Hands-on Review of top 5 Business Email options for Start-ups, Micro and small businesses

Most reliable business email options - A Hands-on review about Cloud based business email options

For Small business, getting a business email is clearly a right step towards achieving success online. 

Establishing an in-house email hosting infrastructure is not at all recommended for Small businesses. Managing this kind of infrastructure will be very costly, and plus it takes your focus away from your core business. Therefore, many businesses look for smarter options like cloud based email hosting. If you make the right choice, it can save you and your company a lot of money from increased likelihood of virus infection, spam, increased expenses, and regular software/hardware problems.

Below is a hands-on reviews about cloud based business email options available today for Start-ups, Micro and small businesses

1. Google Apps Business Email (A Smart Cloud ready Business Email)

    - Easy to setup, secure and have excellent uptime
    - Very powerful Gmail engine with excellent search
    - Tags instead of folders, familiar gmail interface,
    - Opens the door towards smarter Google Apps deployment
    - Excellent integration with Android smart phones with Contacts, Calendar sync and more.
    - Highly recommended for start-ups, micro and small businesses. Learn more?
    - Many times more powerful than ZOHO Email/Yahoo Email/GoDaddy Email

2. ZOHO Email Hosting

     - Works on similar model like Google Apps when it comes to pricing, i.e. /user/month pricing
     - Less powerful mailbox features compared to Google Apps/Office365
     - Woks well with other ZOHO productivity apps like ZOHO CRM and many more

3. Yahoo Small Business Email

     - Gets 100s of email addresses
     - A bit expensive, if having less than 5 business email users
     - Less powerful mailbox features compared to Google Apps
     - Unlike ZOHO and Google Apps, there are limited or NO productivity improvement integrations available if you choose Yahoo, and hence not a smart option. But if you need large number of email addressees, this option can be considered.

4. Office 365/Exchange on Cloud (A Smart Business Email)

     - Powered by MS Exchange Server
     - Excellent integrations with MS platforms, MS Office and Windows phone devices
     - Opens the door towards enterprise grade collaboration platform on cloud
     - Highly recommended for mid-size businesses to large enterprises.
     - Costlier than Google Apps, so not recommended for SMEs

5. GoDaddy
     - Lot of negative reviews on the net.
     - Not expensive, but support is not up-to the mark
     - Not recommended in general, consider only if opting for Godaddy hosting as well, and only if the cheapest price is non-negotiable.