- This video is sponsored by Wix. Create your online store today at the link in the description below. Hey guys, my name is Christian Taylor. Welcome back to Craylor
Media where I talk about all things online, branding and marketing. Today we'll be taking a look
at which email hosting solution is best for your small business. Email hosting is what you
need to have a custom inbox with your domain name, like
yourname@yourdomain.com. Having a custom email address is a basic way to stand
out as professional but it can be confusing to
find the right email host. I think most people tend
to stick with G Suite or Google Workspace
because it's so popular or they ended up buying or
using included email hosting from whoever their web
host or website builder is. And while email hosting is email hosting, finding the right email hosting can save you time and
headaches down the road. There's three main things to focus on when picking the right
email hosting for you, price, reliability and security. There's other aspects
like features and privacy but the main deciding factors come down to these three things. So let's jump in with my
favorite email hosting solution of all time, Namecheap
private email hosting. If you've been watching the channel, you already know I love Namecheap. Starting at $11 and 88 cents per year with a two-month free trial, private email hosting is
affordable, reliable and simple. If you're already a Namecheap customer it's super easy to set up. If you're not a Namecheap customer and your domains are held
elsewhere, that's okay, because you can still use
private email hosting. If you wanna give it a try, start with the two-month free trial so you can set it up
and see what you think. Namecheap gives you
five gigabytes of space with additional mailboxes
and storage options available for a higher fee. With private email hosting, you're getting no frills
reliable email hosting that just works. The online interface
is nothing impressive. It's a clean and simple design but it's no Gmail replacement. I find that private email hosting is best for those who want to use
a desktop email client like Outlook or Spark. I use Spark, which is free
for Mac, iOS and Android. It connects with Namecheap private email and lets you manage email as expected. And sorry, Windows users, I don't really have a
recommendation for you because it's been years
since I've used Windows, I'm a Mac guy. In my years of using Namecheap
private email hosting I've always been extremely satisfied. The spam filter is fairly accurate. It's maybe slightly
less accurate than Gmail but it's sufficient and
keeping the obvious spam emails from invading your inbox. The reliability is shockingly
good for $12 a year. This is why I love Namecheap
email hosting, the value. I use it on quite a few domains
because it's affordable. It allows me to get
started with a custom email with no money involved,
thanks to the free trial. And if the brand continues to evolve and need a custom email
address after the trial I can maintain it for a very low cost. But what are the downsides to Namecheap private email hosting? Well, there's really only
two, support and security. Namecheap offers 24
seven live chat support but lately it can be a
frustrating experience with reps who aren't very knowledgeable and are slow to respond. They'll eventually take care of your issue but it's definitely
not a great experience. I rarely need to reach
out to their support, so it's worth it for
me on a lot of domains to have cheaper email hosting
and just have this trade-off but it's definitely
something to keep in mind when you're deciding what's right for you. Talking security, my beef
with private email hosting is that two-factor
authentication is offered but it only applies to
the online email client. Anyone could attempt to brute
force your email account through a desktop client
like Outlook or Spark and they could essentially
guess your password without two factor-authentication
being required. You're only as strong
as your weakest link, so in my mind, this is essentially saying, you don't have two-factor authentication as an option with Namecheap
private email hosting. This is what caused me to
find a different solution for my hello@craylor.media email. As my brand grows, I
start to have nightmares about the sensitive info that
could compromise my business if found by hackers. If you're a small business
or a low profile creator, you'll be just fine with
Namecheap private email hosting. And to be honest, I'd probably
be just fine with it too. But for my own sanity and peace of mind I recently made the
switch to Google Workspace for the ultimate security
protocols, more on that later. If you want custom email hosting with a focus on privacy and reliability, take a look at FastMail. Now for full disclosure, I
don't personally use FastMail. I mentioning it because
it's got a big following and is known for having
a strict privacy policy to protect your data. Available for $5 per month per inbox, FastMail is priced in the
same tier as Google Workspace. You'll receive 30 gigabytes
of storage per user also identical to Google Workspace. And your email will be hosted by a company that specializes in email. With FastMail, there's never any tracking and you have access to human support. Something that's hard to access
with Google email hosting. FastMail supports
two-factor authentication with app-specific
passwords for email clients that don't support 2FA, giving
us a clear security advantage over Namecheap private email hosting. So perhaps the biggest
upside to FastMail is that they're dedicated to hosting your email. It's all they do, it's
how they make their money. So you won't be sold
other products or services and your data is safe and secure. However, this also means that
you don't have the convenience of a streamlined set process. No matter where your domain
name and website are located you'll always have to take the extra step to link your domain with FastMail. Let's look at Namecheap
private email hosting. If you purchase your
domain name from Namecheap in some cases you won't
have to do any extra steps to link it with your
Namecheap email hosting. You just purchase the
hosting and it works. This is also the case
with Google Workspace. Many domain registrars,
website builders and web hosts offer direct integration
with Google Workspace. So you can simply purchase an account through your website builder and not have to deal with anything like linking Google servers or
DNS records or any of that. Setting up female hosting
doesn't have to be difficult. Thanks to today's sponsor, setting up Google Workspace is a breeze, it's one of the many features of wix.com. The Wix eCommerce platform
provides merchants, entrepreneurs, and retail brands with the professional
tools and services you need to sell online and in store. Manage and track
everything with an advanced integrated dashboard from
inventory orders and fulfillment to payments and brand marketing, Wix lets you focus on what
matters most in your business. Enjoy a must have features like customizable branded
storefronts and carts, multi-channel sales,
hassle-free drop shipping, extensive shipping and
fulfillment capabilities and more. Wix eCommerce aims to allow any business to have the same tools as big brands. I created an e-commerce store with Wix in less than 30 minutes. The dashboard is a joy to use and I especially liked
the ability to calculate exact USPS shipping rates for each order, and the ability to automatically calculate sales tax with Avalara. The Wix eCommerce platform is home to over 500,000 stores worldwide. They help merchants by
offering step-by-step guidance to build and grow an e-commerce business with the eCommerce school
and online courses. Create your online store using the link in the description below. When you're done, go to your dashboard and get the Google Workspace
add on setup in no time. Thanks again to Wix for
sponsoring today's video. Now let's answer the question, should you consider Google
Workspace for email hosting? If you can justify the price, I believe it's the best
email hosting out there. Personally, I use Google
Workspace for my main hello@craylor.media email. And I use Namecheap private email hosting for my less advertised emails. So why did I pick Google Workspace over Namecheap for my Craylor Media email? I did a video covering this
question that you can watch but it boils down to three main things, spam filter, security and reliability. As my business grows my concern for my account
security increases. Your email is the key
to all of your accounts. If someone knows your email address and they can obtain access to your email they can send reset password
emails on all of your accounts and use your email inbox to get into the rest of your accounts. As my business scales,
I wanna know that I have the strongest security possible on my business email address. I love the peace of mind
on my personal Gmail, knowing that I have a
physical security key securing my account. And someone can't try to
log in with an email client and bypass two-factor authentication. Any mainstream email account supports Google's official login
page which forces the user to input the physical security key. And for all the email clients that don't support Google's
proprietary login method, I can set it up to automatically
reject log-in attempts made from those programs. In other words, there's
zero way to get around using two-factor authentication to get into my Google Workspace account with Namecheap private email, 2FA isn't present on login
attempts from email clients and with FastMail, while they do allow
apps-specific passwords that's a bit of a bandaid solution. There's nothing stopping a hacker from guessing that app-specific
password via brute force and still getting into your account. You're only as strong
as your weakest link. And if your weakest link is
two-factor authentication every single time, then your
account is pretty secure. Google's email hosting also has the most accurate spam
filter, thanks to Google AI. And it's Google we're talking about, you'll get the best in class reliability for your email inbox and
rest easy knowing that you won't miss emails due
to outages or downtime. So what's the case
against Google Workspace, cost and privacy. Google Workspace costs
$6 per month per inbox, a high price to swallow if you're just starting your business. I've also seen many comments, voicing concern for data
privacy with Google. With a free Gmail account, it's no secret that
Google accesses your data and leverages it for marketing
and advertising purposes. The Google Workspace terms
of service declare that these same practices are not conducted on paid Google Workspace accounts. After all, that's why they
charged $6 per month per inbox. Still some users are uncomfortable putting their sensitive business data in the hands of Google, and I can understand that perspective. There is no one size fits all solution for email hosting for your business. But here's what I would
recommend you consider. If you're just starting your business or you're a low target business like a local shop or
service or freelancer, somebody who's not gonna
be targeted by hackers like a big influencer with
a lot of online followers, give Namecheap private email a try. They offer a two-month free trial, and I don't think you'll
find a better value on reliable email hosting. If you like the idea of an email host that only hosts email for a living and is committed to
treating your data right, look at FastMail, it's priced
close to Google Workspace but that goes to show
you that you're paying for your email hosting with
dollars instead of data. You won't be sent email after email about other products they offer and your data is yours and yours alone. If you want the best email
hosting money can buy, Google Workspace is for you. You'll get the dependability of Google with all the benefits of
Google's AI for spam filters, categorization, smart compose, and more. You'll also get unmatched
security features that will ensure your account
has maximum protection. You really can't go wrong
with any of these email hosts. And if you do go the
route of Google Workspace remember that you can
set it up super easily in your Wix account, after
you've created your online store. Thanks again to Wix for
sponsoring this video. Let me know which email hosts you're using in the comments below. Make sure to subscribe
and hit the bell icon so you don't miss when
I release new videos. And with that said, I will
catch you guys next time.
