How to Set Up a Professional Business Email with Your Domain (2026)

An address at your own domain (you@yourbusiness.com) looks like a business and stays yours when you change provider. The main options, with what their own pages said on 16 October 2026:

Spacemail by Spaceship is the convenient choice if your domain already lives at Spaceship, because the DNS records can be set up in the same account.

Which to choose: Google Workspace if your team already lives in Gmail and Docs; Microsoft 365 if it lives in Outlook and Office; Zoho's free plan if you need a few mailboxes and can work in its web and mobile apps, since the free plan does not include IMAP or POP access for other mail clients. Business email on your own domain compares the options in more depth.

Every provider first asks you to prove you control the domain, usually by adding a TXT record to its DNS.

For Google Workspace:

1. Sign up at workspace.google.com with your domain name.
2. Google gives you a verification TXT record.
3. Add it at whoever runs your DNS (your registrar, or your host if you moved the nameservers), with the host set to @ and the value Google provided.
4. Return to the Google Admin console and verify.

Verification is usually quick once the record is visible, but can take longer if your DNS host is slow to publish changes.

For Zoho Mail and others: the same idea, with a TXT or CNAME record the provider gives you.

Not sure where your DNS is managed? Our WHOIS lookup shows the nameservers, which tell you which company to log into.

MX (Mail Exchange) records tell other mail servers where to deliver email for your domain. Without the right MX record, mail to your domain bounces or goes to the old provider.

Google Workspace: Google's own setup page says "The Google Workspace MX record value is smtp.google.com", added with priority 1. Some registrars want a trailing dot (smtp.google.com.); follow your DNS host's format. Domains that started with Google Workspace before 2023 may still use the older five-record set (aspmx.l.google.com and alternates), which continues to work; new setups use the single record.

Other providers: use exactly the MX values shown in the provider's setup screen.

Remove the old MX records when you switch, unless the provider tells you otherwise. Two sets of MX records pointing at different providers splits your mail.

Then add authentication records. These keep your mail out of spam folders, and Gmail requires them: Google's sender guidelines have required SPF or DKIM for everyone sending to Gmail accounts since 1 February 2024, and SPF, DKIM and DMARC for senders of more than 5,000 messages a day.

• SPF (a TXT record) lists who may send for your domain. For Google Workspace alone, Google's SPF page gives the value v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all. If other services also send for you, merge them into one SPF record rather than adding a second.
• DKIM signs your messages. Generate the key in your provider's admin console and publish it as the TXT record it gives you.
• DMARC (a TXT record at _dmarc) tells receivers what to do with mail that fails. Google's DMARC page shows an example starting v=DMARC1; p=none, a monitoring-only policy, with a rua address that receives reports. Start at p=none, read the reports, then tighten.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC explained covers the three records in depth, and how to set up DNS records covers adding records at common DNS hosts.

In your provider's admin console:

1. Create a mailbox for each person (you@business.com).
2. Turn on two-factor authentication for every account, and use a password manager.
3. Create group addresses or aliases (sales@, support@) that deliver to the right people, rather than paying for a mailbox per role.
4. Forward if you need to during the early stages, for example info@ to your own mailbox.

Common addresses:

• info@ for general enquiries
• support@ for customers
• hello@ as a friendly contact address
• yourname@ for your own business mail

Keep the address on your registrar account on a different domain from the one you are setting up, so that if this domain ever has a problem, the registrar's emails still reach you.

Before you rely on the new address:

1. Send a test email to a personal account at another provider and check it lands in the inbox, not spam.
2. Reply to it and check the reply arrives in your new mailbox.
3. Check authentication. In Gmail, open the received message and use "Show original": it lists whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC passed. Online mail testers give a similar report.
4. Set up your mail apps on desktop and phone. With Zoho's free plan, use Zoho's own apps, since IMAP and POP are not included.
5. Add a signature with your name, role, business name and website.

Then update your website's contact page, your social profiles and your registrar account details with the new address. If you are setting up a website at the same time, how to set up web hosting covers that side.