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In today's business world, emails are crucial for connecting with clients and coworkers. Choosing a secure and trustworthy email provider for your business emails is essential.But how do you decide between a free email provider and a paid service? Both have their challenges and benefits. Understanding these aspects can help you choose the best email service style for your business.For over 25 years, WEBIT Services has helped hundreds of clients in the greater Chicago area develop IT strategies, find IT solutions, and reach their IT goals.By the end of this article, you'll understand the benefits and challenges of free and paid email services. This information will help you answer the question: "Should my business use a free or paid email service?"
Free email services require payment for licenses, users, or many features.
You can easily use free email on computers and phones. Popular email services like Gmail and Outlook.com (not to be confused with Microsoft 365's Outlook—a paid email service) have mobile apps for quick access on mobile devices.
Making new free email accounts is usually easy. Simply sign up, pick an available email address, and activate your account.
If you're working in the medical field, you should not use a free email service because they are not HIPAA compliant.HIPAA requires subcontractors and service entities (i.e., email providers) to provide a business associate agreement (BAA) when working with a healthcare provider.A BAA signifies that both the healthcare provider and service entity will take the necessary precautions to protect patient information. Free email services do not offer BAAs.Free email services cannot track information and account use to the depth IT compliance standards require.If your business must meet industry compliance standards, speak with your lawyer or compliance specialist to verify whether or not your email provider is compliant.
Free email addresses are easily copied or faked, making it hard to verify if emails are really from your business.Free email accounts are without Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) DNS records, which give emails unique domain names (@free-email.com vs. @mybusiness.com).Without SPF and DKIM records, messages can't be verified by those sending or receiving them. They may also automatically end up in Spam folders instead of Inboxes.In addition, free email services' generalized domains make it very easy for a cybercriminal to copy your email address and send malicious messages posing as your business.For instance, let's say your email account is "Businessl@free-email.com," and your client receives an email from "Business1@free-email.com." Will they know it's not you? Or do the addresses look so similar that your client won't see the difference?
If there's a security breach, figuring out which free email accounts were affected is nearly impossible because all emails have the same domain name.Free email providers have a massive user pool and often lack the tools to identify specific breaches.Instead of a definitive “Your account is compromised,” you may receive a message like, "We believe X accounts may have been compromised. Please change your password if you think your account has been compromised."There’s no guarantee your information has or has not been compromised. The user pool is too massive to wade through and track breaches.
Free emails often don't work well with valuable security tools, potentially putting your business at risk.When using a free email service, your email security is limited to free security features and good email user habits (i.e., not clicking suspicious links or attachments).While this may be fine for a personal account, it can present significant security risks for a business account.For example, if one of the free email accounts for your business is hacked, you will not have the tools to:
Due to these limitations, performing cybersecurity audits with a free email provider is virtually impossible.If a client requests a security audit or your industry's compliance requires security audits, using a free email account will result in audit failure. Failure will lead to costly fines, possible legal action, and a ruined reputation.
Many businesses utilize shared inboxes so groups of employees can access team emails. Unfortunately, you can't create shared inboxes with free email.For example, your sales team may all need access to a "sales@mybusiness.com" or "info@mybusiness.com" email. You want messages sent to this single address to go to each sales team member or allow each member access to the inbox.With a free email account, you can create the email "sales.mybusiness@free-email.com," but you cannot add new users to that account or assign delegate accounts.Emails sent to this inbox will stay there and will not automatically be accessed by multiple users.While this may not be an issue initially, what happens if the team member managing that account leaves? How do you decide who accesses and manages that account?
Paid services follow industry standards and comply with regulations like HIPAA, ensuring better security.Paid email services provide a BAA and will monitor and verify messages sent and received by that domain. As a result, they can be successfully audited.
Paid email services provide SPF and DKIM DNS records, giving your email accounts a unique domain name. This makes it harder to copy or fake emails from your business.
When you are emailing from a unique domain name (i.e., @mybusiness.com) and a breach occurs, the information is specific.As a result, your pool of users is more limited, and your domain is more controlled. Therefore, breaches can be traced and isolated with relative ease.
Paid services are compatible with essential security tools, giving better protection. Paid email accounts are compatible with the following:
These tools allow users to protect company and client data. They are also compatible with security audits, allowing auditors to view email use and practices.While email security tools cannot replace good email user practices, they are an invaluable resource for breach prevention.
Paid email services allow users to create shared inboxes for teams to work together more efficiently.
Paid services come with a price tag, requiring payment for licenses or subscriptions.
Some paid services may be slower or trickier to use on mobile devices. However, the most popular paid email services usually have computer and mobile applications.When signing up for a paid email service, you may want to verify how it interacts with mobile devices.
As mentioned in point 1, paid email providers require new license purchases for each new user. This process is a little more complicated than when signing up for a free service, but it is a task your IT provider or IT team can efficiently perform.
As you decide between free and paid email services, ask yourself:
A free email service would likely meet your business's needs if you answered "Not that important" to most of these questions.However, if you answered, "It's very important," you should look into a paid email service.Talk to your IT provider or internal IT team for advice on the best email service for your business. They know the ins and outs of different services, tools, and budgets. They can help you select a new email provider to meet your business needs.WEBIT Services has helped hundreds of clients in the Chicago area find the IT tools and services to reach their IT goals.If you are looking for a new IT provider, schedule a free 30-minute consultation to see if WEBIT can help.If you're not ready to make a commitment but would like to learn more about IT business questions and solutions, we recommend the following articles:
