How to Set Up a Free Business Email Address (3 Methods)
Joe Warnimont Not too long ago, you needed to pay for every type of business email address. Now, we’re lucky enough to have three excellent options that offer professional-quality email addresses and the inbox tools needed to organize your emails. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about how to set up a free business email address.
Three quick ways to set up a free business email address
Although each method has its pros and cons, we recommend you start reviewing them in order because they’re organized in order of simplicity and affordability (ie. the last method isn’t technically free, but the first two are).
Method 1: How to set up a free business email address with Mail.com
Mail.com has established a free business email strategy that’s different from many other services available.
How does it work?
Mail.com has registered hundreds of unique domain names that cater to specific jobs, locations, and hobbies.
The company maintains control of these domain names so that you can create your own unique email addresses attached to those domains.
Therefore, you don’t get full control over what your domain name ends up being, but you can at least browse through the available domains to see if any of them fit your requirements.
This way, you’re still signing up for a professional-looking business email address. The only difference is that you don’t have to pay for the domain, hosting, or any type of email inbox service.
The domain categories include the following:
- Professions // Hobbies // Tech // Music // USA // World // Spiritual
Some examples of domains offered through Mail.com include:
- usa.com // myself.com // accountant.com // musician.org // engineer.com // writeme.com // doglover.com // chef.net // graphic-designer.com // elvisfan.com // religious.com
To set up a free business email address like this in Mail.com, follow the tutorial below.
Go to the Mail.com Email page to browse through the various options for business email addresses. You can also check the availability of your desired username on certain domains from that page.
For instance, I chose to test the techie.com domain (which is considered a hobby domain but could work for a professional) and use a random first and last name as the username. It’s nice using this particular test page because you don’t have to sign up for anything until you locate the perfect email address.
To figure out if your email address is available, click the Check Availability button.
The next page reveals whether or not that email address with username is already taken or available. If you have trouble finding an email address that’s unused already, consider adding underscores or numbers to your username – or trying a similar domain name. For this article, I’ll pretend I’m a therapist and choose the therapist.net email domain.
With your available business email address ready to go, start filling in the contact information.
Start with your first and last name and proceed to your location. They ask you for your birthdate as well. It’s important to create a password that’s difficult for others to predict. Type in that password twice to ensure you have it right.
Choose to get notified by email or SMS text for password recovery steps.
We usually recommend receiving emails for password recovery, since it seems like a phone number is a bit too private to give to a random company.
Moving forward, walk through the security prompt, and click the “I Agree” button.
On the next page, you’ll see some of the benefits you receive from Mail.com, including email, contacts, file storage, and an organizer.
Click the Activate Your Account Now button to proceed.
What’s great about Mail.com is that you don’t have to stress about linking your domain from another provider or configuring SMTP settings.
After signup, you’re sent directly to your Mail.com dashboard to see emails and work with everything from file storage to the calendar organizer.
Click on the Email tab. Next, select the Compose Email button to open a new draft.
It’s a good idea to test if the email works. For this tutorial, I’m simply showing you how fast it is to get your business email address and start accepting and sending emails.
After I sent an email to my personal address I can see that the Mail.com email address is working properly. The therapist.net business email address is shown in the inbox for all your customers, friends, and family to see.
Method 2: How to set up a free business email address with Zoho
Zoho is an alternative to Mail.com if you prefer choosing a specific domain name for your free business email address.
As an example, I could use the exact name of my business or the domain name from my website – instead of the limited domains from Mail.com.
Zoho itself provides a wide range of online tools, one of which is an email inbox service – like Gmail or Yahoo.
The main difference with Zoho is that you can link to a third-party business domain and accept and send emails from that address for free.
To configure a free business domain with Zoho, go to the Zoho Mail pricing page.
Scroll down to find the Forever Free plan. This plan provides full email capabilities for five users, giving you up to 5GB per user. There’s also a decent attachment limit. You can even access your business email through the Zoho Mail mobile app.
Click the Sign Up Now button.
Two options are available for acquiring your domain name:
- Sign up with a domain you already own.
- Buy a new domain through Zoho.
If you already have a domain name through another domain registrar, choose that option and follow the steps to link it to your Zoho account. It’s also possible to shop around for cheap prices and utilize this feature with a third-party registrar.
However, the easiest way to go about getting a new domain is by buying one through Zoho.
We’ll cover that process in this tutorial.
After selecting that you want to buy a domain for your business, type in a potential domain name to check if it’s available.
If your first or second choice isn’t available, try again. Once you land on a great domain name that’s open, check out the yearly pricing for the different top-level domains (.com, .net, etc.).
This is the only part where you pay for something. All unique domain names require a yearly fee, usually around $5 to $15 per year. The actual business email address and mailing services are entirely free through Zoho.
Note: We encourage you to only go for a top-level domain that’s around the $5 to $15 per year range. It may seem tempting to pay $50 to $100 for that “perfect” domain, but the TLD of your domain isn’t going to make or break your small business. It’s a waste of money.
The next step outlines the pricing for that domain name. As you can see, the test domain I’m playing around with is only $10 per year. You also have the option to keep your registration information private (which I highly recommend to avoid spam,) for an extra few bucks per year.
Click on the Proceed button.
One of the last areas to complete is the Registration Details page. This is where you make your admin business email address. Select a username that you plan on using in the future. For instance, you may want to go with your first or last name.
Afterward, fill in your phone number and create a strong password. Other fields include your street address, city, and contact email.
Agree to the Terms of Service and click Proceed.
The next window is a summary of your purchase. Again, the Free plan is selected, so you won’t be paying for the actual email address or Zoho Mail service. The only fee is for the domain name.
Click the Sign Up button to move on.
Once you sign up, you’re sent to the Zoho Mail dashboard to create emails and configure elements like your business signature and document storage area. Zoho works similarly to Gmail except it has stronger privacy conditions and the ability to make free business email addresses!
Method 3: How to set up a free business email address with Bluehost
Bluehost is a website hosting service that also sells domain names and other professional services like business email addresses.
Quite a few hosting companies offer free business email addresses and inboxes for their paying customers. We’ll use Bluehost in the example since it’s a popular host and they’ve provided free business emails for quite some time.
With this method, you end up paying for hosting. Therefore, the entire package isn’t technically free. However, we know there are plenty of people who either already have a hosted website or plan on making one. If that’s the case, receiving a free business email address through the host is a free bonus.
With Bluehost, you also gain access to a free domain name (usually for the first year,) and you can connect your business email address to GSuite.
To start, go to the Bluehost homepage.
Click the Get Started button. This will walk you through the process of signing up for web hosting, after which you’ll make an email address in your dashboard.
Choose the hosting plan that looks the best for you. We cover Bluehost pricing in this article to help you understand the advantages of the plans. For this tutorial, we’ll select the Basic shared hosting plan.
Now it’s time to either use your domain from another provider or create and buy a domain from Bluehost. Going through Bluehost is much easier, but you do have the option to transfer a domain from a third-party.
Click the Next button after you’ve typed in your desired domain name.
If you encounter unavailable domain names, keep trying until you find one that works.
You’ll see a message like the following once a domain is useable.
To complete the registration process, type in your contact information.
Decide on a hosting package that fits how much your company can afford and how long you plan on having the website into the future. Bluehost offers discounted hosting if you opt for longer terms.
In general, you can skip most of the upsells. However, we do suggest you pay for domain privacy and protection. If you’d like, feel free to test out the Microsoft 360 Mailbox for free.
Finally, type in your payment information and click Submit.
You create the business email addresses for free in the Bluehost dashboard. To do so, go to the Email and Office tab. Once there, you’re able to create a new email address username by using the domain you just created.
Bluehost allows for email access through several inboxes such as GSuite and Webmail. We recommend checking out the default Webmail page prior to signing up for GSuite, as the Webmail solution is free and GSuite has a small fee.
That’s it!
Final thoughts
If you’re having trouble deciding on which method to consider, take a look at our final recommendations:
- The Mail.com method – Consider Mail.com if you want an absolutely free business email account and you’re not too concerned with choosing a completely unique domain name. It’s great for professionals since it has a large collection of industry-specific domain names.
- The Zoho method – We like Zoho for those who can’t locate a decent professional domain in the Mail.com method. With Zoho, you still have to pay for the domain name, but that’s cheap. This method also opens up opportunities for your own domain, instead of the preset ones from Mail.com
- The Bluehost method – Go with this option to get a free email if you’re already using a host like Bluehost that provides a free business email address. Or if you’re planning on making a site with a hosting company like that. Otherwise, the email address is more of a free bonus since you’re required to pay for the hosting before getting the email account.
What method for setting up a free business email address do you find most appealing? Let us know in the comments section below!
* This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and then purchase the product, we’ll receive a commission. No worries though, you’ll still pay the standard amount so there’s no cost on your part.
