Business Email, Explained: Domains, Inboxes, Addresses, and Which Provider to Pick

Business Email, Explained: Domains, Inboxes, Addresses, and Which Provider to Pick

If you've ever handed out a business card with a Gmail or Yahoo address on it and felt a little twinge, you're not alone. A professional email address at your own domain is one of the cheapest, fastest ways to look established. It's also one of the most confusing things to set up, mostly because the industry uses words like "domain," "mailbox," "license," and "alias" as if everyone already knows what they mean.

So let's untangle it. By the end of this post you'll know what you're actually paying for, how to get extra addresses without paying more, and which of the big four providers (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Apple Business, and Proton) makes sense for your business.

First, what's a domain?

Your domain is your address on the internet. It's the part that comes after the @ in an email address, and after the www in a website. For me, that's sunburst-studio.com.

You rent a domain from a registrar (Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, and so on), usually for somewhere around $10 to $20 a year. Owning the domain is what lets you have a website and email that both carry your business name.

Here's the part that trips people up: owning a domain doesn't give you email. The domain is just the name. Email is a separate service that you connect to that name, kind of like how owning a street address doesn't mean you have a mailbox installed yet. You still need someone to deliver and store the mail, and that's what an email provider does.

Accounts, inboxes, and addresses are not the same thing

This is the single most useful thing to understand about business email, and almost nobody explains it. There are three different pieces:

• The account (or license). This is a person's login. It's what you pay for, usually per user, per month. One account = one person signing in.

• The inbox (or mailbox). This is the storage where messages actually land and live. Every account comes with one, and it has a size limit.

• The address. This is just a label that points mail somewhere, like jane@mybusiness.com. An address doesn't have to have its own inbox.

That last point is the money saver. Most people assume every address costs a monthly fee. It doesn't. Jane can have one paid account with one inbox, and that inbox can receive mail sent to jane@mybusiness.com, billing@mybusiness.com, and hello@mybusiness.com all at the same time. Those extra addresses are usually called aliases, and most providers include them for free.

A quick way to picture it: the account is the key to the building, the inbox is the room, and addresses are the names on the door. You can put several names on one door without renting a second room.

Groups: more addresses without more licenses

Aliases are great when one person owns an address. But what about info@mybusiness.com or orders@mybusiness.com, where two or three people should see every message? That's what groups are for.

A group is an address that delivers to several people at once. You create sales@mybusiness.com, add the owner and the office manager as members, and anything sent to sales@mybusiness.com lands in both of their inboxes. Nobody signs into the group, so it doesn't need its own license.

Each provider handles this a little differently:

• Microsoft 365 gives you distribution groups and shared mailboxes. A shared mailbox is a team inbox that licensed users can open and reply from, and it holds up to 50 GB without needing its own license (Microsoft Learn via o365hq).

• Google Workspace uses Google Groups for shared addresses, and lets you add up to 30 aliases per user at no extra cost (Google).

• Proton gives every user a pool of addresses (10, 15, or 20 depending on plan), and adds dedicated email groups starting with the Mail Professional plan (Proton).

• Apple Business lets you give a user group its own address, but those groups can only receive mail from people inside your organization (Apple). That makes them handy for internal lists, not for a public info@mybusiness.com address customers will write to.

The takeaway: before you buy a second or third license, ask whether you actually need another person signing in, or just another address. Usually it's the address, and that's free.

Your four main options

There are dozens of email providers out there, but for most small businesses it comes down to four. Each one is genuinely good. They just shine in different places.

Microsoft 365: the one everyone already knows

Microsoft 365 is the most widely used business email platform in the world, and that's its biggest strength. Your team, your accountant, and your clients have almost certainly used Outlook before. There's no learning curve, and it plays nicely with just about everything.

The entry plan, Business Basic, is $7 per user per month on an annual plan after Microsoft's July 2026 price increase (Microsoft pricing via bestructured). That gets you a 100 GB mailbox, which Microsoft doubled from 50 GB this year (Microsoft Tech Community), plus Teams, OneDrive, and the web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Want the full desktop apps? That's Business Standard at $14.

Best for: businesses that want the familiar, safe choice, or that already live in Word and Excel.

Google Workspace: Gmail, all grown up

If your team already runs on Google Docs, Sheets, and Drive, Workspace is the natural fit. You get the Gmail interface people know, with your own domain on it, plus the whole Google toolbox: Calendar, Meet, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Gemini built in.

Business Starter is $7 per user per month on an annual plan, or $8.40 month to month, with 30 GB of pooled storage per user (Cloudwards). That 30 GB is shared between email and files, so heavy Drive users often end up on Business Standard ($14, 2 TB). Honestly, a lot of businesses pick Google simply because they prefer how it feels, and that's a perfectly good reason.

Best for: teams that collaborate in Google Docs and Sheets, or just love Gmail.

Apple Business: free, and surprisingly capable

This one is new. In April 2026, Apple replaced Apple Business Essentials with a new platform called Apple Business, and it includes business email, calendar, and a company directory for up to 500 users, at no cost (AppleInsider). Yes, free. You still pay for your domain, but the mailboxes themselves don't cost a thing.

Each user gets 5 GB of iCloud storage, and you can bump individual people up to as much as 2 TB starting at $0.99 per user per month (9to5Mac). It isn't Apple-only, either: the email works with any app that supports IMAP, so Windows and Android users are covered (AlternativeTo).

There are trade-offs. You get one email domain per organization, group addresses only accept internal mail, and email setup is currently limited to organizations based in the United States (Apple). There's also no office suite bundled in like Microsoft or Google.

Best for: businesses that don't lean heavily on email and want the most cost-effective route possible. If you check your inbox a few times a day and mostly need a professional address, it's hard to argue with free.

Proton: privacy first, and great all around

Proton is based in Switzerland and built around end-to-end, zero-access encryption. In plain English: your messages are encrypted in a way that even Proton can't read them. No scanning your inbox for ads, no mining your data. For any business that handles client information (which is pretty much every business), that's a big deal.

The Mail Essentials plan is $6.99 per user per month on an annual plan ($7.99 month to month) and includes 15 GB of storage, 10 addresses per user, and up to 3 custom domains (Proton via SaaSworthy). Mail Professional ($9.99) bumps you to 50 GB, 15 addresses per user, and adds email groups. The Proton Business Suite ($12.99) adds 1 TB of storage per user plus Proton Drive, VPN, and Pass, their password manager (Proton).

And you don't have to give up your favorite email app. Proton works with Outlook, Apple Mail, and Thunderbird, and has its own polished apps for every device.

Best for: businesses that care about privacy and security, and honestly, most businesses in general.

So which one do I recommend?

For most of the businesses I work with, I recommend Proton.

It's not the cheapest (that's Apple) and it's not the most familiar (that's Microsoft). But it hits the best balance. The price sits right alongside Microsoft and Google, the apps are clean and easy to use, you get plenty of addresses per person, and your email is protected in a way the big ad and software companies simply don't offer. Your clients trust you with their information. Proton makes it easy to honor that.

That said, there's no wrong answer here:

• Already living in Outlook and Excel? Microsoft 365 will feel like home.

• Your team runs on Docs and Drive? Google Workspace is the obvious pick.

• Email is a small part of your day and budget is tight? Apple Business is free and does the job.

If you're a Sunburst Studio client and aren't sure which way to go, just ask. I'm happy to talk it through and help you get set up.

The side-by-side comparison

Here's everything in one place. Prices are per user, per month, in US dollars, and were current as of October 2026.

Prices and features change, so double-check the provider's site before you buy.

Sources

• Microsoft 365 Business pricing, 2026 (bestructured)

• 100 GB mailbox entitlement (Microsoft Tech Community)

• Shared mailbox licensing (o365hq)

• Google Workspace plans and pricing (Cloudwards)

• Google Workspace aliases and delegation (Google)

• Apple Business email (AppleInsider)

• Apple Business email and storage upgrades (9to5Mac)

• Set up email in Apple Business (Apple Support)

• Apple Business overview (AlternativeTo)

• Proton for Business plans (Proton)

• Proton Mail pricing (SaaSworthy)

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