If your business email is still @gmail.com or @outlook.com, switching to your own domain takes about an hour of setup and costs between €3 and €5 per month. You probably already know you should do this. Here is what the process actually looks like, what it costs, and when it might not be worth the trouble.
Why bother
Three reasons, in order of importance:
You own the address. A Gmail address belongs to Google. If you use your own domain — say, you@yourbusiness.ie — you can move that email to any provider at any time without telling a single client that anything changed. The address follows you because you control the domain.
It looks professional. This matters less than people think for established businesses, but it matters more than people think for new ones. Clients and partners make snap judgments. A domain email signals that the business is real, even if everything else is the same.
You avoid single-vendor lock-in. If your email, documents, calendar, and contacts all live in Google Workspace, switching to anything else means switching everything at once. Owning your domain and controlling your DNS records lets you move one service at a time.
The actual steps
1. Get a domain
If your business already has a website, you already have a domain. If not, pick a registrar and buy one. Namecheap, Cloudflare Registrar, and Hover are all reasonable options. Expect to pay €10–15 per year for a .com or .ie domain.
The domain is the one piece you truly own. Treat it accordingly: use a reputable registrar, enable two-factor authentication on the account, and do not let it expire.
2. Choose an email provider
This is where people stall, because there are too many options and most comparison articles are affiliate-driven. Here are three providers that work well for small businesses:
Migadu — What we use at Leanersoft. Flat pricing by account, not per mailbox, which means adding team addresses costs nothing extra. Simple, reliable, no-frills. Their admin UI is not flashy, but it does what it needs to. Plans start at about €4/month.
Fastmail — Polished interface, good calendar and contact integration, solid mobile apps. Per-user pricing at about €5/month per mailbox. Australian company with strong privacy posture.
mailbox.org — German provider, strong on privacy and compliance. Includes calendar, contacts, and cloud storage. Around €3/month per mailbox. The interface is functional rather than modern.
All three support custom domains, IMAP/SMTP, and standard email protocols. All three let you leave with your data. The right choice depends on whether you value simplicity (Migadu), polish (Fastmail), or compliance emphasis (mailbox.org).
3. Set up DNS records
This is the part that sounds technical and is actually mechanical. Your email provider will give you a list of DNS records to add to your domain. You paste them into your registrar’s DNS panel. The records typically include:
MX records — Tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain. Your provider gives you the exact values.
SPF record — A TXT record that says which servers are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain. Prevents spoofing and improves deliverability.
DKIM record — Another TXT record, this one a cryptographic signature that proves your emails were not tampered with in transit.
DMARC record — Optional but recommended. Tells receiving servers what to do if SPF or DKIM checks fail.
Every major email provider publishes a setup guide with the exact records to copy. You do not need to understand the cryptographic details. You need to copy four text strings into four fields in your registrar’s DNS panel. It takes about fifteen minutes, and the changes propagate within an hour or two.
4. Import your existing email
Most providers support importing via IMAP. You point the new provider at your old mailbox, give it your login credentials, and it pulls everything across. Fastmail and mailbox.org have built-in import tools. For Migadu, you can use a free tool like imapsync.
This step can take a while for large mailboxes but requires almost no hands-on time.
5. Update your email address
The least fun part. Update your email on your website, business cards, social profiles, client-facing documents, and anywhere else it appears. Set up forwarding on your old address for at least six months so nothing falls through the cracks.
What it costs
Realistic annual cost for one person:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Domain registration | ~€12/year |
| Email hosting | ~€36–60/year |
| Total | ~€48–72/year |
That is less than one month of most SaaS tools people pay for without thinking. For a multi-person business, per-mailbox pricing (Fastmail, mailbox.org) scales linearly. Migadu’s flat pricing is cheaper if you need multiple addresses.
When not to bother
If you are a solo freelancer with an established @gmail.com address that clients already know, and you are not experiencing deliverability problems or professional-credibility issues, the switch might not be worth the disruption. The practical benefits are real but not urgent.
If your business is tiny and temporary — a side project, an experiment — free email is fine. The cost is not prohibitive, but the setup time is better spent on the actual business.
And if you are already on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 with your own domain, you already have professional email. The question then is whether you want to move to a smaller provider for cost or philosophical reasons, and that is a different calculation.
If this sounds like a hassle
It is not, but “not a hassle” and “something I want to spend my afternoon on” are different things. This is exactly the kind of small infrastructure work that Leanersoft helps with: straightforward, takes an expert an hour, and saves you from the rabbit hole of DNS documentation. If you would rather hand it off, get in touch.