Professional email on your own domain

The quote that landed in spam

Inês sells home-made sweets online from her house in Lisbon. She sends quotes for weddings and christenings from inessweets1987@…, the same address she has used since school. A customer replies: "Sorry, I thought it was spam."

The quote was genuine. The address did not help.

Compare it with hello@inessweets.pt. The person receiving it sees the business name straight away, understands there is a website behind it and knows who to reply to. Same Inês, same message, different trust.

Why it matters

• Trust. An address on your own domain says "this is a business". An address with a birth year says "this is a personal account".
• Continuity. The address belongs to the business, not to the person. If you change phone, provider or helper, hello@ is still yours (as long as the domain is yours, as we saw in the domain lesson).
• Mailboxes by role. Instead of a single mailbox for everything, use names that say what they are for: hello@, bookings@, invoices@. When the business grows, each one can go to a different person.
• Aliases. You do not need a paid mailbox for each name. An alias is an extra address that delivers to the same mailbox. So invoices@ and hello@ can both reach you, with no cost for another account.

Where to have your email

There are four common routes. None of them is "the right one":

1. Google Workspace (Gmail with your own domain).
2. Microsoft 365 (Outlook with your own domain).
3. The email included in your website hosting (many providers give a few mailboxes).
4. European providers, such as Proton or Infomaniak.

The criteria, in order of usefulness:

• What you already use on your phone. If you live in Gmail, Workspace is less work. If you are an Outlook and Word person, Microsoft 365.
• Whether you need a shared calendar and documents, or only mailboxes.
• Where the data is kept. Some providers store it in the European Union; others let you choose. Check the provider's page.
• How access recovery works. If you lose your password, how do you get back in?

Prices change. The reference figures are on the Current state page.

The three stamps: SPF, DKIM and DMARC

When you receive a letter, the postmark tells you where it came from. Email works the same way, with three stamps:

• SPF: the list of servers allowed to send on behalf of your domain. Like telling the doorman: "only these people speak for me".
• DKIM: a signature on every message. It proves the message really left from you and nobody tampered with it on the way.
• DMARC: the rule that tells Gmail or Outlook what to do with messages that fail the first two. It can start as "just let me know", without rejecting anything.

Without these stamps, Gmail and Outlook send your email to spam, or reject it.

How do you install them? Your email provider gives you two or three lines, of the TXT or CNAME type, to paste into your domain's DNS (the "road signs table" from the domain lesson). Copy them exactly as they come. Do not delete lines you do not understand. And a domain should have only one SPF record: if there is one already, your provider tells you how to add the new one to it.

Getting it all working

This is how it is on 16 October 2026; if the screen is different, look for the button with the same name.

• On your phone: open the email app and look for an option with a name like "add account". Many providers have their own app or work with the phone's own.
• On your computer: the same, or use the provider's web address to sign in to your mail.
• Signature: your name, the business name, phone, website address and, if you issue invoices, your tax number.
• Reply rule: answer on the same day, even if it is just "Got it, I will reply by Friday." Someone who waits three days is already talking to someone else.
• The old mailbox: for about six months, forward it to the new one and set an automatic reply like "I have a new address, write to me now at hello@inessweets.pt".