8 Best Budget-Friendly Email Hosting Providers (One Is Free!)

Zoho Mail is arguably the best cheap email host because it offers free email hosting with custom domain support and generous storage space. The only thing you need to spend money on is a domain name. If you don’t require that much storage but want to keep costs low, IONOS is an excellent choice as well. The entry-level plan is only $1.10 per month for the first three years and includes a free domain name for as long as you maintain a plan.

Beyond these two, there are plenty of other inexpensive options – it all comes down to what you’re looking for in an email host. We’ll explore eight of the best ones in detail, and we’ll also include a bonus workaround at the end that can dramatically reduce your expenses.

Top 8 companies offering cheap email hosting in 2026 📧

In a rush? Here’s a quick comparison table showing the entry-level plan details:

If you’re looking for email hosting for a team rather than only for you, then Zoho or Purelymail are good options to start with, since their entry-level plans support more than one mailbox. However, if you require even more horsepower, then all the providers above are scalable and let you add additional mailboxes/users.

1. Zoho Mail

• Free plan ✅ supports up to 5 users, with 5 GB storage per user, and integration with 1 custom domain.
• Cheapest paid plan is $1 per user, per month (billed annually) and has the same 5 GB storage limit as the free plan, but unlocks over 20 other useful features.
• Best choice for a wide variety of use cases and a strong contender for the overall cheapest option on the list thanks to its generous free plan. If the free plan is adequate for your needs then your only expense will be buying a domain name.

Overview 📧

Zoho Mail is first on our list because it’s potentially the cheapest option overall. It has a legitimate free plan, not just a free trial like many other cheap email hosts have. If that plan meets your needs then your only expense will be buying a domain name, which can sometimes be cheaper than a paid email hosting plan.

The downside of Zoho’s free email hosting is that it only allows for web access. This means you can’t connect it to your own preferred email client, like Gmail, and instead you have to use Zoho’s webmail. If that doesn’t bother you, then great. If it does, then you can always upgrade to one of Zoho’s paid plans, which are still extremely affordable.

For instance, the entry-level Mail Lite plan costs only $1 per user, per month. It gives you the same 5 GB per user limit that the free plan does, but you get a vast array of features stacked on top of it. Plus if you find 5 GB to be too limiting for your needs, then all you need to do is spend an extra 25 cents more per month to double that to 10 GB.

Included in the cheapest paid plan 📝

• IMAP and POP3 so you can connect to external email clients
• Email routing
• 29 domain aliases ⁷
• Higher attachment limits (250 MB)
• Email recall
• Email and folder sharing in organizations
• Dedicated mobile apps
• Zia, an AI-powered email assistant powered by OpenAI

If you need more 💰

For a more heavy-duty plan, you can upgrade to Mail Premium for $4 per user, per month. With that you’ll get everything in Mail Lite, plus 50 GB of storage per user, a 1 GB attachment limit, email backup, encryption, and some other features.

2. IONOS

• Free domain ✅ included for as long as you continue to pay for your service.
• Cheapest plan costs $1.10 per month (on a three-year contract) and includes 1 mailbox with 2 GB of storage.
• Best choice for individuals with lower storage requirements. If you only need email hosting for yourself and don’t have a domain purchased yet, then it’s hard to find a better deal elsewhere.

Overview 📧

IONOS is a very cheap option for individual email hosting for two reasons:

• The Mail Basic 1 plan costs just $1.10 per month for 2 GB of storage
• You get a free domain to use for your email address – you can choose from four domain extensions: .com, .net, .us, or .online

Given that a free .com domain is worth at least $11 per year (but usually costs around $14 to $20+), you might wind up paying less than you would with Zoho’s free email hosting. It really depends on the domain registrar you choose to buy your domain from. IONOS will also let use your own email client and sync your email on all devices. Sticking with IONOS’ webmail is an option as well.

The downside is the 2 GB storage limit. To raise that, you can buy a 5 GB email archive add-on for $2.50 a month, which will bring your total space to 7 GB for $3.60 per month. While the 5 GB is an archive, meaning it will sit outside of your active inbox, you can restore any emails you need from that archive whenever you want. Alternatively, you can upgrade to a higher plan.

Included in the cheapest plan 📝

• Free domain
• Spam filter
• No ads
• Webmail access
• IMAP, POP3, and SMTP support for use with external email clients
• Email forwarding
• Email synchronization across devices

If you need more 💰

For upgrades, you have a few options. You can go with the Mail Basic 25 plan, which gives you 25 email inboxes, with each one getting 2 GB of space. That plan is $2 per month on a three-year contract.

If you’re part of a team, you can also use the Mail Business plan which ups the storage to 50 GB per user and gives you team collaboration tools, like shared emails and calendars. The price for the team plan depends on how many users you need. The prices below are for three-year contracts:

• 1 user – $3 per month
• 5 users – $22 per month ($4.40 per user)
• 10 users – $45 per month ($4.50 per user)

3. Purelymail

• Only two plans to choose from, which keeps things really simple.
• The plan most people will use is only $0.83 per month (billed annually) and doesn’t cap you in any way (unlimited everything). However, if you’re a very heavy user then you may be asked to move to the other plan.
• Best choice for small to medium organizations that experience fluctuation in their users and resource demands. Since the main plan doesn’t cap your limits, you can adjust users without having to worry about plan thresholds.

Overview 📧

If we take total cost into account, meaning both the purchase of a custom domain and email hosting together, then Zoho’s Forever Free plan and IONOS’s Mail Basic 1 plan are cheaper than Purelymail’s simple $10 per year plan. That’s because both of those plans give you one half of the email equation for free. Zoho gives you free email hosting and IONOS gives you a free domain. Purelymail doesn’t freely give you either. However, it still gives both Zoho and IONOS a run for their money for a different reason.

The fact that you can add as many users as you want with no cap on storage space means you have one less thing to think about or monitor. If you need to add an extra user, you just do it. You don’t have to pay attention to see if you’re about to cross over the limits of your plan. You just pay your $10 every year and go about your business. Compare that to Zoho’s plan, where if you end up adding a sixth user, you’ll be bumped into their entry-level paid plan at $6 per month. That’s a lot more than $0.83 per month with Purelymail.

With that said, even though there aren’t any official “hard limits” on anything, if you or your organization end up putting a significant strain on the resources of your plan, then you might be asked to move into Purelymail’s advanced pricing plan. This plan is priced based on resource costs. You can also choose this plan up front.

Included in both plans 📝

• IMAP and POP3 support if you want to connect to external email apps
• Webmail option powered by Roundcube
• 2FA for security
• At-rest encryption for all mail messages, using encryption cryptographic constructs
• Spam filtering via Spam Assassin
• Subaddressing

Advanced pricing plan details 💰

If you do end up moving into Purelymail’s advanced pricing plan or you choose it from the get go, then you can expect the following costs:

• $4 annual account charge
• $0.56 per compressed GB, per year
• $0.03 per 1000 emails received, plus $0.04 per GB
• $0.23 (if sent externally) or $0.03 (if sent within the same account) per 1000 emails sent, plus $0.18 per GB
• There is no charge for using your own custom domain (which you need to buy separately).

If all that sounds like too much math for you, don’t worry. Purelymail has a calculator on their site where you can put in your anticipated usage needs and it will generate your approximate total cost.

4. Namecheap

• All three plans are free ✅ for the first two months with no billing information required.
• The cheapest plan is $1.24 per month (billed annually). That gives you 1 mailbox with 5 GB. You can add additional mailboxes (each with another 5 GB) for only $0.74 extra per month.
• Best choice for any size businesses, but especially those experiencing rapid growth who will want a way to easily add extra mailboxes to their plan while keeping costs low. Also a great option for those who think they might need additional web tools down the line (beyond email).

Overview 📧

In terms of per-user prices, Namecheap is one of the cheapest email hosting providers on this list if you only need two or three mailboxes. That’s because its Starter plan costs just $1.24 per month and each additional mailbox costs only $0.74 per month extra. It also renews at that same rate so you won’t experience price hikes. The feature list on the cheapest tier is somewhat limited, but it includes everything you need for a basic custom email service, including 5 GB of storage (per mailbox).

Included in the cheapest plan 📝

• Spam protection
• 2FA
• 10 email aliases
• Webmail access
• IMAP and POP3 support for use with external email clients
• Mild customization options (colors, logos, handwritten signature embeds, etc)

If you need more 💰

For more storage or features, Namecheap offers the Pro and Ultimate plans. These are also priced annually, but break monthly as shown below. They renew at the same rate.

• Pro – $3.49 for three mailboxes + $2.16 per additional mailbox and 30 GB of storage space
• Ultimate – $5.99 for five mailboxes + $3.32 per additional mailbox and 75 GB of storage space

These plans also offer collaboration features like shared emails, documents, spreadsheets, appointments, and more.

5. Tuta

• Free plan ✅ gives you 1 mailbox with 1 GB storage, but does not support ❌ a custom domain connection. You can choose from one of Tuta’s six default domain extensions or upgrade.
• Cheapest paid plan is €3 per month (billed annually) and is for personal use (they have a separate line of business plans). It gives you 1 mailbox with 20 GB of storage. Plus you get 15 email aliases, the ability to connect up to 3 custom domains, and other features like autoresponders.
• Best choice for individuals or businesses who care about privacy and security.

Overview 📧

Tuta (formerly Tutanota) is a German-based company that’s dedicated to data privacy and security. In fact, the original name of the brand was derived from the Latin words “tuta” meaning “secure” and “nota” meaning “message.” Semantics aside, Tuta was the first end-to-end encrypted email provider and to this day they encrypt more of your email data than any other provider. They even encrypt your email subject lines!

Aside from privacy and security, Tuta also has some very attractive pricing. If you only need email for personal use and don’t care about being able to use your own domain name, then their free plan might work. However, if you require more than 1 GB of storage space and want to use a custom domain then their entry-level Revolutionary plan is a better choice. It supports up to three custom domains and includes 20 GB of storage for €3 per month (paid annually).

Included in the cheapest paid plan 📝

• 25 MB attachment limit
• 15 email aliases
• Web, mobile, and desktop apps
• Password-protected emails (optional use)
• Autoresponder
• 2FA
• Unlimited folders
• HTML signatures (customize with logos, links, etc)

If you need more 💰

For heavier users, they have an even higher personal tier called Legend. It costs €8 per month (paid annually) and ups your storage to a whopping 500 GB! Plus you can use up to 10 custom domains.

Tuta’s business options start with the Essential plan, which is priced at €6 per user, per month (paid annually). The features are very similar to the entry-level personal plan, with the exception being that you get 50 GB of storage instead of 20 GB. There are also two additional plans above this one, priced at €8 and €12 per user, per month (paid annually).

6. Fastmail

• Cheapest plan is $2.80 per month (on a three year contract) and supports 1 user with 6 GB of storage. However, this plan does not support ❌ a custom domain connection.
• Cheapest plan with custom domain support is $4.67 per month (on a three year contract) and supports 1 user with 50 GB of storage space for mail/contacts (+10 GB for files). There’s a personal version of this plan and a business version. For the business version, each additional user is another $4.67.
• Best choice for either individuals or businesses who want a robust set of email tools at a reasonable price. Features include email scheduling, the option to tag certain contacts as VIP, masked emails, notification customizations, and more.

Overview 📧

Fastmail isn’t the cheapest option on the list, which is also why it’s lower on the list, but for the extra cost it does offer a lot in return. Right off the bat, if we compare all of the companies’ lowest priced plans that support custom domains, then Fastmail has the highest storage limit by far – 50 GB.

Before you jump in to say that Purelymail has unlimited storage, while that’s true, if you look at their advanced pricing details, you’ll see they charge $0.56 per GB. In practice, this means there’s no way they’d let you get even close to 50 GB on their $ 10-a-year plan. You’d most certainly be asked to upgrade well before then, hence why Fastmail’s Standard plan is the true winner in the storage category.

Alongside the Standard plan’s impressive storage limit is an equally impressive set of features that any business or organization with more advanced email needs would appreciate. Think of it as having Gmail muscle but with way better privacy.

Included in the cheapest paid plan with custom domain support 📝

• 600 email aliases, plus 15 for each mailbox on the account
• Masked email generator
• Spam blocking and adjustable spam settings
• Customizable inbox with theme choices and dark mode option
• Schedule emails to be sent ahead of time
• Automatically sort your mail with rules
• Select VIPs to prioritize important contacts
• Sync with Google’s suite of apps (Sheets, Docs, Drive etc), as well as Dropbox, iCloud, 1Password
• Built on JMAP, the latest email standard

If you need more 💰

The Standard plan mentioned above is part of Fastmail’s business plans lineup. There is another business plan above it called Professional. This one costs $8.40 per user, per month on a three year contract with lower time commitments available at slightly higher prices. It includes a massive 150 GB of storage space per user, along with email retention for legal compliance. It’s probably overkill for most organizations, but useful for large corporations or for those who work in the legal, medical, or financial fields.

There’s also a separate line of personal email plans. These are called Individual, Duo, and Family and they support 1, 2, and 6 mailboxes, respectively. Each user gets 50 GB for emails/contacts and an extra 10 GB for files.

7. Proton Mail

• Free plan ✅ gives you 1 mailbox with 1 GB of storage. It does not support ❌ a custom domain connection (you have to upgrade to paid).
• Cheapest paid plan is $3.99 per month (on a one-year contract) and renews at the same price. It supports 1 user with 15 GB of storage and up to 10 email aliases.
• Best choice as an alternative to Tuta. It’s also focused on security and privacy, but comes with its own unique set of benefits that you won’t get with Tuta (e.g., a VPN service).

Overview 📧

Proton offers a similar level of security and privacy to Tuta, but with an impressive suite of added tools on top of it. Unbelievably enough, Proton even gives you access to these tools on their free plan – with limitations of course. Nonetheless, how many companies are going to give you a VPN and an encrypted wallet (just as two examples) on a free account? Not too many.

Included in the cheapest paid plan 📝

• 25 MB attachment limit
• 10 email aliases
• Password-protected emails (optional use)
• IMAP/SMTP support for use with external email clients
• Catch-all email, which ensures that if someone misspells your email, you’ll still get it
• Automatic email forwarding
• End-to-end encryption
• HTML signatures (customize with logos, links, etc)
• Limited use of other Proton tools

If you need more 💰

There are two additional personal plans: Proton Unlimited and Proton Duo.

Proton Unlimited ups your storage to 500 GB and is priced at $9.99 per month. Proton Duo gives you 2 TB, spread among 2 users, and costs $14.99 per month. Both prices reflect annual contracts and include additional features, as well as higher limits on entry-level plan features.

Businesses and organizations have their choice of four plans, though the two highest are more for enterprise-level use. The other two are for smaller businesses and are called Mail Essentials and Mail Professional.

Essentials costs $6.99 per user, per month. It gives each user 15 GB of storage, a free VPN connection, 10 email aliases, and support for up to 3 custom domains. Professional increases the storage to 50 GB per user and the email aliases to 15. It costs $9.99 per user, per month. All prices reflect an annual commitment.

8. Hostinger

• Only two plans to choose from, which keeps things simple.
• Cheaper plan is only $0.35 per month (on a four-year plan). It gives you one mailbox with 10 GB of storage space, up to 10 email aliases, and two months free.
• Best choice as an alternative to Namecheap. It comes with a robust set of email features and lots of other tools should you want more than email later on.

Overview 📧

Last on our list is Hostinger, which is an excellent choice if you’re looking for not only email hosting but also website hosting and a domain name. Basically, Hostinger is a great one-stop shop for all of these things and it has some of the lowest prices on the market for all of them – particularly in the initial promo period.

Having said that, even if you don’t want those other services and are only looking for email hosting, you can find it here at a reasonably low price – and without having to sift through numerous plans. In fact, Hostinger is similar to Purelymail in this regard, because they also only have two plans to choose from. The entry-level plan is called Business Starter. It costs a mere $0.35 per month – though the contract is for four years, which can be off putting for some people. It renews at $1.59 per month.

Included in the cheaper plan 📝

• 10 email aliases
• Webmail access
• IMAP, POP3, and SMTP support for use with external email clients
• iOS and Android mobile device synchronization
• Advanced protection against spam, malware, and phishing attacks
• Email forwarding (up to 10 rules)
• Auto-replies

If you need more 💰

Hostinger’s second tier is called Business Premium and costs $1.95 per month (also on a four-year contract). It increases the storage limit to 50 GB and lets you send up to 3000 emails per day. It also lets you set up to 50 automatic forwarding rules to redirect messages to other email accounts.

Which one should I choose? 🤔

It really depends on what you’re looking to get out of the email hosting – besides saving money.

• For simple use cases where you only need email hosting for you (or a very small group of people) then the best options are Zoho Mail, IONOS, and Purelymail. They are the cheapest.
• If security, privacy, encryption and the ability to send password-protected emails is a crucial requirement for you, then you’re better off with either Tuta or Proton.
• For those who need a more comprehensive solution that includes web hosting, a domain name, and email hosting lumped into one deal, you’ll want to check out either Namecheap or Hostinger.
• Larger organizations who want more of a “Gmail experience” but without all of Google’s privacy issues will want to consider using Fastmail.
• If you prefer to keep your existing email, but you still want all of the features that come with advanced email hosting like email aliases, the ability to add a custom domain, etc, then check out Addy. They have plans starting from $1 per month. Alternatively, if you’re comfortable with code, check out the bonus workaround below.

Of course, with all of these email hosts, you’ll still need a domain name to set up your custom email address. To help you with that, we have a guide on how to purchase your own domain name.

Bonus cheap email hosting workaround: Cloudflare and Plunk

• This is not a true email hosting solution in a technical sense. However, it allows you to send emails (even in fairly large numbers) from a custom domain while relying on free mainstream email hosting (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo Mail) for storage space.
• As long as you stay within the free tier limits, the only cost is a domain name, and by registering with Cloudflare, you can get .com for under $11 per year.
• Best choice for developers, tech-savvy side project builders, or bootstrapped founders who want the absolute cheapest solution and don’t mind getting their hands dirty with some code.

There are two reasons this is listed as a bonus. First, it’s not actually an email hosting solution, even though it ends up giving you the same result. Second, it takes some technical know-how to pull off (or a willingness to learn). However, for users on a budget who need more than Zoho’s 5 GB of free-plan storage and/or need to send emails to a decent size email list, this is the perfect option.

The simplified process to set it up is:

• Sign up for a free Cloudflare account and a free Plunk email account.
• Buy a domain inside your Cloudflare account by using Cloudflare Registrar.
• Set up Cloudflare Email Routing to forward emails from your custom domain to your personal Gmail/Yahoo account, effectively giving you 15 GB of free storage.
• Connect your domain to Plunk by following these instructions.
• Set up Cloudflare KV storage to manage your subscriber list (optional but recommended for larger lists).
• Use Plunk’s API to send emails programmatically.

Why this setup is worth considering 💰

This solution unlocks more storage space and higher sending limits than both Zoho and IONOS (the two frontrunners on our list) at their respective cheapest plan levels. It gives you the freedom to choose your own free email host (which you probably already have), and if you need to scale up your sending, Plunk charges you only for what you actually use ($0.001 per email after the free 3,000).

The trade-off is setup complexity. If you’re not comfortable with APIs, Workers, and scripting, stick with one of the “real” email hosts on the list. But if you enjoy tinkering and want maximum value for minimum cost, this setup is hard to beat.

FAQs about email hosting

Do you have any questions about finding the best budget email hosting provider for your needs? Let us know in the comments!

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