Free email is great – from Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.com – you can take them anywhere, own them forever and never have to pay…

The Best things in life are free…

Free really means free here in the financial sense, unless you exceed the storage space -limits are different from provider to provider. You won’t be asked to pay and get to keep your email address independent of who your current Internet Service Provider (Virgin, BT, TalkTalk etc.) is.

All free email providers make it relatively easy to register your account – it literally just takes a few minutes to set up.

Best of all, you can have as many email addresses as you like!

There is no such thing as a free lunch

But as the title suggests, there is a catch (or two, or three…)

Spam – most free email providers have some type of spam control built in but it never seizes to amaze us how quickly Spam starts coming after creating an account.

Many providers, including Gmail, put contextual advertising next to the emails you read which can be irritating. Avoid by using an email client such as Thunderbird on your computer.

Ever had trouble with an email addresses, like a hijack or just forgetting your password? Technical support ranges from slow to non-existent.

Because free emails are so popular, you are unlikely to get the email address you want, but more likely having to choose some random numbers alongside your name (something like katja45680@gmail.com).

Business Emails – why free just does not cut it

If the above reasons are not enough to convince you not to use a free email provider for your business, there’s more!

Let’s start with lack of credibility… a bizarre xyz@gmail.com just does not look as professional as xyz@company.co.uk and makes you leak cheap or even worse, might be considered as Spam by your client or potential client.

Safety issues… free email addresses are a keen target for hackers and viruses and often hijacked and used to send out spam with content that could ruin your business’ reputation.

So, what’s the conclusion?

Free emails might be perfectly fine for personal use  – but they are certainly not recommended for business use.

If you already have your own website, check with your hosting as it might include email hosting too, or will let you pgrade for a minimal amount.

If not, get in touch to see just how easy it is to get email addresses for your own domain name (i.e. info@yourcompanyname.co.uk)  – all from just £59.99 per year – and that includes a Spam filter and support setting it up.

Have PC Harmony,
so you can concentrate on the more important things in life…