teams ($4/mo for 3 mailboxes)
SHIPMAIL is an email host with flat-rate pricing that includes everything a small team needs out of the box. The Solo plan costs $4/month and gives you 3 mailboxes, a custom domain, and full API access. Pro is $9/month for 10 mailboxes and 5 team members. Team is $29/month for 50 mailboxes and unlimited team members. Pricing is per plan, not per user, which keeps costs predictable as the team grows.
Unified inbox. All your mailboxes (me@, hello@, support@) appear in a single view. No tab switching, no separate logins. This matters once you manage more than one address, which most small businesses do from the start.
API and SDKs. Every mailbox is accessible through a REST API with TypeScript and Python SDKs. Developers can send transactional email, read inboxes, manage domains, and react to incoming messages via webhooks. If your product needs to send or receive email programmatically, SHIPMAIL handles it without a separate transactional email provider.
Shared inbox. Any mailbox can be shared with team members who get full read and reply access. When someone emails support@yourcompany.com, everyone with access sees the message and can reply from that address. No extra software, no per-user fees.
You also get calendars and contacts built in, automatic email authentication setup, catch-all addresses, and access from any desktop or mobile client. No office suite, no document editor, no video calls.
Zoho Mail costs $1/user/month, but that gets you one mailbox with no unified inbox, no API, no webhooks, and no shared inbox. SHIPMAIL Solo at $4/month gets you three mailboxes with all of that included. For a 5-person team, SHIPMAIL Pro is $9/month flat. Google Workspace is $36/month. If the team was also paying for Missive ($75/month for 5 users), the total drops from $111/month to $9/month.
Zoho Mail: cheapest per-user option ($1/user/mo)
Zoho Mail starts at $1/user/month on the Mail Lite plan. For a solo founder who needs one mailbox on a custom domain and nothing else, it is the cheapest option per seat.
The interface is clean. You get a calendar, contacts, and basic task management. Zoho also has a Streams feature that adds social-media-style commenting on emails. It is not a shared inbox, but it is more than most hosts offer. Zoho sits inside a larger ecosystem that includes CRM, Projects, and Desk, so teams already using Zoho products get a natural integration point.
The per-user model means costs scale linearly. Three mailboxes cost $3/month. Ten cost $10/month. But the headline $1/month price buys one mailbox with no unified inbox, no API access, no webhooks, and no real shared inbox. Teams that need any of those features end up paying for additional Zoho products or third-party tools, and the cost advantage disappears.
Zoho Mail is the right choice for a single user who wants the lowest possible cost for basic email on a custom domain. Once the needs expand beyond one mailbox with one login, the per-user math works against it.
Fastmail: best for individual professionals ($5/user/mo)
Fastmail is a privacy-focused email host based in Australia. At $5/user/month, it offers a polished webmail interface, fast search, custom domain support, and an integrated calendar. The keyboard shortcuts are well thought out, and the overall experience feels fast and deliberate.
Fastmail is particularly strong for solo professionals and small teams where each person works from their own mailbox. The privacy model is straightforward: no advertising, no data mining, servers in known jurisdictions. For users leaving Gmail because of Google's data practices, Fastmail is a clean break.
The gap is everything beyond individual mailboxes. Fastmail has no shared inbox, no unified inbox across multiple addresses, and no API for programmatic access. At $5/user/month, a three-person team pays $15/month for three separate inboxes with no way to collaborate on shared addresses or integrate email into their product.
Fastmail is the right pick for individuals who value a fast, private email experience and do not need team features, unified inbox, or developer tools.
Proton Mail: best for end-to-end encryption ($4/user/mo)
Proton Mail is the default choice for teams that require end-to-end encryption. Messages stored on Proton's servers are encrypted in a way that Proton itself cannot read them. For industries with strict confidentiality requirements, or for teams that simply want the strongest possible privacy model, this is a meaningful feature that no other provider on this list offers.
The Mail Essentials plan starts at $4/user/month for custom domain email with 15 GB of storage per user. Proton also offers a bundled Business plan at $12.99/user/month that includes Proton Drive, Calendar, VPN, and Pass.
The main tradeoff is compatibility. Proton's encryption model means standard IMAP/SMTP does not work directly. Desktop clients like Apple Mail and Thunderbird require Proton Bridge, a local app that decrypts mail before passing it to the client. Bridge works, but it adds a dependency that other providers do not have. Search is also limited because Proton cannot index encrypted content server-side.
Proton Mail has no shared inbox, no unified inbox, and no API for developers. At $4/user/month for a single mailbox, it costs the same as SHIPMAIL Solo which includes three mailboxes, unified inbox, API, and shared inbox. The tradeoff is clear: Proton is for teams where end-to-end encryption outweighs everything else.
Migadu: best for developers running many domains ($9/domain/mo)
Migadu takes a different approach to pricing. Instead of charging per user, it charges per domain. The Micro plan is $9/month for one domain with unlimited mailboxes. For a developer or agency managing email for multiple projects, each on its own domain, this model can be significantly cheaper than per-user alternatives.
Migadu handles the server-side infrastructure well. DNS setup is straightforward, deliverability is solid, and the admin panel is no-frills but functional. It supports standard IMAP/SMTP, so any mail client works. Migadu is popular with technical users who prefer to manage their own client setup.
The tradeoff is that Migadu is infrastructure, not a product. There is no webmail, no unified inbox, no shared inbox, and no API. Users need a desktop or mobile mail client. For technical teams this is fine. For non-technical teammates who expect a web-based inbox, it is a gap.
Migadu is the right fit for developers and agencies that run many domains and want clean, reliable email infrastructure without paying per seat. For teams that want a turnkey experience with a unified inbox, collaboration, or developer tools built in, it is not the right fit.
Microsoft 365 / Outlook: best if you already use Office
Microsoft 365 Business Basic starts at $6/user/month and includes Outlook email, OneDrive, Teams, and the web versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. For teams already standardized on Microsoft's ecosystem, keeping email in Outlook avoids the friction of splitting tools across vendors.
Microsoft 365 does support shared mailboxes, but the setup is not self-service. An admin creates shared mailboxes through the Microsoft 365 admin center, and team members access them as secondary mailboxes in Outlook. It works, but it is more complex than providers where shared inbox is a first-class feature. There is no unified inbox view across multiple addresses.
The broader Microsoft 365 suite is powerful but heavy. Teams that only need email end up paying for OneDrive, Teams, and Office apps they may never open. At $6/user/month for five people, the email-only cost is $30/month before factoring in the admin overhead of managing a Microsoft 365 tenant.
Microsoft 365 makes sense when the team genuinely uses the full suite. If the team is already in Outlook, SharePoint, and Teams, adding email is incremental. If the team only needs email on a custom domain, there are simpler and cheaper options.
Which alternative is right for your team?
The right choice depends on what the team actually needs beyond a basic mailbox.
If you need custom domain email with a unified inbox, shared mailboxes, and API access, SHIPMAIL covers all three starting at $4/month for 3 mailboxes. No per-user fees, no separate tools for shared inbox or transactional email.
If you are a solo user optimizing for the lowest possible cost, Zoho Mail at $1/month is the cheapest per-seat option. You will not get unified inbox, API, or shared inbox, but if those features do not matter, the price is hard to beat.
If privacy is non-negotiable, Proton Mail is the only option with real end-to-end encryption. Accept the tradeoffs (Bridge app, limited search) as the cost of actual privacy.
If you want the best individual email experience, Fastmail has the best interface, the best search, and a 25-year track record.
If you manage many domains, look at Migadu's per-domain pricing or SHIPMAIL's flat-rate tiers. Both avoid the per-user multiplication that makes Google Workspace expensive for multi-domain setups.
If you need Office apps, stay with or switch to Microsoft 365. The email hosting is a bonus on top of Word/Excel/PowerPoint.
The common mistake is comparing headline per-seat prices without looking at what each seat actually includes. A $1/month mailbox that requires separate tools for unified inbox, shared inbox, and API access is not cheaper than a $4/month plan that bundles all three with room for two more mailboxes.
What about free Gmail alternatives?
Zoho Mail offers a free plan for up to five users with 5 GB per user. It works for very early-stage teams that need a custom domain setup and have no budget. The limitation is that the free plan does not include IMAP/SMTP access, so desktop clients will not work. Everything has to go through Zoho's webmail.
Beyond Zoho's free tier, there are no reputable free email hosting providers for custom domains. Free personal email services like Gmail, Outlook.com, and Yahoo Mail do not support custom domains. Any provider offering free custom-domain email hosting is likely monetizing through advertising, data collection, or unreliable service.
For most teams, the cost of email hosting is low enough that free is not worth the tradeoffs. SHIPMAIL Solo at $4/month for 3 mailboxes or Zoho Mail at $1/user/month are both cheaper than the time spent dealing with the limitations of a free plan.