Comparing the main features of top Email Hosting Providers

Many businesses have migrated or are considering migrating from on-premise or shared hosting email services to either Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) or Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) – primarily due to challenges experienced with their email solutions, for instance, downtime, blacklisting, spam, etc.

While Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 are some of the best email and collaboration solutions in the industry, many companies have found themselves paying for features that most of their users don’t necessarily need or fully utilize. For several businesses, simply having a reliable and secure email platform is sufficient for their needs.

Many organizations, regardless of size, are looking to cut costs on the amount they spend on email hosting while also getting and benefiting from most of the features needed to run their operations successfully.

With the ongoing pandemic, this necessity has forced them to review their business email solution budgets to find solutions that will give all their users value and save on business email costs.

This is the question: What do businesses look for in a business email hosting solution?

Table of Contents

1. What do most businesses look for in an email hosting solution?

From our years of experience and study, we see that organizations migrating to cloud email choose their email service provider based on the following main factors;

Budget
Email reliability and availability guarantees
Spoofing and blacklisting protection features
Spam filtering, malware, and virus protection
Calendar and Address Book
Availability of support
Savings on Capex/Opex
File sharing, synchronization, and collaboration
Email archiving
Video conferencing and chat facilities
Availability of document management applications – word processor, spreadsheet, presentation.
Service provider brand

We provide a comprehensive email Hosting comparison with the major providers in the market today. Delving into these and other factors will help you in choosing the right provider for your business.

2. Google G Suite, Microsoft 365, and MailSafi Email Hosting Comparison; Price structures, features, and limitations

When choosing a third-party email hosting provider, it is important to have an apples-to-apples comparison of the features, structures, prices, and limitations of each solution. Below is an evaluation of MailSafi Email & Collaboration vs. Google G Suite (now Google Workspace) vs. Microsoft 365 (commonly referred to as Office 365) solutions.

Features	MailSafi Email & Collaboration	Google G Suite (now Google Workspace)	Office 365/Microsoft 365
Pricing	$1.5 – $3 per user/month	$6 – $18+ per user/month	$6 – $35 per user/month
Uptime guarantee	99.9%	99.9%	99.9%
Two-factor authentication (2FA)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Admin portal to manager users	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email (IMAP/POP/SMTP)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Calendar and Address Book	Yes	Yes	Yes
Customized Email	– Domain registration – Flexible options for domain names	Preferredbusiness.com domain name	Preferredbusiness.com domain name
Encryption/TLS encryption	Yes	Yes	Yes
Spoofing and blacklisting protection	Yes	Yes	No
Spam and virus protection	Yes	Yes	No
Email daily limit	10,000 emails per user per day	500 emails	500 emails
Email storage	10-30GB (can add extra storage at a fee)	30GB – Unlimited	2GB – 50GB
Minimum # of accounts	1	1	1
Maximum # of accounts	10,000	300	10,000
Document creation, co-authoring, file sharing/storage and sync	– MailSafi file share and sync with inbuilt online document creation and editing tools (word processor, spreadsheet, Presentation) – 30 GB – Co-authoring – Audit trails – Mobile apps and sync	– Google Docs – Google Drive – 1TB – Simple control features – Mobile apps and sync	– Microsoft Office – Microsoft One Drive – 1TB – Advanced control features – Block-level sync – Mobile apps and sync
Data retention and e-discovery	MailSafi email archiving with 7-years-plus retention policy	Google vault data retention policies	– Inbuilt email archiving – E-discovery and retention policies
Phone/email/ online support	– Response time: maximum of 15 minutes – Customized user interface	– Up to 8 hours	– Up to 8 hours
Interface customization or white labeling	Yes	No	No
Multiple domains	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email aliases and group accounts	Yes	Yes	Yes
Active sync	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email on the web (webmail)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email on desktop/laptop (Outlook, Thunderbird)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Video, Audio and Chat	Yes	Yes	Yes
Web and mobile versions of -word processor, spreadsheet, presentation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Desktop versions of a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation	No	No	Yes, available at extra cost.

From the above comparison, it is clear that these three service providers have largely the same offering, save for a few minor differences. A key differentiator is the cost of ownership and the fact that with Microsoft Office 365 a third-party email security service add-on is required at an extra cost.

Of the three, MailSafi Email & Collaboration is the most affordable third-party email hosting service and will help any business thinking of moving from either Google or Microsoft Office 365 save a lot of money up to 70% and still getting value for money.

At MailSafi, we work with organizations to choose from our different email hosting packages – MailSafi Business for general users or MailSafi Enterprise for power users. We also partner with Microsoft to integrate our solutions for those organizations who feel their power users require Microsoft 365 (Office 365) or Google G Suite (Google Workspace).

Interested in MailSafi Email & Collaboration or a hybrid of MailSafi + Microsoft 365/Google G Suite for better cost savings?

If you would like to consider a pure MailSafi offering or an integrated solution of MailSafi + Microsoft 365 or MailSafi + Google Workspace, please get in touch with us. You may also take advantage of our MailSafi Trial program to move a pilot group of your users to MailSafi. This will help you determine if our cloud email hosting is a good fit.