Where Business Email Should Live in 2026
If your email still runs on the hosting bundled with your website, an old ISP mailbox, or - worst case - @gmail.com on the signage, you are carrying problems you have probably normalised: mail that vanishes, mailboxes that fill, nothing syncing between phone and laptop, and customers quietly judging the bigpond address.
The answer is boring and settled: business email belongs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, on your own domain. Reliable, synced everywhere, backed by real spam filtering, and the foundation every other tool - calendars, Teams, file sharing - builds on. Which of the two suits you depends on how your business works; we set up both and will tell you straight.
The part that goes wrong is the move. Migrations lose mail, break DNS, and strand old folders when done casually. Ours are planned cutovers: old and new run side by side, every message and folder arrives, and the switch happens at an agreed moment - not mid-Tuesday.
What a Setup Includes
Fixed-scope quote for a typical small business.
Setup on your domain
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace mailboxes on your business domain
- Licences on your card at the published price - we add no margin
- Shared mailboxes, aliases and groups (sales@, accounts@) done properly
The move, without losses
- Full mail, folder, contact and calendar migration from the old host
- Side-by-side running until the agreed cutover moment
- Old data archived, not abandoned
Out of the spam folder
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured so your mail authenticates - and spoofers cannot fake your domain
- DNS handled end to end
- The single most skipped step in DIY setups
Working everywhere
- Phones, laptops and Outlook or Gmail apps signed in and syncing
- Signatures set up consistently
- Staff shown the two or three things that changed
Email Hosting Questions, Answered
What businesses ask before moving off the old setup.
What does business email hosting cost?
The mailbox licence is a published per-user monthly price paid directly to Microsoft or Google at cost - no margin added. Our setup and migration work is quoted fixed-scope up front, and later changes bill at $180/hr ex GST, with most taking under the one-hour minimum. No ongoing hosting fee to us at all.
Will we lose emails during migration?
No. The migration copies mail, folders, contacts and calendars while the old service keeps running, and the cutover happens at an agreed moment once everything has arrived. Old mailboxes are archived rather than deleted, so even the ancient folders survive.
Can we keep our email addresses?
Yes - the whole point is your own domain. Existing addresses carry over exactly, and if you are currently on an ISP or gmail address, we set up a proper domain and forward or migrate the old one so nothing sent there is lost.
Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for email?
Both are excellent at email specifically. The decision is really about everything around it: heavy desktop Office and Teams users, or businesses needing device management and tighter security tooling, fit Microsoft; browser-first teams often fit Google. We support both and take no margin on either, so the recommendation is genuinely about fit - see our Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace pages for the detail.
What are SPF, DKIM and DMARC and do we need them?
They are DNS records that prove mail claiming to be from your domain really is - and they are why your invoices land in inboxes instead of spam. They also stop criminals sending fake mail as you, which is how invoice-fraud scams usually start. Yes, you need them, and misconfigured is nearly as bad as missing - this is standard in every setup we do.
Related Services
The pieces that usually sit alongside this work.
Still wrestling the old email setup?
Tell us what you are on and how many staff. You will get a fixed migration quote and a straight Microsoft-or-Google answer.
Support Perth IT Pty Ltd · Perth, Western Australia · $180/hr ex GST, one-hour minimum, then 30-minute increments · No call-out fee in metro Perth.