Business email
Business email on your own domain, set up properly
We run mailboxes on your own domain: individual accounts, shared addresses like accounts and info, aliases and forwarding, with the authentication records configured so your mail arrives and nobody can send as you. Most of the small business domains we audit are missing at least one of those records.
- Your domain, your mailboxes
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC set
- Migration handled
Why email on your own domain matters more than it sounds
An address at a free provider tells every customer that the business is either very small or not paying attention, and it costs you the one thing a domain gives you for nothing, which is that your name appears on every message you send.
The practical arguments are stronger than the presentational ones. Mail on your own domain means you control the accounts rather than an individual owning them, so when somebody leaves you keep the correspondence and close the access. It means shared addresses can be genuinely shared rather than forwarded to one person's personal inbox. And it means you can authenticate your mail, which is what stops other people sending invoices in your name.
Email sits alongside our managed UK hosting.
What we set up
- Individual mailboxes on your domain, with the account owned by the business rather than the person
- Shared addresses such as info, accounts and sales, reaching everybody who should see them
- Aliases and forwarding, including the addresses on old printed material that still need to work
- SPF, so receiving servers know which systems are allowed to send as you
- DKIM, so your messages carry a signature that proves they were not altered
- DMARC, so you find out when somebody tries to send as your domain and can tell receivers what to do about it
- Mail moved across from wherever it is now, with the history intact rather than left behind
- Devices and clients configured, so nobody is left with the phone that stopped collecting mail
The three records almost nobody has right
SPF, DKIM and DMARC are the reason your mail lands in an inbox rather than a spam folder, and the reason a fraudster cannot easily send an invoice that appears to come from your accounts address. They are free, they take an afternoon, and in the great majority of small business domains we look at, at least one of them is missing or wrong.
The usual state of affairs is an SPF record written years ago that no longer lists the systems actually sending mail, no DKIM at all, and no DMARC, which means nobody would ever know if the domain were being spoofed.
- Deliverability improves, often noticeably
- Invoice fraud using your own domain gets much harder
- You get reports on who is trying
Email is where most security incidents start
Nearly every small business compromise we are called to begins with a message: a convincing fake login page, or an invoice from a supplier whose mailbox was already compromised, with the bank details changed.
Filtering catches a good share of it. Multi-factor authentication on the mailbox stops a stolen password being enough on its own. And knowing what a payment-redirection attempt looks like stops the rest, which is why we would rather spend twenty minutes explaining it to your team than sell you another product.
The controls around all of this sit under cyber security for small businesses.
Moving email is less painful than people expect
The fear is always the same: a day with no mail and lost history. Done properly, neither happens. Mail is copied across before the switch, the change is made at a quiet point, and both routes work briefly while it settles.
Tell us where your email is now and how many mailboxes you have, and we will tell you what the move involves.
Get in touch
Talk to us about business email
A few lines is enough. We will tell you straight whether we can help, what it would cost and how quickly we can be there. No hard sell, and no follow-up sequence if you decide against it.
- We reply within one working day
- A straight answer, including when it is no
- Free process review available, before any money changes hands
Would rather just ring? 01623 354250, Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm.
Frequently asked questions
If the answer is not here, ask us. You will get a straight one, from someone who does the work.
Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm
What is business email hosting?
Mailboxes on your own domain, run as a service, so your addresses end in your company name rather than a free provider. It includes individual accounts, shared addresses, aliases, spam filtering and the authentication records that make your mail deliverable and hard to spoof.
What are SPF, DKIM and DMARC?
Three DNS records that together tell receiving mail servers which systems may send as your domain, prove a message was not altered on the way, and say what to do with anything that fails. Missing records mean worse deliverability and a domain that is easy for a fraudster to imitate.
Will we lose our old email when we move?
No. Existing mail is copied across before the switch and the change is made at a quiet point with both routes working briefly. The common horror stories come from moves done in a hurry without a copy taken first.
Can we keep an address that appears on our vans and letterheads?
Yes. Old addresses are kept as aliases so anything printed years ago still reaches you. That is one of the first things we ask about, because it is easy to overlook and expensive to discover afterwards.
Do you back up email?
Mail hosted with us is backed up, and we will tell you the retention. This matters more than most businesses assume, because a mailbox on any platform can be emptied by a person or by malware and the provider's own retention is often shorter than people expect.
How much does it cost?
Priced per mailbox with the figure given before you commit, and there is no charge for setting up the authentication records or moving existing mail across as part of an initial migration.
