Set up professional email at your own domain

A gmail.com address tells customers you haven't fully committed to the business yet. you@yourbusiness.com tells them the opposite, and lands in inboxes more reliably for invoices, quotes, and follow-ups.

Custom email is the single cheapest upgrade to how serious your business looks.

You can do this in one sitting if you've got:

• Your domain, registered and pointed at your registrar's nameservers.
• The names of everyone who needs a real mailbox.
• About 10 minutes and your phone nearby.

If your domain and mail live with the same provider, add the mail product through that same account. DNS records get configured for you. No copy-pasting MX values, no waiting on a support thread.

1. From your registrar's dashboard, add the professional email product (the entry-level plan is enough; pick the office-suite tier if you also want word processing and spreadsheets).
2. Pick the domain you want email on.
3. Create a mailbox per person: firstname@yourbusiness.com.
4. Wait about 5 minutes for DNS to propagate.
5. Log into your new webmail with the credentials they sent and send a test email to your personal address.
6. Add the mailbox to your phone's mail app so you don't miss the first real one.

Most providers configure SPF for you when you turn on professional mail. Once mail is flowing for a week, add a DMARC record. It stops anyone from spoofing your domain when you send invoices.

Start with one mailbox per real person. Add free aliases like hello@ and billing@ that forward into your inbox. You can split them into real mailboxes later if the volume justifies it.