Email & Microsoft 365
business email
and microsoft 365,
done properly.
Genuine Microsoft 365 licences, Exchange Online, or an independent alternative — mailboxes on your own domain, billed per seat, with the spam-stopping records set up for you.
three ways to run business email.
Most people arrive assuming “business email” means Microsoft 365, and for a lot of offices it does. But two of the three cost less, and one is not Microsoft at all. Here is the plain version of what each one is and who it suits.
Microsoft 365
Email plus the full Office toolkit
Genuine Microsoft licences: business email alongside the desktop and web Office apps, Teams and OneDrive that most offices already run on.
- Real Microsoft 365 licences
- Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint
- Teams and OneDrive included
- Add or drop seats any month
Best if
Your team lives in Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams all day.
Exchange Online
Business email, without the Office apps
Enterprise-grade mail, shared calendars and contacts with mobile sync — without an on-premises server, and at a lower price than the full bundle.
- Mail, calendar and contacts
- Shared calendars and distribution lists
- No on-site server to run
- Cheaper than the full 365 bundle
Best if
You need proper email but already have Office, or never use it.
OX App Suite
An independent, non-Microsoft option
Open-Xchange: a complete, independent mail platform with webmail, calendars and contacts, for teams that want an alternative to the Microsoft ecosystem.
- Independent of Microsoft
- Full webmail, calendar and contacts
- Works with Outlook, Apple Mail, mobile
- Billed per seat, same as the rest
Best if
You would rather not route your mail through Microsoft at all.
side by side.
The same nine questions across all three, so the differences are the only thing you have to read.
| Microsoft 365 | Exchange Online | OX App Suite | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailbox on your own domain | Included | Included | Included |
| Shared calendars and contacts | Included | Included | Included |
| Works with Outlook, Apple Mail, mobile | Included | Included | Included |
| Webmail in the browser | Included | Included | Included |
| Microsoft Office apps (Word, Excel) | Included | Not included | Not included |
| Teams and OneDrive | Included | Not included | Not included |
| Runs independently of Microsoft | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Per-seat billing, no minimum block | Included | Included | Included |
| MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up for you | Included | Included | Included |
what every mailbox comes with.
Whichever platform you land on, the way it is set up and billed is the same — and it is built to be the last email supplier you have to think about.
Mailboxes on your own domain
Your addresses stay exactly as they are — name@yourbusiness.co.uk. You are moving where the mail is hosted, not what your customers type to reach you.
Per-seat billing, no minimum
Pay for the mailboxes you actually use. No block of twenty-five licences to buy into when you employ six people — add and remove seats as staff join and leave.
Spam records set up for you
We configure MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain — the records that decide whether your mail reaches the inbox or the junk folder. Easy to get subtly wrong, so we would rather do it than have you guess.
Works with the apps you use
Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and the mobile mail apps all connect normally. Prefer not to set anything up? Webmail works in the browser from day one.
One account for everything
Mail, hosting and domains on a single invoice, in one client area, handled by the team who run the platform — not three separate suppliers to chase.
Scales with your team
Start with one mailbox or fifty. Because licensing is per seat, the bill follows your headcount up and down instead of forcing you into fixed tiers.
business email plans
Live pricing from our billing system — per seat, month to month, and exactly what you pay at checkout.
microsoft 365
The full Microsoft bundle — email plus Office, Teams and OneDrive. The right call for most offices.
Showing monthly pricing.
Hover to pause · all 13 plans shown
exchange online
Business-grade email, calendars and contacts on their own, at a lower per-seat price than the full bundle.
Showing monthly pricing.
Exchange Online (Plan 1) [New Commerce Experience]
Microsoft Exchange Online (Plan 1) helps businesses to maintain control over their environment while gaining the advantage of hosting email on Microsoft servers.
£5.99/mo
Exchange Online (Plan 1) [New Commerce Experience]
Microsoft Exchange Online (Plan 1) helps businesses to maintain control over their environment while gaining the advantage of hosting email on Microsoft servers.
£6.99/mo
Exchange Online (Plan 2) [New Commerce Experience]
Microsoft Exchange Online (Plan 2) includes all the features of Exchange Online (Plan 1), plus unlimited storage, hosted voicemail, and data loss prevention.
£11.99/mo
ox app suite
An independent, Microsoft-free platform for teams who would rather host their mail elsewhere.
Showing monthly pricing.
OX App Suite
OX App Suite is a powerful email, communication and collaboration solution that gives you secure, reliable and professional email, calendaring, contacts and more.
£2.99/mo
OX App Suite + Productivity
OX App Suite + Productivity takes all the features of OX App Suite email, communication and collaboration and adds Productivity Apps and Cloud Storage enabling you to create, edit and share Microsoft Office docs online.
£4.99/mo
the settings that stop your mail going to spam.
Whether your email lands in the inbox has less to do with what you write and more to do with three DNS records most people never see. Get them wrong and your invoices go to junk; leave them off and anyone can send as you. We set all three up when we configure your domain — here is what they actually do.
SPF — who is allowed to send
A short record listing the servers permitted to send email from your domain. Without it, a spammer can forge your address, and filters treat everything from you with suspicion.
DKIM — a signature filters can check
Adds an invisible cryptographic signature to every message. The receiving server checks it to confirm the mail genuinely came from you and was not altered on the way.
DMARC — the rule that ties it together
Tells other mail servers what to do with anything that fails those checks, and can report who is trying to send as you. It is what turns SPF and DKIM from advisory into enforced.
moving your email across.
The part people dread — losing mail mid-switch — comes almost entirely from doing it in the wrong order. We set your mailboxes up and get everyone connected first, then change the MX record last. Email is built to retry, so a message that arrives during the switch is held by the sender and delivered a moment later rather than bounced.
Easy to forget when moving email
- Copying old mail and folders across, not just creating empty mailboxes
- Recreating shared calendars and distribution lists
- Reconnecting phones and Outlook to the new mailbox
- Updating SPF, DKIM and DMARC so mail keeps arriving
- Lowering the MX record's TTL a day before, not on the day
Domain search
need the domain the mail sits on?
Register or transfer the domain your addresses live on, with renewal prices shown next to registration prices.
business email questions
Can I keep my existing email address?
Yes. Mailboxes are created on your own domain, so name@yourbusiness.co.uk stays exactly as it is. What changes is where the mail is hosted and how it is billed — not what your customers type to reach you.
Are these genuine Microsoft 365 licences?
Yes. We resell genuine Microsoft 365 licences in the UK — the same Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams and OneDrive you would get from Microsoft directly, but on one invoice alongside your hosting and domains and supported through a single account.
What is the difference between Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online?
Exchange Online is the mail, calendar and contacts service on its own. Microsoft 365 bundles that together with the Office applications, Teams and OneDrive. If you only need email, Exchange Online costs less; if your staff use Word and Excel every day, the bundle usually works out better value.
What is OX App Suite, and why would I choose it?
OX App Suite is built on Open-Xchange, an independent mail platform that is not Microsoft. You get webmail, calendars and contacts that work with the usual mail apps. Businesses choose it when they would rather not route their email through the Microsoft ecosystem at all.
Can I mix Microsoft 365 and Exchange Online across my team?
Yes. Because everything is billed per seat, you can put the people who need Office on Microsoft 365 and everyone else on a cheaper Exchange Online mailbox, all under one account. Tell us the split and we will set it up.
How many mailboxes can I have?
As many as you need. Licensing is per seat, so mailboxes are added and removed as your team changes, and there is no minimum block to buy into — six people means six seats, not a compulsory twenty-five.
Do you help with SPF, DKIM and DMARC?
Yes — and we would rather set them up than have you guess. Those three records are what keep your mail out of other people's spam folders, and they are easy to get subtly wrong in ways that are hard to diagnose weeks later. We configure them on your domain as part of getting you live.
Will moving to you knock my email offline?
The switch itself is quick and planned around not losing mail. We set your new mailboxes up and connect everyone before we change the MX record, and email is built to retry — a message that arrives mid-switch is held by the sending server and delivered shortly after, rather than bounced. Talk to us and we will plan the move around your working hours.
Can I use my own mail client?
Yes. Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and the mobile mail apps all connect normally. Webmail is available too if you would rather not configure anything.
How is business email billed?
Per seat, monthly or annually, on the same invoice as any hosting and domains you keep with us. The plan cards read live from our billing system, so the price you see there is the price at checkout.
business email, without the guesswork.
Tell us how many people need a mailbox and which platform fits, and we will set it up on your domain — MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC included. Not sure which? That is the conversation we would rather have.