A business email plan priced at $7 per seat costs $70 a month for ten employees, or $840 over a year. A flat plan from a budget provider can put 25 addresses on one domain for $2 a month on a three-year term.
Both are sold as business email, and most of the difference is what each person gets beyond the inbox. The $7 seats at Google and Microsoft include shared calendars, contacts that sync to phones, file storage and an admin console. The $2 plan gives each address a mailbox with 2 GB of space. The useful comparison for a small business is the monthly bill at its own headcount, set against the tools the team will use.
| Provider | Entry list price | Calendar and contacts sync | Pricing basis |
| Google Workspace | $7.00 (Business Starter) | Yes, shared calendars | Per user, 1-year commitment |
| Proton Mail | $6.99 (Mail Essentials) | Yes | Per user, billed $83.88 a year |
| Zoho Mail | Free for up to 5 users | Not on the free plan | Free tier, then per user, annual only |
| Fastmail | $5 (Standard, yearly) | Yes, shared calendars and address book | Per user, yearly or monthly |
| Microsoft 365 | $7.00 (Business Basic) | Yes, through Outlook | Per user, paid yearly |
| GreenGeeks | $4.95 for Pro, then $18.95 | None listed | Flat plan, 12-month prepay |
| Hostinger | $0.39, renews at $1.59 | Not listed | Per mailbox, 48 months upfront |
| Rackspace | $10.00, plus $2 for sync | Only with the Plus add-on | Per mailbox, month to month |
| Neo | From $2.49 | Built-in booking calendar | Per mailbox, term not stated |
| IONOS | $2 for 25 accounts, then $4 | Not listed | Flat plan, 3-year term |
The Short Answer by Team Size
For most teams of 3 to 25 people, Google Workspace Business Starter is the plan to price first, at $70 a month for ten seats. A firm that handles legal, medical or financial documents should price Proton Mail beside it. With five or fewer people working in a browser, Zoho Mail’s free plan costs nothing to start. Shared calendars without a document suite cost less at Fastmail, and Microsoft 365 is worth comparing at the same $7 as Google when clients send Word and Excel files every day.
Ten or more people who need only an address and an inbox, and who keep calendars in another tool, will pay much less on one of the per-mailbox or flat plans in the second half of the list. Most of those plans have a renewal rate or a required term to read before checkout.
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Email Suites With Shared Calendars and Contacts
1. Google Workspace, for Teams That Share Files and Calendars
Google Workspace puts Gmail on the company domain and places mail, shared calendars, Drive and Meet under one admin console. Business Starter lists at $7.00 per user per month with a one-year commitment. Plans can be bought for up to 300 users.
The limit is storage. Starter gives each user 30 GB, pooled across Gmail and Drive, which a person who keeps years of attachments will reach. Business Standard lists at $14.00 per user per month with 2 TB per user, which is twice the Starter seat price.
2. Proton Mail, for Firms That Send Confidential Documents
Proton Mail encrypts mail by default, so a business that emails client documents can keep them unreadable even to the provider. Mail Essentials costs $6.99 per user per month, billed as $83.88 every 12 months. Each user gets 15 GB, and the plan covers up to three custom domains along with mail, calendar and contacts for the team.
More than 15 GB per person means moving up to Proton’s Workspace Standard plan, at $12.99 per user per month with 1 TB of storage.
3. Zoho Mail, for Teams of Five or Fewer
Zoho Mail has a Forever Free plan for up to five users, each with 5 GB, on one custom domain. A small team can use it as a working trial of a business address before it spends anything. From the sixth user onward, every user on the account moves to a paid plan.
The free plan leaves out IMAP, POP and ActiveSync, so staff cannot connect Outlook or the iPhone Mail app until the business pays. The paid Mail Lite plan adds those protocols and a calendar, and Zoho bills it annually with no monthly option.
4. Fastmail, for Teams That Want Calendars Without an Office Suite
Fastmail sells mail, calendars and contacts without a document suite attached. Its business plans include shared addresses such as support@, a company address book and shared calendars, and Fastmail states that the accounts work in third-party apps like Outlook and iPhone Mail. Standard costs $5 per user per month billed yearly, or $6 monthly, with 60 GB per user.
Custom addresses on a company domain are listed from Standard upward, so the $3 Basic plan is not the real entry price for a business. A team that needs shared documents or video calls will pay for a second product.
5. Microsoft 365, for Offices That Trade Word and Excel Files
Since July 1, 2026, Microsoft 365 Business Basic has cost $7.00 per user per month, paid yearly. The seat includes a custom business email address, 1 TB of cloud storage per user, Bookings for client appointments, and anytime phone and web support.
Basic includes only the web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Installed desktop versions need a higher plan, and Microsoft’s plan page now shows those plans as Copilot bundles, with Business Standard at $23.50 per user per month paid yearly.
Mail-First Providers and Flat Plans
These five sell mailboxes first, and most leave calendars and contacts out of the entry plan.
6. GreenGeeks, for Teams That Need Only Mail
Mail at GreenGeeks comes on a flat hosting plan rather than by the seat. Lite covers up to 50 mailboxes. On Pro and Premium the only ceiling is the plan’s storage and server resources.
In cPanel, each account gets webmail, IMAP, POP3 and SMTP access, forwarders, autoresponders, spam filtering, and SPF and DKIM records for the domain. Calendars and contacts have to live in a second service, since GreenGeeks’ email page lists no calendar or contacts sync and no ActiveSync.
7. Hostinger, for Companies Without a Website
Hostinger sells business email as its own product, separate from any website, so a company can buy mailboxes without a hosting plan. The Starter mailbox has 5 GB and costs $0.39 a month, but only on a 48-month term paid upfront. It then renews at $1.59, about four times the starting rate. Each Starter mailbox comes with 5 aliases and 5 forwarding rules, and every tier lists spam, virus and phishing protection. The upper tiers add AI tools that draft and summarize mail.
8. Rackspace, for Teams That Avoid Long Contracts
Rackspace Email is billed month to month at $10.00 per mailbox, with no long-term contract. Each mailbox has 25 GB plus 30 GB of file storage, premium spam and virus protection, and free migration of existing mail.
Calendar and contact sync costs extra. The Plus add-on is $2.00 more per mailbox for ActiveSync and shared calendars, which brings a ten-person team to $120 a month. Unlimited mail archiving is a separate add-on at $6.00 per mailbox.
9. Neo, for Consultants Who Take Bookings
Neo is a mail app for small businesses that book clients by email. Its calendar includes a booking link and can be shared, so a consultant can take appointments from the same inbox. Business Starter lists at $2.49 per mailbox per month with 15 GB, and Business Standard at $4.99 with 50 GB.
Self-serve plans stop at 50 mailboxes, and Neo gives a free co.site domain to a business that does not have one yet. The pricing page does not state the billing term behind the headline price, so the renewal figure has to be checked at checkout.
10. IONOS, for Teams of Up to 25 on a Tight Budget
IONOS offers a plan that puts up to 25 email accounts on one domain for $2 a month on a three-year term, after which it renews at $4. Every IONOS email plan includes a free custom domain, and IONOS resells Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace through the same account if the business outgrows plain mail.
Each address on that plan has 2 GB, which fills quickly for staff who keep attachments.
What Will Change at Renewal
Existing Microsoft customers move to the $7.00 price at their first renewal after July 1, 2026. For ten people who signed up at $6.00, that is $10 more each month. Google’s new-customer Starter discount ends after three months. GreenGeeks’ professional email hosting reaches its renewal rate after 12 months, the soonest of the two flat plans here. The intro prices at Hostinger and IONOS last longer, four years and three years.
The order of the list stays the same once those changes are counted. The first five picks bill per seat at published list prices, so a team can work out its year-two bill before signing up by multiplying headcount by the seat price. The mail-first picks cost less for a team of ten, with Rackspace as the exception, and they fit best when the team already keeps its calendars somewhere else.
