How business email on your own domain works

What it is and why it matters

An address using your own domain tells customers you are a real business and keeps your name on every message. It also stays with you if you change email providers, because the address belongs to your domain.

People often assume it comes with the website. It does not, and the two are set up separately. Our page on domain, hosting and website explains why.

It also looks safer to the people you write to. A message from an address that matches your website is easier to trust than one from a mail account with a random string of numbers.

Email and the website are separate

Your website host serves pages. Your email provider receives and stores messages. They share the domain name but are different services, each with its own settings and its own bill.

The mailbox itself comes from an email provider or your domain registrar, whichever you choose. Form submissions from your site can be delivered to an email address, including one on your own domain.

That separation is useful. You can move your website to another builder without touching your email, and you can change email providers without taking the site down.

How the records route your mail

Your domain has DNS records that tell the world where things go. An MX record says which service receives your mail, while other records handle the website.

Your email provider gives you the values to enter. Copy them exactly, and do not remove the records for your website. Our page on connecting a domain shows where these settings live.

Records take time to spread across the internet, sometimes minutes and sometimes hours. Send a test message to yourself and from another account to confirm both directions work.

Steps to set it up

The list below is the usual order. Take your time with the records, since a typo can stop mail for hours.

• Choose an email provider and create an account
• Prove you control the domain, as the provider asks
• Add the provider's MX and other records at your registrar
• Create a mailbox for each person who needs one
• Add the sign-in to phones and computers
• Send and receive a test message
• Add sending records so your mail is trusted

Make your mail trusted

SPF and DKIM records help receiving systems believe your messages are really yours. Your provider will show them during setup, and you add them where your DNS is managed.

Our page on form emails going to spam explains how these records affect notifications from your website. Without them, even normal mail can end up in junk.

Check whether your provider offers a way to verify the records once you have entered them. A built-in check saves you from guessing when mail does not arrive.

Shared addresses and personal ones

Decide which addresses you want: one for each person, plus a shared one for inquiries. A shared address can be read by more than one person, so nobody is the single point of failure.

Never publish an address in plain text on a page, since scrapers collect them. Use your contact form instead, and let the form deliver to the mailbox.

Plan what happens to a mailbox when somebody leaves. Forward it to a colleague for a while, then close it, so customers writing to the old address still reach the business.

Keeping control of it

Keep the domain registered in your name and the email provider account under your own login, with at least one other trusted person as admin. Turn on two-step sign-in.

Our page on website ownership and logins gives a yearly checklist. Email is easy to forget until a renewal fails.

Write down who administers the account and where recovery codes are kept. Losing access to the main mailbox can lock you out of every other service that uses it.