Most hosting agreements include email.  Almost without question, every service provider will give you the same thing.  This is where the marketing comes in to play.  Some will boast about the volume of email accounts a client will get.  Some will market the number of aliases.  This is almost irrelevant.  Most people wanting to setup a website with email will never need 100 email accounts.  Service providers understand this, so they market the volume hoping you compare their service to others, and pick them based on the number of available email accounts. For most, there is no difference between 20 emails and 1,000 emails, because you will never need more than 20. 

The basic service offerings related to email are as follows.

• POP3/SMTP Email:  This means you can send and receive email.  If the provider doesn’t offer SMTP, and some don’t, it means you will have to use your internet service provider’s outgoing mail servers.  This is very infrequently an issue. 

• Webmail:  This gives you the ability to check your email from any computer via a web browser.  This is nice if you travel, or frequently check your email from multiple computers.  There is a variety of robustness with different webmail.  If you plan to check your mail via a web browser frequently, you may want to look at this option in more depth.  For most, this is a nice-to-have, but isn’t something that is used frequently. 

There are two things that are becoming very important, if not a requirement to have.  The first is SPAM protection.  With the massive increase in SPAM, it is important to employ a provider that takes aggressive steps to limit junk email.  Goodfriend Solutions uses the same technology that many government agencies, including the FBI, to decrease the amount of spam and employ a high level of security.  Our servers remove over 70% of all emails before our customers see them in their inbox.  We work with a number of agencies to identify and track known attacks, and eliminate them before they become a nuisance.

If multiple stations are used to check the email, whether it be 2 PCs with Outlook, or 1 PC and an cell phone, you may want to use a provider that allows you to setup emails using IMAP.  The advantage of IMAP over POP3 is that it maintains synchronization between all your devices.  If you create folders to organize your email and move emails into those folders on one device, the same changes will exist on every device when they sync.  This can substantially increase your productivity and organization.  Although IMAP requires more hardware Goodfriend Solutions offers IMAP because we feel the importance of productivity and convenience is worth the price.