This one comes up a lot, especially when moving a site: Concierge doesn’t host email inboxes. Your website lives on my servers, but your mailboxes (like you [at] yourdomain.com) live with a dedicated email provider.
That’s on purpose. Email hosting is its own specialty. I could offer it, but I couldn’t do it as well as the companies that focus on nothing else. A lot of web hosts throw email in as an afterthought… and it often makes it harder to switch hosts later, because your website and your email are tangled together.
I’d rather you be in full control of your own email, with a service that’s great at it.
What I Recommend
My go-to recommendations are Fastmail and Google Workspace. Both are reliable, both work with any device and email app, and both cost a few dollars per mailbox per month.
Personally, I prefer Fastmail. It’s what I use. It’s fast, clean, privacy-focused, and it’s just email done well without being part of a giant ecosystem. Google Workspace makes sense if you already live in Google Docs, Drive and Calendar.
Microsoft 365 is fine too, if that’s what your business already uses.
How It Works With Concierge
- The account is yours. You sign up with the email provider directly, under your own billing. That way your email never depends on me or on your hosting.
- I set up the DNS for you. Once your account is created, the provider will give you a list of DNS records (usually MX, SPF, DKIM and a verification record). Send them to me in Basecamp and I’ll add them in Cloudflare. That’s the part that connects your domain to your mailboxes.
- Setting up the mailboxes themselves (creating addresses, connecting your phone and email app, moving old messages over) is between you and the provider. Their help docs and support are good at walking you through it.
If Your Email Is Currently With Your Web Host
Some hosts, like GoDaddy or Bluehost, include mailboxes with hosting. If that’s you, and you’re moving your site to Concierge Cloud, the mailboxes need a new home before you cancel the old hosting. Otherwise they disappear along with it.
The usual order:
- Sign up with your new email provider.
- Move your old messages over (most providers have an import tool).
- Let me know, and I’ll switch your DNS to point email at the new provider.
- Once mail is arriving in the new inbox, it’s safe to cancel the old host.
If you only need an address to forward somewhere (say, info [at] yourdomain.com forwarding to your Gmail), you may not need a paid mailbox at all. Ask me and we’ll find the simplest option.