Business email on your own domain: how to set it up

Business email on your own domain means addresses like ana@example.com instead of a free @gmail.com address. You own the domain, you pick a company to host the mailboxes, and you point the domain at that company with a few DNS records. The address belongs to the domain, so it outlives any one provider.

For a B2B company it matters more than it looks. Buyers, investors and candidates read the address before the message. A free webmail address on a quote or a term sheet reads as a side project. It also ties every relationship to one person’s private account: when that person leaves, the history leaves with them.

There are three separate pieces, and people often mix them up. The domain is a name you rent from a registrar, usually by the year. The DNS is the public directory where that name’s records live, often run by the registrar, sometimes by Cloudflare or your web host. The email host stores the mailboxes and sends and receives the mail. You can buy all three from one company or from three; nothing about email requires a website.

• A domain. If you have a website, you already have one. Otherwise any registrar sells them. Pick a short name people can spell after hearing it once.
• Access to its DNS. Find out where the domain’s nameservers point (your registrar’s dashboard shows it). That is where you will add records.
• An email host. A suite (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365), a mail-only host (Fastmail, Zoho Mail, Proton, Migadu and others), or a provider that bundles something on top, like an agent.
• A list of addresses. One mailbox per person, plus the shared addresses customers will write to: hello@, sales@, invoices@, jobs@.

Which kind of host fits

Side-by-side reviews: Google Workspace alternatives and European email providers. If where the mail is stored matters to you, read GDPR and EU email hosting first.

1. 1Sign up with the email host and add your domain. It shows you a verification record, usually a TXT record with a random token.
2. 2Add the verification record in your DNS and press verify. This proves you control the domain before any mail moves.
3. 3Add the sending records: one SPF TXT record (merge with any existing one, never add a second), the DKIM records (usually CNAMEs) and a DMARC TXT record at _dmarc.
4. 4Create the mailboxes and aliases. Aliases are extra addresses that land in an existing mailbox and usually cost nothing.
5. 5Add the MX records last, and remove any MX records that point elsewhere. From this moment new mail arrives at the new host.
6. 6Connect your apps: the host’s web and phone apps, or Apple Mail, Outlook and Thunderbird over IMAP.
7. 7Test both directions: send from an outside account to each address, reply, and check the headers of the received copy for spf=pass, dkim=pass and dmarc=pass.

Add MX last. If you add MX before the mailboxes exist, mail to those addresses bounces until you create them.

Every host publishes its own values, but the shape is always the same. Here is a complete set for example.com with a placeholder host. Replace the host names with the ones your provider gives you.

example.com.                     3600 IN MX    10 mx1.provider.example.
example.com.                     3600 IN MX    20 mx2.provider.example.
example.com.                     3600 IN TXT   "v=spf1 include:spf.provider.example ~all"
s1._domainkey.example.com.       3600 IN CNAME s1.dkim.provider.example.
_dmarc.example.com.              3600 IN TXT   "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@example.com"

Most DNS dashboards do not take zone lines. They ask for a type, a host or name (@ means the domain itself), a value and sometimes a priority for MX. Some dashboards add your domain to the host automatically, so typing _dmarc.example.com creates _dmarc.example.com.example.com. If the check fails, that is the first thing to look at.

What each record does, in more depth: MX records explained and SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained. Free tools build the two fiddly ones: the SPF record generator and the DMARC record generator.

Most providers charge per mailbox, so it pays to know what needs one. A mailbox has its own login, storage and password. An alias is another address for an existing mailbox. A shared inbox (or group) is one address several people read and answer from.

Plan for people leaving. When someone goes, keep the mailbox for a while or turn their address into an alias of whoever takes over, so customers who write to them are still answered.

Two costs: the domain, billed yearly by the registrar and depending mostly on the extension, and the mailboxes, almost always billed per user per month, with a discount for annual billing. Storage, shared inboxes, aliases and admin features are where plans differ.

For current prices of the main providers, see the comparisons: Skein vs Google Workspace, Skein vs Microsoft 365 and Skein vs Zoho Mail. The email cost calculator adds them up for your team size.

Business email on your own domain with an agent that follows up on every conversation. Hosted in the EU. It is priced per person who uses its follow-up agent, with plain mailboxes for the rest of the team. It is not open yet: founders reserve a spot (see pricing), and you can try the demo with sample mail.

• Two SPF records. A domain may have only one v=spf1 record (RFC 7208 §3.2). Two make SPF fail for every message. Merge them into one.
• Old MX records left in place. Mail is delivered to the lowest number that answers, and equal numbers are picked at random, so leftover records split your mail between two providers.
• No DMARC at all. Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.com require DMARC from anyone sending in volume, and without it you get no reports about who is sending as you. Start with p=none.
• Forgetting other senders. Your invoicing tool, CRM or newsletter service sends as your domain too. Each needs its SPF include or its own DKIM, or its mail fails once you tighten DMARC.
• A CNAME at the domain itself. A CNAME cannot sit next to MX and TXT records at the same name, so never put one at @.

Before your first campaign or bulk send, run through the email deliverability checklist.