Set up email @ your own domain (stop using @gmail.com)

mikesplumbing@gmail.com whispers hobby. mike@mikesplumbing.ca says business. The upgrade costs a dollar or two a month at the budget end (about CA$9.50/US$7 at the big-suite end) and one careful 20-minute setup session. Here’s the whole thing.

Step 1: Pick your provider

Short version of our full comparison — prices per user per month:

• Zoho Mail Lite (US$1, ≈CA$1.40 — billed in USD) — the value pick; a proper inbox with mobile apps.
• Spacemail (CA$1.10 / US$0.98) — easiest if your domain’s at Spaceship; same dashboard, bills in CAD if you want.
• Google Workspace (CA$9.20 / US$7) — the Gmail interface plus Drive/Docs/Meet.
• Microsoft 365 Basic (CA$9.50 / US$6) — Outlook plus web Office apps.

The $0 alternative: if you only need to receive, email forwarding (free at Spaceship and Cloudflare) delivers hello@yourbusiness.ca into your existing personal inbox. Fine for day one; upgrade when you need to send from the business address reliably.

Step 2: Understand the 20 minutes ahead

Connecting email to your domain means adding a few DNS records — lines in your domain’s settings that tell the world’s mail servers where your mail lives and that you’re legitimate. Your email provider gives you the exact values; you paste them in. It’s copy-paste with high stakes for typos, so go slow.

Where you paste them: wherever your DNS lives. If you followed our Cloudflare Pages guide, that’s your Cloudflare dashboard (your domain → DNS → Records). Otherwise it’s your registrar’s DNS page.

Step 3: The records themselves

Your provider’s setup wizard lists these with exact values. What each one is, so it’s not incantation:

1. MX records — “deliver mail for this domain to [provider].” The core one; usually two or three entries.
2. SPF (a TXT record) — “these servers are allowed to send as this domain.” Without it, you land in spam.
3. DKIM (a TXT or CNAME record) — a cryptographic signature on your outgoing mail. Also a spam-folder matter.
4. DMARC (a TXT record) — tells receiving servers what to do with mail that fails the checks. Providers suggest a starter value; accept it.

Most guides stop at MX and people wonder why their quotes go to junk folders. Do all four. The provider wizard has a “verify” button — keep going until all checks are green.

Step 4: Send the test everything hangs on

Send an email from the new address to a friend on Gmail and someone on Outlook. Confirm it arrives in the inbox, not spam. Reply-chain it once. Now put the new address on your invoices, your Google Business Profile, and your website.

Two habits that keep it healthy

• Don’t mix personal and business mail in one inbox — future-you selling or handing off the business will thank you.
• When someone asks for “your email guy/gal” — that’s you now, but the honest kind: any problem is a support ticket to your provider, whose job it is because you’re a paying customer at last.