What are the best email account providers for your needs?
There are essentially two types of email account providers:
- Accounts that provide you with your own email address, such as me (at) my company.com, and that generally involve the purchase of a domain name and/or a hosting fee.
- Accounts provided by web-based email account providers, such as Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, and Yahoo, that give you an address like I (at) yahoo.com. And they are usually free.
Key factors in choosing an account provider:
- Is it important to have a professional sounding email address?
- How do you want to view and manage your emails?
- Do you need to access your email from multiple locations?
- Are you likely to change providers or address?
- Do you need a lot of storage space?
- What about security?
And now let’s look at the options for each of these factors so you know what you need to find out from potential email account providers.
Need a professional sounding email address?
NO: If you only need the email for personal use or are happy enough with an address like me(at)gmail.com, I advise you to stick with a free webmail email account provider.
Why? First of all, they are free! They usually give you a very large storage capacity (Gmail is 7.5 GB, Yahoo is unlimited, Hotmail is 5 GB), and of course you can access your account from any computer over the Internet. They also provide you with a free webmail email client. (To avoid confusion, I’ll refer to email clients that need to be installed on a particular computer, such as Outlook or Live Mail, as installed clients.)
YES – If you need a professional sounding address, you can opt for a hosting option from a third party provider or you can have your own server. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will usually host your email as well. Fees are generally based on a hosting package plus the space you use in your mailbox. Once you reach the package limit, you pay an additional fee per MB stored. (That’s why if you’ve ever worked at a big company, they continually send you requests to clean up your email!)
Alternatively, you can use a free Gmail account as your server. This is particularly good for small businesses or entrepreneurs who work from home. You can buy a domain name that comes with multiple email addresses for less than $10 per year. Check the prices of your favorite domain name provider. This way you can forward your professional sounding or POP email address to Gmail and use the free Gmail email client to manage your emails. You can set it up so that the emails you send from Gmail appear to come from your business address.
How do you want to view and manage your emails?
Once again, there are big differences between using a webmail client and an installed client. To manage emails like me(at)mycompany.com, most people install an email client on their computers. Many people use Outlook or Windows Live Mail simply because this is the program that comes with their computer package. You can also find free email programs that will do the job just as well and can work on Linux, Windows, and Apple, so if you use different types of computers, you can have the same client on all of them.
This email client regularly downloads mailbox emails, allowing you to work on your emails offline. A great trick is to sync your webmail with an installed client so you can work online or offline and still receive your emails from any computer.
Do you need to access your email from multiple locations?
It’s rare for someone these days to only access their email from a computer. The standard setup is to download emails to a particular computer and view them through an installed program like Outlook or Live Mail etc. but you can also choose to leave emails on the server. This means you’ll be able to view them from other computers when you’re on the go.
Most email account providers allow a webmail option so you can view any email that hasn’t been downloaded to your computer directly from your mailbox. Be sure to check with your email provider if webmail is part of the offer.
And, as mentioned above, you can sync your emails between webmail and an installed client so you can access your emails anywhere, from any computer with Internet access.
Is it likely to change direction?
Many Internet Service Providers give you a webmail address when you set up your Internet account. This is usually something like me(at)verizon.com or me(at)bigpond.com. From personal experience, I recommend avoiding these addresses because as soon as you move or change Internet providers, you need to change your email address. A webmail address or business address is much more portable as it can be used with any provider.
Do you need a lot of storage space?
If you’re an entrepreneur or have a small business, you can probably avoid the cost of owning and managing your own server. Most email account providers offer a variety of plans for you to choose from, so you can start small and grow your storage over time. Tip: Beware of plans that are relatively cheap for small amounts of storage (many come with 1GB as standard) but then charge you a hefty price per MB after that. Consider your needs over time, not just at the beginning.
Security
unwanted mail is a big problem for many people, which is why a good spam filter is necessary. If you are using an installed client, you may need to purchase an additional spam filter. If you use Gmail to manage your emails, the included spam filter will take care of that for you.
Unauthorized access to your email. By downloading emails to your own server, you have more control over the access given to this email. Many companies do not allow employees to store their email on third-party servers for this reason.
I hope I’ve given you something to think about and now you’re better equipped to make a decision about which email account provider to use.