I think Microsoft 365 is a great value if you're looking for everything it offers - it includes Office, 1TB of storage per user, etc. Oh, one downside of Microsoft 365's custom domain email is that you have to use GoDaddy as your registrar: "Domain sold separately. You must maintain an active domain with GoDaddy to use this feature" (https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-36...). So if you're using Cloudflare and paying $7.85 for a .com and need to move it to GoDaddy at $18.99, that's another $11.14/year, $0.93/month to use Microsoft 365.
I moved my email over to iCloud+ and I've been happy. It was easy to set up and pretty cheap at just a dollar.
Zoho is another option. $1/mo per user with 5GB of storage. It's less storage than iCloud+ and more money (and it's annual billing, not monthly), but you might like it better. Zoho also has a free plan that doesn't include IMAP access (and lets you use custom domains).
Note, these prices are USD. iCloud+ is $1.29 CAD for 50GB and $3.99 CAD for 200GB.
But can it do four different users (Apple IDs) all getting email through the same vanity domain?
Also, no aliases. Are multiple domains even possible?
> Q: I already own a domain that's registered with a provider other than GoDaddy. Can I set up a personalized email address in Outlook.com? > > A: At the moment, we only support connecting domains managed by GoDaddy with Outlook.com.
There’s not a lot of room for workarounds here. If you read some help, be extra careful it’s not for Microsoft 365 business, which offers a lot more freedom. For a price.
Every horror story about other GoDaddy products is equally applicable to their 365 offering.
Their support takes hours to get to, and has hung up on us multiple times when the problem is anything but wanting to purchase more services, putting you back at step 1.
They force you into their own god awful auth instead of Microsofts usual OAuth and it breaks so many things, making you sign in constantly and you can't even use 2FA.
For anyone reading this, never use GoDaddy 365, I am so glad to be free of it.
As someone else mentioned - the cheapest per user hosted service that is close in functionality to G-suite is Zoho.
I know all this because I've also been bitten by the impending decommissioning of free G-suite so did a bit of research yesterday. I've signed up with M365 Business Basic and am in the process of moving my domains over to it now. I only need one mailbox but I have a bunch of domains and email aliases that I manage.
(edit - changed "Starter" to "Basic")
This will allow one to continue to collect usual emails/mailinglists, albeit forwarded to your other personal gmail (for example) account.
The only downside I see is that replies to any emails will originate from the redirected email address.
Mid-level tier is just under $60/year for 4 mailboxes, custom domain name, and, if desired, catch-all email. Reasonably good webmail, as well as SMTP/IMAP/POP3 options.
You get 50 GB of storage, custom email domain, etc...
You will probably need to subscribe to some iCloud plan and have an apple device. But if you already use those, you are good to go.
I am not willing to pay USD4x6x12 per year to have this continue to work. Looking around for the most affordable alternative for four active email accounts brings me to... Microsoft! Microsoft 365 Family Edition. Like a lot of salary drones I use Microsoft products at work, so I get a discount.
It is sad to be paying for full Microsoft Office capability only to not use it, only to keep my email addresses working. It seems positively bizarre, from the view of 20 years ago, to be fleeing from Google to Microsoft. But the fact remains, CAD$76.xx or so per year is something I can stomach for email address continuity for four people. Well, maybe the terabyte of cloud storage per user could come in handy for (encrypted) cloud backups as well.
If you can't get the employee discount, googling suggests the best deal for M$365 Family in Canada is: Costco! $99 for 15 months.
Anyone else find something good for four users? A colleague has Fastmail for CAD$46/year (paid multiple years in advance). I'd love to use that, but for four users... too expensive again.