As I spoke about in my longwinded email rant here, using free email for private communication is a thing of the past, at least if you (or the person you are communication with) expect any privacy at all. While there are a few reputable email hosts left, that can change at any time – it is time to own your email.
Fortunately, having your own email address has never been easier or more affordable. I’ll go over a few good options available at this time (July 2026).
“Hosting your own email” can encompass several options – from something slightly more complicated than free email all the way to a full fledged cloud server with email and website. Here are a few options from simple to more complicated.
1 Proton Mail
Proton.me offers the only free email that I would consider at this time. The Swiss based company is a industry heavyweight when it comes to privacy with over 100 million user accounts, and has always maintained a very strict privacy posture. They offer several products related to privacy, with both free and paid email among them.
Their free service is only available via their webmail interface. Their $50/year ‘Mail Plus’ package gets you all the bells and whistles, supports email clients (like Thunderbird), and comes with a lot of other privacy focused features (VPN, Password vault, etc.).
While not very cheap, this is a premium option for those who want a email address that isn’t compromised. If you are okay with using their website or phone app exclusively, their free tier is worth looking at, but not without limitations.
2 Purelymail
Purelymail.com offers barebones email with no frills and no compromises to your privacy. Not without considerations – support is slow, and the creator just sold the company to another guy.
But it is $10 a year. It support POP/Imap (ie: your own email client, like Thunderbird). And they don’t sell your stuff!
I mean, if ten bucks is all you got to protect your personal stuff, your personal stuff probably isn’t worth that much to anyone so go ahead and keep using hotmail.
However, if you want your own domain (me@somecoolname.com), and want cheap, purelymail.com is the way.
3 Hostinger
Hostinger.com is my recommendation for anyone that can hold their own with this blog. A full webserver with a robust environment, clean site portal, wordpress and basic html support, along with top level support if you need it. They run great promotions and offer 4+ year packages at very compelling rates. You can host many domains, support unlimited users, and they have excellent training videos on youtube.
I’ve been with Hostinger for over 5 years and have been very happy. I host this site along with all of my other sites on Hostinger and run several email accounts as well.
For basic email with a domain name, it is about $20/year:
[Four years of email and three years of domain + $18 for the domain name’s 4th year = $84 / 4yr]
The full hosting package that I have comes out to around $50 a year.
Post below if you have a favorite email host or anything to say about the topic.
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