yourbusiness@gmail.com tells people you are part-time, and you pay for that impression every day you send it.
What free email actually costs you
I don't need a survey to tell you how an invoice from a gmail address reads. It looks like a person with a laptop, not a business, and customers feel that before they can explain it. Spam filters feel it too: mail from a free provider doing business duty gets graded more harshly than mail from your own domain. The bigger problem is control. When a free mailbox gets compromised or locked, your side of the conversation is a support form and a prayer. That inbox was never yours. It was lent to you.
The move itself is boring. That's the good news
Buy the domain. Create the mailboxes. Run both addresses for a week while people adjust. Forward the old one so you catch everyone still typing your gmail out of habit. That's the whole operation, and most small businesses finish inside a week.
The part people underestimate is DNS. SPF, DKIM, DMARC. Skip those and your shiny new address gets flagged as spoofing, which is worse than where you started. Get the records configured before you hand the address to anyone.
What we set up for you
Olorun Cloud's Premium Business Email runs from R42 a month: you@yourbusiness.co.za, ActiveSync so mail behaves properly on your phone, spam filtering, daily backups, and the DNS done right the first time. Bring your own domain or register one with us. Either way you'll be off the borrowed inbox before the week is out.
Questions about migrating? Talk to us at Olorun Cloud.