It’s easy to see why A2 Hosting is one of the best email hosting services out there - it’s a very good all-rounder. It’s also affordable. You may want a shorter subscription but the terms on offer suggest that A2 is committed to its customers too. A contract works both ways. In terms of reliability and speed, A2 performs well and its support options are extensive. So, if you do need to get in direct contact with the company, it shouldn’t be a problem.
A2 Hosting: Plans and pricing
Standing apart from other business email hosting providers, A2 Hosting keeps things simple by offering just two different pricing tiers: Professional and Pro Plus. The Professional plan is available for $1.59 per account per month on a 36-month plan, while the Pro Plus plan costs $2.59 per account per month, again for a 36-month plan. In addition, it’s also possible to purchase email hosting as an add-on to an A2 Hosting web hosting plan, with prices for email hosting add-ons starting from $1.99 per month.
While there are free email hosting plans available, these are unlikely to be suitable for even the smallest businesses. This is because using a generic Gmail or Outlook account name isn’t necessarily the best image in terms of your company’s seriousness and professionalism. In addition, opting for a paid email hosting plan like those offered by A2 Hosting, provides you with a range of additional features, as well as additional security and uptime guarantees.
A2’s email hosting plans are competitively priced in any case and come with a money-back guarantee so there’s limited risk in going with this service. For instance, you can request a full refund within the first 30 days of you signing up and a prorated refund for any unused service if you choose to cancel after this, rounded up to the next full month of service.
Features
Starting with the Professional plan, features include 10 GB of cloud storage per account, integrated email, calendar and contacts, and multi-email account administration tools. There’s also support for webmail and native apps for Android and iOS. This is especially important given the rise of hybrid work. For many employees, it’s no longer the case that they are chained to their desks during the traditional 9-5, so it’s essential they can check their emails remotely.
Other important features included within the Pro plans are email importing and email filtering. Email importing from a different email account on a remote server is straightforward with either the Professional or Pro Plus plans and A2 provides a helpful guide to speed things along. Filtering functionality is also a plus and allows you to take more control of your inbox. This means you can better organize and prioritize your emails, including the ability to set custom filter rules tailored to your preferences.
At the Pro Plus pricing tier, there’s quite a lot of additional functionality and it’s nice to see that you are getting something for the higher price tag. For instance, customers at this price range get everything that comes with the Professional plan, plus read receipts, follow-up reminders, send later and send as alias features. You’ll find that many of the features that come with the Pro Plus plans are all about saving you time - and they are pretty successful at it. For example, the email templates and signature builder features save you from repetitive tasks when sending the same (or very similar) messages frequently.
It’s also worth noting that you can access A2’s email hosting services, including the features we’ve mentioned, for free when you sign up to some of its other hosting services. Although some of its premium functionality is saved for its dedicated email hosting plans, you can still receive a customized email address and “moderate” features if you choose to go with any of A2’s shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS hosting, or dedicated hosting plans.
Support
Support is one of the strengths of A2 Hosting’s email hosting service. The company has a customer service team that it calls “The Guru Crew” available to contact 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This can be via telephone, email, or live chat too, so there are multiple ways of getting a response to your query.
You can also submit a support ticket if you’d rather get in touch with A2 Hosting that way and there’s a pretty extensive knowledgebase to help you resolve any issues you may have yourself. The latter includes resources on account management, importing contacts, set up and more. There’s also an even larger knowledgebase covering some of A2 Hosting’s other services. Should you have an issue with any of these, whether it's web hosting, WordPress hosting or anything else, it probably won’t be hard to find a solution.
Overall, it’s the sheer number of different support options available to A2Hosting email hosting customers that makes this service stand out. While some providers are relatively limited in how you are able to get in touch with them, A2 Hosting leaves the decision firmly in the customer’s hands.
Security
On the surface, at least, A2 Hosting’s email hosting plans offer some decent safeguards. Two-factor authentication can be easily enabled for both the Professional and Pro Plus email hosting plans, there’s support for the SSL, POP3, and IMAP protocols to add encryption around your communications, and spam and malware protection come as standard. We did read some complaints online that A2 deleted a customer’s entire email account without warning because their subscriptions had expired, but we didn’t have any concerns.
The competition
A2 Hosting’s email hosting plan comes with a handy comparison guide that goes someway to revealing who the company sees as its main rivals. These include Google Workspace, Zoho Mail, Microsoft 365, Rackspace, and IceWarp.
Compared to the competition, A2 Hosting really stands out as a great all-rounder. There aren’t really any other email hosting services that offer such a wide range of support options, as well as cloud storage and security features.
A2 Hosting: Final verdict
As with its other hosting services, A2 Hosting’s email hosting stands up very well. Some customers may have reservations about the pricing plans available or A2’s security credentials, but we thought both would be ideal for a wide range of businesses.
We've also featured the best email hosting services.
