How to select the best email hosting service

This guide will help you choose the best mail hosting option for you. It’s a mail hosting and server comparison that lists all available options, from a more technical VPS to do-everything-for-you Exchange hosting.

Although we started with just basic IMAP/POP mail hosting, to better meet the needs of our customers, we’ve added a few options in the past few years. We’ve also provided a few additional options that we don’t host so you can be well informed as to the option available to you.

1. Websavers Shared Hosting

Starts at $0 for our Helium hosting plan (requires domain purchase). Upgrade to Carbon ($60 /yr) for 5GB total storage and 3GB per mailbox, or Titanium ($120 /yr) for 50GB total storage and 5GB per mailbox.

• You can host your email within your Canadian shared hosting plan.
• This includes basic IMAP/POP/SMTP email service.
• With IMAP your email will sync between devices, but not contacts, calendars or tasks (you can use Apple iCloud or Google Calendar/Contacts for syncing these items).
• Each mailbox is limited to the maximum storage per mail account (mailbox) described here.
• Configuring mail apps on your devices requires that you follow our guides closely, manually entering server names, ports, and login details.
• Email stored entirely on Canadian soil.
• Includes website hosting.

2. Websavers VPS Hosting w/ Plesk Panel

Starts at $20 / mo for 10GB *total* storage for the VPS resulting in usually about 8-9GB usable across all mailboxes. Storage can be stepped up to 200GB without any downtime.

This is an un-managed price, meaning it’s up to you to manage the server yourself via Plesk control panel. While Plesk Obsidian’s server management features help to reduce the cases where this is necessary, you may still need to manage it via command line interface (Linux Shell) occasionally. If you would prefer we manage the server for you, our Hands-On Support service is available during your order.

• Host your email with your own Candian VPS (data stored in Canada).
• Includes basic IMAP/POP/SMTP email service. With IMAP your email will sync between devices, but not contacts, calendars or tasks. You can use 3rd party services like Apple iCloud or Google Calendar / Contacts to sync these items between devices.
• Manual mail app configuration
• Upgrade to Plesk + Kolab Premium to get:
  • Exchange-like ActiveSync support + automatic mail app config
  • Full calendar and contact syncing between devices
  • 1 email account: +$5 / month
  • 5 email account: +$10 / month
  • 10 email accounts: +$15 / month
• Includes website hosting.

3. Websavers Microsoft Exchange Mail

$9.99 / mailbox / month

• Canadian-soil hosted Microsoft Exchange servers with complete mail, contact, and calendar sync plus the ability to auto-share calendars amongst team members

• Includes 50GB of storage for each mailbox with option to upgrade to 300GB ($24.99 / mailbox / mo)
• Simple automatic mail app configuration. Simply enter your email address and password and it does the rest!
• Read about our Microsoft Exchange hosted email.
• Websavers can help you set up the account ($49.99) and migrate your email accounts ($10.99 per mailbox). Migrations are free when more than 2 mailboxes on an annual cycle. We provide support for server issues.

4. Microsoft 365 Business Premium

$12.50 / mailbox / month

• 

  Includes full Exchange hosted service for complete mail, contacts, and calendar sync
• 50GB of mail storage for each mailbox
• Includes licensing for the entire Office suite (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel)
• Simple automatic mail app configuration.
• Email stored in location decided by Microsoft; most likely US datacentre.
• More info here.
• You will need to create the initial account and then Websavers can help you maintain your Microsoft 365 account @ $299 / year + $10.99 (one-time) per mailbox migration. Note that we cannot provide support for server issues – only Microsoft can.

5. Google Workspace

$8 / mailbox / month

• 

  Includes complete email, contacts, and calendar sync via Gmail interface, using your domain for email addresses (not @gmail.com)
• 30GB of mail storage for each mailbox
• Email stored in location decided by Google; most likely US datacentre.
• More info here.
• You will need to create the initial account and then Websavers can help you set-up and maintain your mailboxes @ $299 / year + $10.99 (one-time) per mailbox migration. Note that we cannot provide support for server issues – only Google can.