Should business email come with your web hosting?
For most Bangkok businesses with more than two or three staff, put email on a dedicated service such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, attached to your own domain, and keep it separate from your web hosting. Choose Google if your team already lives in Gmail and phones; choose Microsoft if the office runs on Outlook, Word and Excel.
The mailboxes that come free with hosting are fine for a one-person business or a spare contact address, but they tie your inbox to your website server.
We sell neither hosting nor email, so this comparison has no product behind it. It assumes you already own a domain such as company.com or company.co.th and want staff addresses on that domain rather than a free Gmail. If you are still picking a host for the site itself, our guide to choosing web hosting in Thailand covers that decision; this page treats hosting only as one place email can live. Prices change often, so we link to each vendor's current pricing page instead of typing figures here.
Option 1: mailboxes included with web hosting
Most shared hosting packages include email through the control panel: you create an address on your domain, set a password and read mail through webmail or by adding the account to Outlook or a phone's mail app. There is often no extra charge.
Where it works
- A sole trader or a tiny team that sends a few emails a day.
- Extra addresses such as a forwarding alias for booking notifications.
- Owners who want everything on one bill and accept the limits.
Where it hurts
- Shared servers. Your mail leaves from an IP address shared with many other sites. If one of them sends spam, your quotes can land in junk folders.
- Small storage. Mailbox quotas are usually modest, and a full mailbox silently bounces incoming mail.
- Thin admin tools. Few options for shared calendars, two-factor sign-in, retention or transferring a leaver's mailbox.
- One point of failure. If the website is hacked, suspended or moved, email goes with it. More on that below.
Option 2: Google Workspace
Google Workspace gives each user a Gmail inbox on your own domain, plus Calendar, Drive, Meet and shared documents. Staff use the Gmail app they already know, so many of them are productive from day one.
Strengths. Strong spam filtering, good deliverability, two-step verification, and an admin console where you add or suspend users, reset passwords and move a departing employee's files to a manager. Storage is generous compared with hosting mailboxes and rises with the plan.
Costs. You pay per user per month, and the price depends on the plan and the billing commitment. Check Google's current Workspace pricing rather than trusting an old blog figure.
How it attaches to your domain. Google asks you to verify that you own the domain, usually with a TXT record, then to point your MX records to Google. From that moment new mail arrives in Gmail, whatever happens to the website. A .co.th domain works exactly like a .com here; the only difference is where you log in to change DNS. If you are not sure who controls that, our guide to .co.th domain registration explains the registrar side.
Option 3: Microsoft 365 and other providers
Microsoft 365 business plans host email on Exchange Online and, depending on the plan, include the desktop Office apps, Teams and OneDrive. It is the natural choice for accounting firms, law offices, manufacturers and regional offices of foreign companies whose staff already work in Outlook and Excel, or whose head office runs Microsoft. Admin tools are extensive, and pricing is again per user per month; see Microsoft's business plan page for current figures.
The main trade-off against Google is habit. Outlook users on Microsoft are content; Gmail users moved to Outlook often struggle for months, and the reverse is also true. Pick the system your team will actually use on their phones.
Smaller providers
Providers such as Zoho Mail offer lower per-user prices, and some have plans aimed at very small teams. They can suit a budget-conscious office that only needs mail and a calendar. Check the storage, the admin controls, where support is based and the provider's current Zoho Mail pricing before you commit, and make sure you can export every mailbox if you leave.
Side by side
A quick comparison of the three routes. Storage, limits and prices vary by plan and change over time, so the table describes the model rather than exact numbers.
| Hosting mailboxes | Google Workspace | Microsoft 365 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost model | Usually included in the hosting plan | Per user per month | Per user per month |
| Storage | Small quotas, shared with the site | Generous, rises by plan | Generous, rises by plan |
| Admin tools | Basic control panel | Full admin console | Full admin centre |
| Reliability | Tied to the web server | Independent of your website | Independent of your website |
| Deliverability | Shared IP risk | Strong | Strong |
| Best for | Sole traders, spare aliases | Gmail and mobile-first teams | Outlook and Office-based offices |
Why keep email off the web server
When the website and the mailboxes share one server, one problem becomes two. A hacked plugin, an expired hosting bill, a server overload during a sale or a suspended account stops the site and the inbox together, often on the day a customer is trying to send you a deposit slip.
Separation also makes change easier. With email on Google or Microsoft, you can move the website to a faster host, rebuild it or change developers without touching a single mailbox, because only the website's DNS records change and the MX records stay put. With hosting mailboxes, every host move becomes an email migration too.
The same logic applies to your domain. Keep the registrar account in the company's name, with a shared admin email, not a former freelancer's Gmail. If the domain ever needs to move, our step-by-step on how to transfer a domain name covers the process without breaking mail. And if someone tells you the server has to be in Bangkok for your site to rank, read our answer to whether server location affects SEO in Thailand before paying extra for it.
Why LINE is not a replacement
Many Thai businesses run day-to-day sales on LINE, and that is fine for quick questions. Quotes, contracts, purchase orders and tax invoices belong in email on your own domain: it is searchable, it can be archived, it survives a staff member leaving, and business buyers expect formal documents, including e-Tax invoices, to arrive by email.
Setting up email on your domain
Whichever provider you choose, the setup follows the same order. The authentication records are what stop your invoices landing in spam, and our separate guide to setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC walks through each one in detail.
To migrate existing mail, most providers offer an import tool that copies old messages from the hosting mailbox over IMAP. Run it before you switch the MX records, then run it once more afterwards to catch anything that arrived in between.
- Step 1
Choose the provider and plan
Count real users, not aliases; shared addresses like sales@ can often be groups.
- Step 2
Verify the domain
Add the TXT record the provider gives you at your DNS host.
- Step 3
Create users and groups
Set up each person, plus shared addresses for sales, accounts and bookings.
- Step 4
Import old mail
Copy messages from the old mailboxes before the switch.
- Step 5
Change the MX records
Point mail to the new provider; allow time for DNS to update.
- Step 6
Add SPF, DKIM and DMARC
Authenticate your domain so receiving servers trust your mail.
- Step 7
Update the website forms
Make sure contact and quote forms send through an authenticated service, not the server's default mailer.
Staff accounts, offboarding and PDPA
Business email holds personal data: customer names, phone numbers, ID copies sent for bookings, sometimes health details at clinics. Under Thailand's Personal Data Protection Act, the company is responsible for who can see it, and a careless leak can lead to the PDPA penalties and fines covered in our separate guide.
- One person, one account. Shared passwords make it impossible to know who read or deleted what. Use groups or shared inboxes for sales@ and booking@ addresses.
- Two-step verification for everyone. A stolen mailbox password is a common route for fake payment requests to reach your customers.
- A written offboarding step. When someone leaves, suspend the account the same day, move their mail and files to a manager, and set an auto-reply pointing to a colleague.
- Clear rules on former employees' mail. Tell staff in your policy that company mailboxes belong to the company and may be reviewed for business reasons after they leave, and limit that access to named people.
Email itself is outside what we sell, but the website side is not. Contact forms that send through the right service, DNS records that stay correct after changes and a site kept updated are the kind of work covered by our website maintenance services. Maintenance is priced per site on request; our page on how a website maintenance plan is priced explains what goes into the quote. For more reading on this topic, browse our articles on hosting, domains and email, or WhatsApp us on +66 93 004 4098.
Keep reading
Sources
- Google Workspace: pricing
- Google Workspace Admin Help: set up MX records
- Microsoft 365 for business: plans
- Zoho Mail: pricing
- Personal Data Protection Committee (PDPC)
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish. This guide was written by the Website Development Bangkok team. More about us