Managing internal messaging is a bit more complex than one would think, and for most businesses hosting their entire company email infrastructure on a free or in-house server is not an option. Free services are primarily used for personal email users, and not necessarily for professional use. In-house servers – while an ideal situation for any company – is often impractical from a cost and implementation standpoint.

Sure, you can have a great deal of control over your email communication, but you will definitely have to shell out the cash for managing an on-premise email server. These costs range from server administration to energy consumption to maintenance and resource upgrades.

In general, when it comes to managing email communications on the small business level, it makes more sense for companies to use a hosted email solution. These days this means using a cloud-based or “serverless” hosting solution. The good news is that there are a number of benefits for small businesses that choose to use a cloud-based email host.

Benefits of “server-less” email hosting:

• It’s affordable – While price structures vary according to the type of email host you use and their service level agreements (SLA), cloud-based email hosting is undoubtedly a more affordable solution than on-premise email hosting. For starters, you only pay for what you use. Additionally, you don’t have to be concerned with any administrative costs associated with managing email data. In some cases – especially if your host implements virtual private server (VPS) technology – you can have a great deal of control of your email data. This often means that you can choose your operating system and applications you want to deploy through your email host.

• Email security – Of course, as with anything cloud or off-premise, there’s the concern of overall data security. While this is far from perfect in the cloud space, it is more than adequate for smaller companies. Essentially, all access to IMAP, POP and Webmail is encrypted. Now, how it’s encrypted is totally up to your provider. This is why it’s important to choose a provider with robust security. However, in most cases standard email encryption is adequate for messaging security.

• Flexibility – Lastly, cloud-based email hosting providers are flexible. There are several implications wrapped up in this idea of flexibility. To start off, you’re not locked into a storage allocation. You’re usually allotted a certain amount of storage, bandwidth and processing power from your email-hosting provider. But as your company expands or scales back, you can adjust your storage and computing power settings as needed. Although, you may not need a massive amount of CPU storage if you’re managing messaging on a smaller level.

Email Customization is the New Black

Email hosting really comes down to your business and what it needs to thrive in its current state. Looking ahead, do you see massive spikes in growth or a loss of revenue? Do you need something a little more flexible? Does an email host match your short and long-term business goals? These are all incredibly important to answer as you start to navigate the world of off-premise email hosting solutions.