01What a custom address actually changes
A [email protected] address says nothing about your business, and it lives inside one personal Google account. An address on your own domain, like [email protected], changes three practical things. It matches the website a customer just read, so the message does not look like it came from someone else. It belongs to the domain, and you own the domain, so you can change email provider and keep the address. And it can be a role rather than a person: contact@ or sales@ can pass to the next employee, while a personal Gmail leaves with whoever owns it. What it does not do is turn a weak business into a strong one, or guarantee that your mail reaches the inbox. We make no claim about trust or reply rates.
- Matches the website and the invoice
- Moves with you when you switch provider, as long as you keep the domain
- Can be a role address that outlives any one employee
- Does not fix a weak website and does not guarantee delivery
02What it costs, from the vendors' own pages
There are two mainstream options, both priced per person per month. Google's Workspace pricing page lists Business Starter with secure custom business email (its example is [email protected]) at 6.80 EUR per user per month at list price, before tax, with 30 GB of pooled storage per person. Google's price varies by region, so yours may differ. Microsoft's Romanian page lists Microsoft 365 Business Basic at 6.07 EUR per user per month with Teams and 4.67 EUR without, on a yearly subscription that renews automatically, before VAT. Microsoft's English page lists custom business email in Business Basic, with a 100 GB mailbox per user. Over a year that works out to roughly 56 to 82 EUR per mailbox, before tax. The domain itself is a separate yearly fee paid to a registrar. We quote no domain price here, since it depends on the registrar.
- Google Workspace Business Starter: 6.80 EUR per user a month at list, before tax
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic: 6.07 EUR with Teams, 4.67 EUR without, paid yearly, before VAT
- Domain: a separate yearly fee, the price depends on the registrar and the ending
- One mailbox per person, so a team of three pays three times
03When a plain Gmail address is fine
If you work alone, have no website and customers reach you by phone or Instagram, a Gmail address built from your real name is fine. Paying 56 to 82 EUR a year for a mailbox nobody reads changes nothing. The line moves when the address starts appearing in places you control: the contact page of a website, an invoice, a quote, a business card, a Google Business Profile. From then on the address is part of the brand and you will not want to change it later. It also moves when a second person starts handling the mail, because a shared inbox on one person's Gmail means a password you should not hand around. There is a halfway step: some registrars and hosting accounts offer forwarding from an address on your domain to an existing inbox. Check what yours includes. Receiving is the easy half. If your replies still go out from the Gmail address, the custom one is only a mask.
- Gmail is fine: you work alone, have no website, customers find you by phone or Instagram
- Switch: the address goes on a site, invoice, quote or card
- Switch: a second person needs to read the same mail
- Halfway: forwarding into Gmail, but check you can also send from the new address
04How to set it up without losing mail
The order matters more than the vendor. First, register the domain in your own name, in an account you control, and note who holds the login. If an agency or a friend registered it for you, get the login before you build anything on it. Second, pick the mail provider and create the mailboxes. Third, add the provider's mail records to the domain's DNS settings. Mail records sit in the same place as website records, so before anyone points the domain at a new website, ask what else is attached to it. A change made for the site can break mail if nobody checks. Fourth, keep the old Gmail running and forwarding for a few months, and update the address on your website, invoices, profiles and listings. Last, set the domain to renew automatically: if it lapses, the address stops working and the website goes with it.
- The domain sits in an account you control, and you know who holds the login
- Create the mailboxes, then add the provider's mail records to the DNS
- Before the domain is pointed at a new site, ask what else uses it
- Keep the old address forwarding for a few months
- Turn on auto-renew for the domain
05Where PROOF48 fits, and where it does not
PROOF48 builds the website. Our pages say you own the code, the domain, the hosting account and the content, and that once you approve the preview we point your domain at the site the same day. Hosting and SSL are handled in the build. No plan and no page we publish lists setting up business mailboxes, so we do not claim it, and you should not assume it is included. If you want mailboxes on your domain, ask when you send your link and agree who creates them before the domain is pointed. Our own contact address is [email protected], on our own domain. If all you need is a mailbox and you already have a site you like, PROOF48 is the wrong choice: signing up with a mail provider covers that on its own.
- You own the code, the domain, the hosting account and the content
- After you approve the preview, the domain is pointed at the site the same day
- Business mailbox setup is not listed in what we publish: ask first
- Only need a mailbox? Go straight to a mail provider
A shop that sends mail to every customer
The ordering system PROOF48 built for Rotiseria Baba Novac, live at rotiseria.ro, sends an order confirmation email on every order, through Resend. For a shop like that, mail from the business is not occasional: it is a message every customer receives. The case study does not say which sender address those emails use, so we claim nothing about it. We also publish no data on how customers react to them. What carries over is the plain point that once a site sends mail in your name, the address it comes from is a decision to make on purpose.
See the build: Rotiseria Baba NovacQuestions, answered
Do I need a custom email address if I already have a website?
If the site shows a Gmail address, the two do not match. An address on your own domain on the contact page is the smallest fix. Gmail still works for receiving mail, it just does not read as part of the business.
Can I keep reading my mail in Gmail?
Often yes, through forwarding or by adding the account to the Gmail app, depending on your provider. Check above all that you can also send from the custom address, so your replies do not give the Gmail one away.
Does a mailbox come free with the domain?
Some registrars and hosting accounts include mailboxes or forwarding. What is included, and the limits, differ from one to the next, and we quote no prices for them. Compare them with the Google and Microsoft figures above.
Does PROOF48 set up business email?
Our published plans and pages do not list it. The maintenance plans mention email alerts about your site, which are not mailboxes for you. Ask when you send your link.
Where PROOF48 fits
Use an address on your own domain as soon as it appears on a website, invoice or quote. Budget roughly 56 to 82 EUR a year per mailbox at Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 list prices, plus a domain fee we do not quote. Keep the domain in your own account and set it to renew. PROOF48 builds the website in 48 hours for 500 to 2,500 EUR and lists no mailbox setup, so ask before you assume it.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.