Used to be, you could get reliable, quality email hosting from almost any internet service provider.  That was before spam became endemic.  Spam has increased so much, and spammers have become so technically sophisticated, that many email hosting providers (including rather large ones!) are simply overwhelmed with junk email.   Increasingly, we find that the biggest consideration in choosing an email hosting provider is how good a job they are doing at keeping the spam out of your inbox.

This means that choosing a reliable email hosting provider is harder than it used to be.  And setting things up can be harder (and sometimes a bit more costly) than before. 

As with so many other technology decisions, there are many tradeoffs you can make between cost, convenience, level of support and quality.

In this article, we'll offer some options that we think may be suitable for nonprofit organizations of roughly 2-20 people.  If you're much larger, much smaller, or have unusual technical needs, you'll probably find these options somewhat limiting.

Ok, deep breath, here we go!

Google Apps for Your Domain

Google rocked the webmail world when they rolled out Gmail, which sported an innovative, fast web interface.   Then, they made things even more interesting by rolling out  Google Apps for Your Domain, aka "Gmail for Domains" which provides Gmail powered email accounts (and more) under your own domain name.   Google also now offers the premium "Education Edition" to nonprofits for free.

For now, Google Apps is supported by text ads in the mail interface.  (You can use a Firefox plugin called CustomizeGoogle to hide these ads, if you're so inclined.)

Gmail offers a great web interface, 6+ GB of storage space per account (that's a lot!), strong spam filtering, and the ability to download mail using the POP email client of your choice.  Gmail is well documented, and is pretty easy to set up and manage. Google also offers strong integration with their "Google Calendar" service, which provides a nice, shareable web-based calendar.

One major downside to Google Apps is that Google offers no real technical support. You're pretty much on your own with the documentation.   While their systems have been pretty reliable so far, some organizations may want the security of knowing there's someone at the other end of the phone.

NPOMail from Electric Embers

Our friends at Electric Embers, who offer high-touch, high-quality email and other hosting services to nonprofit clients, have a solid email hosting service called NPOMail.  It's priced on a sliding scale -- $10/month for organizations with annual budgets under $750,000, $20/month for organizations with annual budgets over $750,000.  That price includes 10 email accounts (extra accounts are $1-2/month depending on your budget).   That's not the cheapest price around, but Electric Embers offers a very high level of tech support, takes a great deal of care with their spam and virus protection, and are trusted, reputable good folks with a strong orientation towards social change.  In other words, you'll feel good about doing business with them -- and they will be accountable to you! 

NPOShield: Cost effective, high quality virus & spam filtering

Electric Embers also offers a less expensive "mailwashing" service called NPOShield.  NPOShield allows you to continue using your existing email hosting arrangement, but thanks to the magic of technology, Electric Embers can help you set things up so that all your incoming email is routed through their servers, cleaned of viruses and spam, and then sent on its way to your current email hosting provider.  This can be a great option if you are basically happy with your existing email provider, except there's just too much spam getting through.

NPOShield, like other Electric Embers services, is priced on a two-tier system -- $5/month for organizations with annual budgets under $750,000, $10/month for organizations with annual budgets over $750,000.  NPOShield includes protection for 10 email addresses; additional addresses are $.50/month - $1/month each.

http://www.electricembers.net

CrystalTech

Although primarily known as a webhosting company, CrystalTech's cheapest webhosting plan ($6/month) includes 50 email accounts powered by SmarterMail, which offers a powerful, polished webmail interface.  CrystalTech's customer support is generally pretty good, but they are a large operation, so support quality can be highly variable.

Like most large ISPs, CrystalTech has been hard hit by spam in the past year, resulting in a considerable number of frustrated customers who have seen large increases in the amount of spam hitting their inboxes.  CrystalTech has been responding with software upgrades, but the pace has been relatively slow.  You may want to check out CrystalTech's email forum for the latest.

Still, the price is pretty attractive. If you're going to use CrystalTech (or any large ISP) we'd recommend pairing it with a "mailwashing" service such as Electric Embers' NPOShield (see above) to help eliminate spam before it hits the CrystalTech servers, or installing good anti-spam software such as SpamBayes on each of your desktop machines.

DreamHost

DreamHost is a large, generally well-regarded webhosting provider that is currently offering free web and email hosting services to 501(c)3 nonprofits.  Even if you're not planning to take advantage of their webhosting services, they may be worth considering as an email hosting provider. 

Like other large ISPs, though, they have been hit hard by a massive surge in spam in 2006, which has left many formerly-satisfied customers complaining. If you're going to use DreamHost (or any large ISP), we'd recommend pairing it with a "mailwashing" service such as Electric Embers' NPOShield (see above) to help eliminate spam before it hits the DreamHost servers, or installing good anti-spam software such as SpamBayes on each of your desktop machines.

Note: some of our nonprofit technology peers report good experiences with DreamHost, others not so good.  This may be about par for the course with large hosting companies. 

Other Things Worth Briefly Mentioning

Hosting Email Yourself

Larger organizations with in-house technology staff may well consider hosting email in-house, possibly in combination with an outsourced spam-filtering service such as Electric Embers.  This is what we do at ONE/Northwest, and it works pretty well for us.  It's not a good solution unless you have staffers with strong technology skills, though.  And it's almost certainly not cost effective for groups with fewer than about 10 staffers.

Microsoft Exchange Hosting Services

If your organization is heavily dependent on the mail, calendar and task sharing capabilities of Microsoft Exchange, but can't support an in-house installation of Exchange Server, then you might consider hosting your email with a company that provides outsourced Exchange hosting services.  A number of such providers are listed at http://www.msexchange.org/services/Exchange-Hosting. Cost is about $10/month per user -- considerably more expensive than non-Exchange email hosting, but possibly worthwhile for small-but-sophsticated or intensely collaborative organizations.

Conclusions

There is no "one best" answer for email hosting.  You need to consider carefully such factors as:

• The size of your organization
• Your need for attentive technical support
• Your willingness and ability to pay

Overall, we think that Google offers a powerful, easy-to-use service at a hard-to-beat price -- if you can live without tech support.

If you want high quality customer service from a "boutique" vendor, and are willing to pay a little more than nothing for it, Electric Embers is a good choice.  In the big scheme of things, email is inexpensive -- and absolutely vital.  And sometimes, you do get what you pay for. 

If you're willing to do a bit more setup work in order to save a few dollars, then combining Electric Embers' NPOShield mailwashing service with accounts at DreamHost or CrystalTech may be a good choice.  Overall, we think CrystalTech has a slightly better track record around customer service and support, but these things are very, very hard to measure.   Both CrystalTech and DreamHost (and most other larger ISPs) have been hit hard by spam, and so we don't recommend using them without either a third-party mailwashing service and/or properly-configured anti-spam software on each of your client machines.