Creating an e-mail address with your own domain name

The two things you need

This is the point almost nobody explains, and it accounts for half the trouble: a domain name and a mail service are two separate things. You can buy one without the other, and take them from two different providers.

• The domain name — smith-plumbing.eu — is rented yearly from a registrar. Expect around ten euros a year. You are its holder; it follows you anywhere.
• The mail service — what actually receives, stores and sends the messages. It is a separate service, and it is the one you choose below.

Many people buy their domain from a web host, spot a mail offer in the same basket, and assume the two cannot be separated. They can. You may keep your domain where it is and have your mail handled elsewhere: it is a single line to change in the domain's configuration.

The four ways of doing it, compared

They all work. They simply do not suit the same people.

1. The mailbox included with your web host

OVH, Ionos, Hostinger and the rest often include one or two mailboxes with the website hosting. It is the cheapest option — sometimes free — and perfectly fine to start with. The limits come quickly: little storage, an ageing web interface, slow searching across several years of mail, and a support desk sized for hosting rather than for mail.

Best for: one address, low volume, a tight budget.

2. Google Workspace or Microsoft 365

The most widespread solution, and the most complete: mail, calendar, shared documents, video meetings. Expect something in the region of 6 to 8 € per month per user depending on the plan — check for yourself, these prices change often.

Two reservations, better known before signing than after. The first is legal: these companies fall under the American CLOUD Act, which lets the United States administration request access to data held by an American company, including when the servers sit in Europe. The second is practical: when something goes wrong, you are talking to a form.

Best for: teams that want the complete suite and the market standard.

3. A dedicated European mail provider

Providers such as Infomaniak (Switzerland), Proton (Switzerland), Mailo or ourselves do mail only — or mail and storage — without depending on an American group. Prices are comparable, support is usually easier to reach, and the CLOUD Act question does not arise in the same way.

Best for: those to whom the location of the data, and being able to reach someone, both matter.

4. Running your own mail server

It is possible, and we do it — it is our trade. We advise against it when it is not yours.

Not that it is hard to install: a mail server can be set up in an evening. The trouble comes afterwards. It needs an IP address with a clean reputation, flawless authentication, watch kept on blocklists, permanent security updates, and availability at every moment — a lost message cannot be recovered. The day your IP address is marked as a spam source, nothing leaves at all, and you find out from a customer asking why you never replied.

Best for: people whose trade is system administration.

The four records that make it all work

Whichever service you pick, setting it up means adding a few lines to your domain's DNS zone — the configuration panel, at the company you rent the name from. Your provider gives you the exact values; here is what each one does, so that you know what you are pasting.

MX — where mail is to be delivered

The MX record names the server that receives your mail. It is the only one strictly required for delivery: without it, a message sent to your address bounces back.

dupont-plomberie.fr.   MX   10 mail.exemple.fr.

The number is a priority: the lowest is tried first. If you have several, they act as each other's backup.

SPF — who is allowed to write in your name

A TXT record listing the servers allowed to send mail for your domain. Without it, anyone can write to the world pretending to be you, and your own messages will be treated with suspicion.

dupont-plomberie.fr.   TXT   "v=spf1 mx a:mail.exemple.fr ~all"

One SPF record per domain, never two: two SPF records cancel each other out and the check fails. If you use several sending services — your mail provider and a newsletter tool, say — they must live together in the same line.

DKIM — the signature on your messages

A cryptographic signature added to every outgoing message, which the recipient checks against a public key published in your DNS. It proves the message really comes from you and was not altered on the way. Your provider generates the key; you only publish it.

DMARC — what to do with doubtful messages

It tells receiving servers how to treat a message that fails the checks above: let it through, set it aside, or reject it. And it lets you receive reports on attempts to impersonate your domain.

_dmarc.dupont-plomberie.fr.   TXT   "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:postmaster@dupont-plomberie.fr"

Always start with p=none, which applies no sanction and merely observes. Tighten it later, once the reports have shown you that legitimate mail passes. Tightening straight away risks blocking your own mail without knowing it.

Why your mail ends up in the junk folder

This is the classic disappointment: everything is configured, the address works, and the messages arrive in the customer's spam folder. In almost every case, the cause is one of these.

• SPF missing, or duplicated. Two SPF lines on the same domain invalidate the check just as surely as none at all.
• DKIM not signing. Many hosts do not enable it by default. An unsigned message is a message nothing can be proved about.
• The sender address does not match the authorised domain. Sending from a website form showing contact@your-domain.com while the sending server is the website host's, without having declared it: that is exactly the shape of an impersonation.
• An IP address with a poor reputation, typically self-hosting on a consumer connection: many providers refuse mail from residential addresses as a matter of policy.
• A brand-new domain. A domain with no history invites caution. This fades after a few weeks of normal use.

To see where you stand, send a message from your new address to a Gmail account you own, open it, then show the original: Gmail states plainly whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC passed. It is the quickest test, and it costs nothing.

Creating several addresses on the same domain

Once the domain is connected to a mail service, adding contact@, accounts@ or support@ requires no further DNS work: it is all done in the service's interface. Two things are often confused, however, and they do not cost the same.

• A mailbox has its own storage space and its own password. That is what gets billed, almost always one by one.
• An alias is one more address arriving in an existing mailbox. contact@ and quotes@ can land in the same box. With most providers, aliases are free and unlimited.

For a one-person business, one mailbox and three aliases are usually enough. There is no point paying for three mailboxes to serve three addresses the same person will read.

What it really costs

The domain first: around ten euros a year, renewed yearly. That is unavoidable and does not depend on the mail service.

Then the mail service, billed per mailbox and not per address. Our own prices, as a reference point:

Aliases are included, with no limit on their number. Setting it up — the DNS records, checking that mail leaves and arrives correctly, moving your existing mail across — is done by us.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

Your phone is full of photos: what now — the five solutions compared, and the three proofs to demand before deleting anything.