What is Gmail Email Hosting?

If you’re a church or nonprofit with your own website, you’ve probably heard about the great benefits and importance of email hosting.

In this article, we’ll discuss what email hosting is and one of the most popular options—Gmail email hosting.

What is email hosting in the first place?

Email hosting is a service where a hosting provider rents out email servers for other organizations to use. This keeps your organization’s emails secure and makes collaboration between your church or nonprofit’s staff easier.

One of the main perks of email hosting are the custom domain email addresses. For example, our team at Yemba Digital is able to use support@yembadigital.com rather than the generic yemba@gmail.com

This makes your organization look more professional and trustworthy. Anybody can make an account that ends in gmail.com, so having your address end with your domain name shows your audience that you’re really you.

Gmail Email Hosting

A popular email hosting provider, and the one we use at Yemba Digital, is Google!

Previously, their email hosting application was called Google Apps which then became G Suite and is now known as Google Workspace. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll refer to it as Gmail email hosting in this article.

There are currently 3 pricing plans for Gmail Email Hosting:

• Business Starter – $6 per user per month.
• Business Standard – $12 per user per month.
• Business Plus – $18 per user per month.

Each plan comes with ‘custom and secure business email.’ However, as you upgrade to a higher plan, you’ll receive a higher degree of storage, security, etc.

You’ll also receive the ‘business’ version of many apps including Google Drive, Calendar, Meet, Sheets, and more.

There’s also Gmail email hosting specifically for nonprofit organizations (which covers churches, too!) Called Google Workspace for Nonprofits, it offers free and discounted rates for these services if your organization qualifies.

At the base plan, nonprofits receive all these services at no cost to their organization. If you want to upgrade for more storage or support, the starter and standard plan are discounted to $3 and $5.04 respectively.

Why Do I Need Gmail Email Hosting?

1.  It makes your organization more professional

In this day and age where spam and scams are so common, your audience is going to be weary of organizations reaching out to them over email. As we mentioned earlier in the article, anyone can have a generic gmail account. By having your email address end with your domain name, you’re showing your audience that you are trustworthy.

2. It makes it easier to collaborate with a team.

By keeping your team all under the same workspace, you can easily share documents, contacts, calendars, and other information.

3. You’re in control of your staff’s emails.

If someone leaves your staff, you don’t have to worry about important information or contacts being forever lost in their personal email. If the email address is under your domain name, you’ll still be able to access it after they’re gone.

4. It has increased security.

Gmail email hosting has options to encourage your staff to make stronger passwords and use multi-factor authentication for their individual accounts. Depending on the pricing plan you choose, you’ll have access to more security controls.

5. Your emails are less likely to go to spam.

Because your email address is backed by Google, you have a higher level of authenticity. Google’s servers reach out to the people you’re emailing and lets them know you’re authorized to be using your domain.

What are other options for email hosting?

Though Google is a popular choice for email hosting, it’s not the only option. You can also use:

Regular Gmail Account

At the end of the day, your team can get by using regular gmail accounts. Your team can have as many accounts as you want at no monthly cost. However, you also won’t be able to use your domain name or have access to any of the other benefits of gmail email hosting.

Microsoft 365

Depending on the plan you purchase, Microsoft 365 offers email hosting along with Microsoft Teams and their other Office apps. This is very similar to Google Workspace.

Website Hosting Provider 

You can also choose to receive email hosting from the individual or company that hosts your website. The pricing will vary depending on your provider, but you’ll have complete control over your email. However, you won’t receive the extra tools or the authenticity that Google and Microsoft offer.

How Can We Help?

Whether you have questions about your church or nonprofit’s website, gmail email hosting, or your other options, our team at Yemba Digital is ready to help.
Get in touch with us today. We’d love to discuss any questions or concerns you may have about gmail email hosting. We can’t wait to serve you!