Small business: getting domain name + email addresses

jjlothin

We're looking to buy a domain name and, with it, a handful of email addresses (10 at most). Possibly a very simple website ...

Could anyone recommend the best/most cost-effective way to go? I know GoDaddy is highly thought of, but the costs do seem to mount up as their email addresses cost £2.99 per user per month, going up to £3.99 per month after the first year!

It would be good if whichever way it was didn't blind me with technological science, too!

bingo_bango

Domain name - you'll pay around £10 for 2 years for a .co.uk (buy for longer - up to 10 years - and you should get a discount of around 10%). .com, .net or .biz will be double the cost.

You then need to host it. Basic (ad free) hosting can be had for around £30 per year. Most of these will give you a minimum of 10 email addresses as part of the hosting package.

If you need more email addresses, then a business hosting package should be around £50 per year. If you need over 100 email addresses, you'll have to pay around £120 for a pro package.

You should also get some free web design software with all of those packages, but I'd suggest looking into Wordpress templates for a simple site, as they will have everything you need, and will likely be free as well.

edit: Just a thought. I keep domain registries and hosting providers separate. That way, there is less chance of an issue should you decide to change host provider in the future. It is a very simple process to change the DNS settings from one host provider to another via your domain provider. If you have the domain with the hosting provider, they tend to make it a little trickier to switch providers.

paddyrg

GoDaddy are more highly thought of by nontechnical people who watch the adverts. It's not to say they're bad, but they're not all that.

You could look at tsohost or easily.co.uk as other companies. easily.co.uk will forward to upto 20 email addresses (eg to your gmail accounts) for free. You can then set up your GMail to send 'from' your domain address, and not actually need a separate mail server service. This is what I do, in fact, for several domains.

imoneyop

I definitely wouldn't be paying extra per month for email addresses.

I've used 123reg in the past and taking a quick look now, their basic £2.49 a month +VAT package gives you 100 email addresses, which as paddy says you can forward to gmail and not worry about mail servers and hosting that should be more than sufficient for a small website.

Double_V

One.com are the best when it comes to domain and hosting.
Been using them since 2001 and always recommend to my clients.

For one year you pay £10 for domain and hosting.
And it comes with unlimited users, sub-domains, emails etc.

If you want I can give you a referral link, which will give you £5 and 3GB extra storage.

I do not work for them nor do I get any commission.
I have used them for pretty long time and never had any issue.

123-reg offers cheap domain but then everything is an add-on.
For emails you pay extra, hosting, users, sub domains etc.
A lot of my clients from 123-reg transfer their domains to one.com.

Very simple and user friendly control panel interface.

Double_V

bingo_bango wrote: »

Domain name - you'll pay around £10 for 2 years for a .co.uk (buy for longer - up to 10 years - and you should get a discount of around 10%). .com, .net or .biz will be double the cost.

You then need to host it. Basic (ad free) hosting can be had for around £30 per year. Most of these will give you a minimum of 10 email addresses as part of the hosting package.

If you need more email addresses, then a business hosting package should be around £50 per year. If you need over 100 email addresses, you'll have to pay around £120 for a pro package.

You should also get some free web design software with all of those packages, but I'd suggest looking into Wordpress templates for a simple site, as they will have everything you need, and will likely be free as well.

edit: Just a thought. I keep domain registries and hosting providers separate. That way, there is less chance of an issue should you decide to change host provider in the future. It is a very simple process to change the DNS settings from one host provider to another via your domain provider. If you have the domain with the hosting provider, they tend to make it a little trickier to switch providers.

No not really.
I have done this numerous times without any problem.
All you need is a Tag ID and give it to your new provider.
They will do the change over and if need change DNS.

jjlothin

I really appreciate all these helpful replies! Work's gone beserk at the moment so I don't have time to look into them properly, but the boss will be away for 3 weeks later on this month, and I'll come back to them then.

Again, many thanks to you all!

bingo_bango

Double_V wrote: »

No not really.
I have done this numerous times without any problem.
All you need is a Tag ID and give it to your new provider.
They will do the change over and if need change DNS.

On re-reading that, it does seem like I am tarring them all with the same brush. What would be a more accurate statement is that some providers will work really quickly to make the change, whilst others tend to drag their feet. My quickest transfer took less than 2 hours to propagate, the longest took 3 weeks and requests for frankly extortionate fees to do so. That warranted an intercession from Nominet to sort it out (and still cost me £12).