Free or cheap domain email forwarding

shiraz99

For many years I've had my domain hosted by 123.reg and part of the service was to offer free domain email forwarding. Recently they've decided to remove this and charge for an email hosting service in it's own right at around £35 per year.

Are there any alternatives that can offer full email forwarding for free or a lot cheaper than 123? I did look at Cloudfare but they only seem to offer incoming emails routing only, which is no good to me, I need full email forwarding both incoming and outgoing.

Is it worth transferring my domain altogether from 123 to someone like IONOS for example?

James_Londoner

Former 123-reg user here too. I now use Cloudflare for incoming email forwarding and SMTP2GO for outgoing.

MyRealNameToo

Where are you forwarding the mail to and why can't you use it to send your mail? 

Some domain registrars still offer free email forwarding but it will be inbound email 

Newcad

You mention Ionos.

I have used Ionos for years (well 1&1 when I first opened an account) both for my ".uk" domain registration and basic email, never had a problem with them and currently pay £12 a year for the domain and email.

(It says it's 'Business email' even if you are not a business).

It may cost more if you want to put a website up,  want extra storage, etc.

There's even an account migration tool so you can migrate your existing emails across.

I suggest that you check their prices for what you need.

eg. If you just want email on your own domain look at: https://www.ionos.co.uk/office-solutions/create-an-email-address#packages

shiraz99

MyRealNameToo said:

Where are you forwarding the mail to and why can't you use it to send your mail? 

Some domain registrars still offer free email forwarding but it will be inbound email 

I have a company domain email address that use in conjunction with my business communications, I use the email service to forward emails to that address to whatever is my current ISP which obviously changes.

flaneurs_lobster

shiraz99 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Where are you forwarding the mail to and why can't you use it to send your mail? 

Some domain registrars still offer free email forwarding but it will be inbound email 

I have a company domain email address that use in conjunction with my business communications, I use the email service to forward emails to that address to whatever is my current ISP which obviously changes.

Why are you using your ISP's mail service? What happens when you want to move to an ISP that doesn't offer email (many are not doing so, or not offering to new customers)?

Why not use one of the many free (or paid-for) email services?

shiraz99

flaneurs_lobster said:

shiraz99 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Where are you forwarding the mail to and why can't you use it to send your mail? 

Some domain registrars still offer free email forwarding but it will be inbound email 

I have a company domain email address that use in conjunction with my business communications, I use the email service to forward emails to that address to whatever is my current ISP which obviously changes.

Why are you using your ISP's mail service? What happens when you want to move to an ISP that doesn't offer email (many are not doing so, or not offering to new customers)?

Why not use one of the many free (or paid-for) email services?

I use a combination of both, either way it doesn't change the need to be able to use email forwarding so I can keep my domain's email address and just forward it to wherever I need to.

shiraz99

All sorted now. I was thinking of following the suggestion above regarding using Cloudflare and SMTP2GO but  decided it would be far simpler to transfer my domain over to IONOS and use their free email forwarding. Transfer over and email setup in a matter of minutes. Thanks all.

PHK

flaneurs_lobster said:

shiraz99 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Where are you forwarding the mail to and why can't you use it to send your mail? 

Some domain registrars still offer free email forwarding but it will be inbound email 

I have a company domain email address that use in conjunction with my business communications, I use the email service to forward emails to that address to whatever is my current ISP which obviously changes.

Why are you using your ISP's mail service? What happens when you want to move to an ISP that doesn't offer email (many are not doing so, or not offering to new customers)?

Why not use one of the many free (or paid-for) email services?

You are thinking of a domestic ISP. 

For a business that has it's own email domain, email operates differently, often with multiple hosts but to the outside world comes from the same domain.  For example, the company I work for has the customer facing addresses hosted by our ISP using a system that allows tracking, assigning to queues, etc. Team shared inboxes on an exchange server and individual email addresses (internal use) hosted locally. 

So what the OP is doing is not unusual at all for a business. 

MyRealNameToo

PHK said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

shiraz99 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Where are you forwarding the mail to and why can't you use it to send your mail? 

Some domain registrars still offer free email forwarding but it will be inbound email 

I have a company domain email address that use in conjunction with my business communications, I use the email service to forward emails to that address to whatever is my current ISP which obviously changes.

Why are you using your ISP's mail service? What happens when you want to move to an ISP that doesn't offer email (many are not doing so, or not offering to new customers)?

Why not use one of the many free (or paid-for) email services?

You are thinking of a domestic ISP. 

For a business that has it's own email domain, email operates differently, often with multiple hosts but to the outside world comes from the same domain.  For example, the company I work for has the customer facing addresses hosted by our ISP using a system that allows tracking, assigning to queues, etc. Team shared inboxes on an exchange server and individual email addresses (internal use) hosted locally. 

So what the OP is doing is not unusual at all for a business. 

Id be willing to bet we are taking domestic ISP in the OPs case, for those with multitenanted solutions with Exchange etc they dont post on public forums asking for advice on free email forwarding or think that £35 per year is excessive. I believe we pay about £30 per user per month for M365 inc Exchange etc