Which email service G-Suite or Microsoft 365? Email migration Help

But if you still host your email with your website an email migration is inevitable! In the next section here, we will try and answer the most common questions and make this process, easier to digest (and take action)

 If I am moving my email, where would I go?

Let me share the good email hosting options here with you:

1. Google Suite “recently rebranded as google workspace” (Costs from USD.6 per user per month) – 30GB Mailbox.
2. Microsoft365 Business Basic (Costs from USD.5 per user per month) – 50GB Mailbox

Notes:

• In my opinion, Google and Microsoft are the best options, they have been doing it for more than 15 years and have the best email systems /deliverability.
• With Google, you get the whole Gsuite (Google Drive, Google Meetings, Docs, Presentations, Forms, etc.) making this a sweet deal.
• If you are already using Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook then it is better to go with MS365, (the business basic option does not come with office applications: Word/PowerPoint/Excel etc.) this is only available on the next tier.

New players:

1. Zoho Mail from USD. 1.25 per user per month (10GB Mailbox)
2. NameCheap email hosting from USD. 2.12 per user per month (30GB Mailbox)
3. There were some worthy mentions of Hey email and Spark mail, but since they are quite new to me, I did not explore them yet!

I am yet to configure NameCheap’s email hosting, tempted to give it a shot by moving a secondary email from one of my shared hosting services. Given the company’s good reputation and my positive past experience with them, I will have no issues recommending them.

On the other hand, I have been using Zoho mail for about 2 years now and did not experience any issues (well, apart from occasional messages that end-up in spam instead of the inbox – but in all honesty, this happens with any email service – However, since Google and Microsoft have been in this business for long and do have a huge user base, their systems are better trained to figure spam out –  at least “theoretically”)

Benefits
Moving your email hosting away from your shared hosting will enhance your email deliverability, as well as your brand (since you will no longer need to use your personal Gmail for business communication), and of course, it adds more reliability.

Byproduct: Having your email on its own dedicated email hosting system will enable you to easily switch your website hosting when you like, as better Technology or better website hosting deals become available, migrating a website without emails is so much easier.

What is an email client?
This is simply the application or software that we use to send and receive emails.
Most of us who already have a Gmail personal account (or Hotmail/Yahoo/outlook.com) are using the webmail client (browser-based) or the Gmail app on our phones.
All the email systems/services mentioned above (Gsuite/MS365 etc.) have a webmail client, and of course, some of them have their own apps for your phone. (P.S: it is still possible to use webmail from the browser on your phone if you don’t want to use an app)
Famous email clients:

• Microsoft Outlook (part of MS Office Suite, you need an MS Office license to get it)
• Mozilla Thunderbird (Free)
• The generic “mail” app on your phone (Free)
• Windows Mail app on Windows 10 (Free – it’s a scaled-down version of Outlook)
• Linux-based operating systems come with a version of Thunderbird
• I am sure there is a Free Mac mail app too (just don’t know what it is called) 🙂

Final note:

1. No matter which system you use you’ll need to do a full email migration from your existing hosting (this will not affect the website hosting, only emails)
2. The effort/time/cost will depend on where you are currently hosting your emails and the number of messages in your inbox/sent items/other folders etc. as well as the number of mailboxes (email users) to be migrated with their messages.
3. Migration time can range from 2/3 hours to 24/48 hours based on the number of users and the size of their mailboxes.
4. Best time to do this move is over a weekend, theoratically your email system will not be down at all, but judging by experience, it will take a few hours for all the servers around the world to pick up your new Mail Exchange Server (i.e. the new mail system you moved to)
5. If you have a brand new domain name (without an existing mailbox/mail account yet) the migration to a new email system will literally take a few minutes (just to create the correct MX record and wait for it to propagate worldwide)

The good news is that this will only be done once (hopefully you will never need to change your email servers/system again)

I have done many email migrations and have setup mail exchange servers and systems for my clients, helping them to easily move to Google Suite or Microsoft 365 without losing a single mail (and without losing sleep either)
I will be happy to help you with your emails too, just send me a message from the contact us page

Wishing you Success,
Have a great Day/Night wherever you are.

Amr