[ In short ]
- Hostinger Email is the better pick if you want the cheapest mailbox on your domain: intro prices from US$0.39 per mailbox per month on a 48-month term, renewing at US$1.59.
- Standard and Premium add AI tools that search, write, reply and summarise, plus open tracking; Hostinger also sells Agentic Mail for developers building their own agents.
- Skein costs more per person because it is email plus an agent that spots quiet threads, drafts the follow-up and, by default, asks before sending.
- Skein is pre-launch: founders can reserve a spot now and try the demo today.
01Hostinger Email or Skein: the short answer
Hostinger is a large web host that also sells business email, often bought together with a domain and a website. Its mailboxes are among the cheapest you can find, especially on long terms, and the higher plans include AI writing tools. Skein is business email built around one job, following up, with an agent that notices quiet threads and drafts the reply and, by default, waits for your approval.
If you need a few addresses on your domain for the lowest possible price, Hostinger is a reasonable choice. If missed follow-ups cost you customers, investors or candidates, Skein is designed for that.
02Hostinger Email vs Skein, side by side
| Skein | Hostinger Email | |
|---|---|---|
| Available | Pre-launch: founders reserve a spot now, teams get access in waves | Available today, with a 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Price basis | Per person with the agent, plus mailbox-only seats for the rest of the team | Per mailbox per month on a 48-month term: Starter US$0.39, Standard US$0.99, Premium US$1.99 (renewing at US$1.59, US$2.79 and US$3.99) |
| Hosting region | EU: mail and agent run in Frankfurt | Hostinger runs data centres in Europe, North America, Asia and South America; its location page does not say where email is stored |
| Email on your own domain | Yes, with unlimited aliases and shared inboxes | Yes |
| AI follow-up agent | Yes: spots quiet threads and drafts the follow-up in your tone | AI tools to search, write, reply and summarise on Standard and Premium; no agent that chases quiet threads |
| Approval before sending | Every send by default, with a few seconds to undo; auto-send only for contacts you choose | You send every email yourself |
| Approvals in Slack or WhatsApp | Both, at launch | No |
| Calendar and meetings | Proposes times and sends the invite from your Google, Microsoft or iCloud calendar | No meeting booking inside threads |
| Migration in | Gmail history import; DNS records written for you on supported providers | Email Import tool copies mail from your old provider over IMAP |
| Apps | Its own web and phone apps, or Apple Mail, Outlook and the Gmail app | Webmail, or any IMAP app on desktop and phone |
| Standards and leaving | IMAP and autoconfig; export every mailbox over IMAP at any time | IMAP, POP and SMTP |
The headline prices need a 48-month prepaid term; shorter terms and renewals cost more. Storage is 5 GB per mailbox on Starter, 20 GB on Standard and 50 GB on Premium. Standard and Premium also show who opened your emails, and Premium tracks link clicks and file opens.
03Where Hostinger Email is the better choice
- Price. Even at renewal, a Hostinger mailbox costs a few dollars a month. Skein does not try to compete with that.
- One place for domain, website and email. If Hostinger already hosts your site and domain, adding email there keeps one bill and one control panel.
- Building your own agent. Agentic Mail gives developers webhooks on incoming mail and access controls, with an API and MCP server announced, for wiring email into tools like n8n or Make. If you want to build automations yourself, that is a flexible starting point.
- Available today. Skein is not open yet.
04Where Skein is different
A finished agent instead of building blocks
Hostinger’s AI tools help you write the email you are looking at, and Agentic Mail is infrastructure for developers to build agents on. Skein ships the agent: it reads every thread on your domain, notices the ones that went quiet, drafts the follow-up in your tone with what was asked for, and explains why. No workflow to build.
By default nothing is sent without your OK, from the app or, at launch, from Slack or WhatsApp, and every send has a few seconds to undo. For the contacts you choose, you can let it send on its own. Every action is logged with who approved it.
Meetings, shared inboxes and a daily brief
Skein proposes meeting times inside the thread from your Google, Microsoft or iCloud calendar and sends the invite. Shared inboxes like hello@ and sales@ work for the whole team, aliases are unlimited, and a daily brief tells you who is waiting and what the agent did overnight.
Hosted in the EU, priced per person
Skein runs mail and agent in Frankfurt, in the EU, for every customer, with the GDPR data processing agreement in the terms. Pricing is per person with the agent, with cheaper mailbox-only seats for the rest of the team: see the pricing section.
05Who should pick which
- Pick Hostinger Email if you need a few low-cost mailboxes next to a Hostinger website, or you are a developer who wants raw email plumbing for your own agent.
- Pick Skein if your team sells, raises or hires over email and wants the follow-ups handled, with approvals in Slack or WhatsApp and mail hosted in the EU.
Setting up email for the first time? Our guide to business email on your own domain covers the basics, and the email cost calculator estimates what your team pays for email.
06How to switch from Hostinger Email to Skein
Hostinger mailboxes support IMAP, so your history can be copied out with standard tools. If your domain’s DNS is at Hostinger, you change the records in hPanel; on supported DNS providers, Skein writes them for you.
D − 2
Lower the TTL of your MX records
5 min, then wait one old TTL
Set MX (and the records you will change) to 300 seconds. Resolvers keep the old value until the old TTL runs out, often 1 to 24 hours.
D − 2
Verify the domain and add DKIM, SPF, DMARC
15 min, checks in minutes to hours
Add the new provider’s ownership TXT, its DKIM records and its include in your one SPF record. Outgoing mail can work before incoming moves.
D − 1
Create every mailbox and alias
10–60 min
Include shared addresses (hello@, invoices@) and forwarding rules. A catch-all for the first days catches the ones you forgot.
D − 1
Copy existing mail over IMAP
Hours to days per mailbox
Newest first. Gmail allows about 2.5 GB of IMAP download per user per day, so a 10 GB mailbox needs about four days. Start early.
D
Switch MX to the new provider
5 min, propagation up to 300 s
Replace the old MX records; do not leave them at a higher number. Send a test from an outside account.
D + 1 and D + 3
Run a second sync
10–30 min each
Some senders cached the old MX and delivered there. A delta copy picks up what landed late. Keep the old accounts until it finds nothing.
D + 7
Raise the TTL and close the old accounts
5 min
Set the TTL back to 3,600 seconds or more. Cancel the old provider only after the last sync came back empty.
- Create the mailboxes and shared addresses in Skein.
- Copy your history over IMAP; ask about it on the setup call a founder does with each team.
- Point your MX records at the new provider and replace Hostinger’s SPF and DKIM entries.
- Check DMARC is in place, then let the Hostinger email plan lapse after a short overlap.
Before you change DNS, read MX records explained and run through the email deliverability checklist.
Skein is not open yet. It opens to its first teams soon, in waves, and founders can reserve a spot now on the founder price. Until then you can try the demo with sample mail, nothing to install.
Questions
- How much does Hostinger business email cost?
- On a 48-month term, Starter is US$0.39, Standard US$0.99 and Premium US$1.99 per mailbox per month, renewing at US$1.59, US$2.79 and US$3.99. Shorter terms cost more. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- What is Hostinger Agentic Mail?
- Email infrastructure for developers building AI agents and automations: webhooks when mail arrives and allow or block lists, with a REST API and MCP server announced. Hostinger launched it in May 2026 as part of its business email offer.
- Does Hostinger Email work with Outlook and Apple Mail?
- Yes. Hostinger mailboxes support IMAP, POP and SMTP, so they work in Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and the Gmail app, as well as Hostinger’s webmail.
- Is Skein cheaper than Hostinger?
- No. Hostinger sells mailboxes; Skein sells an agent that follows up, with the mailbox included. Teammates who only need an address can have a cheaper mailbox-only seat.
See Skein follow up for you
Business email on your own domain with an agent that follows up on every conversation. Hosted in the EU. Try the demo with sample mail, nothing to install.
[ Sources ]
- 01Hostinger: business email plans
- 02Hostinger: Agentic Mail launch
- 03Hostinger: where are Hostinger servers located
- 04Hostinger: set up Hostinger Email on your apps and devices
- 05Hostinger: import emails with the Email Import tool
Facts about other products were checked on 5 Oct 2026; prices and plans change.