An average American adult spends an enormous amount of his 24 hours checking and sorting out his electronic mails.
If the above is true and also applies to you, which means you need to utilize excellent email service providers to make the whole task easy for you.
Email service providers, like the name suggests, are applications, either web-based or otherwise that allow you to create, manage, compose, send or receive emails.
There are basically two types of email service providers. These are classified based on the platform on which they operate. These are “email clients” and “webmail.”
Webmail is a web-based app that allows you to perform the basic emailing functions. These include opening the email messages, sending new email messages, creating a new email address and lots more.
An email client, on the other hand, is not based on the web. It is usually available as an app that you can download onto your device, be it a MacBook Pro or just a J2ME powered Java phone.
From an email client app, you can also perform most of the functions which you can perform on the regular webmail. The main difference between an email client and webmail is the platform. An email client usually an application or software like Microsoft Outlook. On contrast, webmail is based on the web and examples include Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail.
Here in this article, I’m going to take you through the most popular email service providers available at the moment, their advantages and disadvantages their user-friendliness and how well they perform in comparison to their competitors.
Before we start outlining, it’s important for you to know what to look out for in email service providers. If they don’t offer most of these, then they’re not worth trying out. However, we may not list some here, but if you find out that they offer most of these, there’s no harm in trying them out.
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What to look for in an email service provider
PERSONAL
For personal use, it is recommended to find a free email service provider that grants you access to basic emailing functions and features. As an individual, you might never need to transfer files of up to 15 Gigabytes, so you don’t have to waste your time looking for one that offers that.
Also, you should check out how user-friendly the service is. You’re most likely to always check your emails on your mobile phones, so you need to ascertain if the email service is mobile-friendly. If possible, go for one with a mobile app.
Also, other features like Spam Filtering and AI-supported intelligent organization will save you an unbelievable chunk of time while you sort your emails. So you should also look out for that.
BUSINESS
For business use, however, you’ll need many more features than that. In addition to the above requirement for personal users, business users will require much more available storage space than that of the average regular users.
Also, it’s essential to get one with an enormous maximum attachment size as you may frequently need to transfer large files. It should also have many features like task scheduling and intelligent organization.
Most importantly, before you use an email service provider for your business, you have to check its security capabilities. A good one protects you from computer viruses and encrypts your messages end-to-end for protection against hackers.
These features are not usually available in a free email service provider. For maximum results, you should pay for a service with a responsive support team. This is advantageous for you because you can call out to them each time there is a breach from their promise.
That said, now, let’s go on to list the best email service providers and give some recommendations on what you should choose for your business or individual use.
Best Email Service Providers in 2020
And now, this is why we’re here. Below is a list of the best email service providers, at the moment.
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Before I start listing out the features of Gmail, let me quickly point out that it is owned by Google.
People have developed an age-long trust for Google and its products, and this accounts for some of the reasons for Gmail’s wide popularity since it was acquired by Google in 2005. Today, Gmail is the most popular email service provider.
Due to its integration with G Suite, Google can also be used for business purposes.
Although you cannot share files larger than 25 Megabytes in a Gmail message, the Google Drive, which is also part of G Suite allows for sharing of files much larger than that, which organizations can take advantage of.
An excellent feature of Gmail is the way it intelligently arranges mails. It uses an AI-supported algorithm to tell what emails are spam, and what emails should go to the “Promotions” tab. It also has a “Social” tab for messages from your social platforms like Quora, Facebook, etc.
Gmail also provides some security features like two-factor authentication (2FA) for protection against unauthorized logins. On paper, the security features aren’t that impressive, but practically, it’s very rare to intercept a mail sent over Gmail, as Google’s security should be trusted automatically.
Gmail also enables you to create working email addresses for free. The email addresses created from Gmail take the format: [email protected], and it is by far the most popular email format worldwide.
However, loading the Gmail web app on a desktop can be so slow at times, and it can be unresponsive for some time after initially loading.
2.Outlook
Google and Microsoft are age-long competitors. They also created competing email service providers and they both perform really well.
There is a free version of Outlook which you can use without any subscriptions. However, you can buy the premium version embedded with Office 365 Home and Personal. Office 365 Home is available for $99.99 while the Personal version sells for $69.99.
Outlook supports many features. These features can be further extended by using the numerous add-ins for Outlook.
Outlook automatically organizes your mails, just like Gmail, but it is not a hundred percent accurate. Also, you can hide your email address while sending an email over Outlook by using aliases.
You can recover deleted messages on Outlook and it integrates well with other Microsoft apps like Skype and Outlook calendar.
It is mobile compatible and has support for not only Android devices but also iPhones. The outlook is best for individual use, but with some workarounds, it can also be compatible with organizational mailing also.
If your organization is in an industry that is vulnerable to a high risk of cyber-attacks or has much to lose if there is a breach of incoming or outgoing information, then you should use ProtonMail.
ProtonMail is one of the best email service providers with a decent level of security for your mails. Your emails go through an encrypted protocol, which prevents anyone (not even ProtonMail) when they are sent. Apart from encrypting the mails, ProtonMail also allows you to set an expiry date for the mail, so it doesn’t reside in vulnerable servers.
To make it so business-friendly, it supports some organizational features that filter spam. Also, depending on which plans you choose to use, you can add multiple users.
Its mobile apps for the two giant mobile operating systems are a great indication that it is mobile friendly.
However, you should also note that ProtonMail is next to useless when you’re on the free plan, as it greatly limits the available storage space and offers no encryption features.
ProtonMail has three premium plans. ProtonMail Plus, ProtonMail Professional and ProtonMail and the Visionary version, in ascending order of price and features. They cost $5.66, $9 and $34 per month respectively.
4.Zoho Mail
Zoho Mail is an email service provider that’s actually useful for businesses. In fact, it was created with businesses in mind.
Zoho Mail was created to provide stiff competition for Google’s Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, but over the years, it hasn’t come anywhere near them. Zoho created a migration tool to facilitate an easy migration tool from G suite and Office 365 to their email client.
Zoho Mail was officially created for businesses, but personal communication using the app is not too bad. This email service provider is ad-free, and this should be commended, as all services with like names are always bombarded with ads.
When accessing Zoho Mail using a desktop, there are tons of keyboard shortcuts you can actually make use of for easier accessibility. It also supports iOS and Android apps with a minimalistic and exquisite design.
Zoho Mail has three premium plans, just like ProtonMail. They’re named Mail Lite, Standard and Professional, with varying degrees of storage space.
Although Zoho Mail can be very great for businesses, very large businesses may not be able to really use this service based on the limited features.
5.iCloud Mail
If you own and use a Mac, then you must be using Apple’s own email service provider, which saw its entrance into the online world as late as 2011. However, due to the good features and storage capabilities of this app, it quickly gained traction.
I personally love iCloud because all the information is stored away in the cloud, away from the prying eyes of hackers. It also allows large file sharing, which might count up to 5GB without stress. Also, you get 5 Gigabytes free cloud space to store your files online.
However, a downside to this is that it can’t be used outside Apple, as it is with the other Apple products. Finally, iCloud mail is very free.
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Conclusion
People sent at least 250 billion emails yesterday. How do you get into the mailing game without losing?
This article was written to help you find a good email service provider. I hope you find it helpful.