What Is Business Email Hosting? Explained for Non-Technical Founders
MX records, mailboxes, webmail and IMAP apps in plain English — no jargon wall.
Business email hosting connects your domain name to servers that receive and store mail. You read it in a browser (webmail) or in mail apps like Outlook and Apple Mail over IMAP — no server maintenance on your side.
Quick summary
- Your domain — the name after the @, which you rent from a registrar
- DNS records — settings on that domain that tell the world which server handles your mail
- The mail host — the service that receives, stores and sends your mail, and gives you mailboxes
- Webmail — in any browser, nothing to install
- Desktop apps such as Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird, connected over IMAP and SMTP
The three parts
- Your domain — the name after the @, which you rent from a registrar
- DNS records — settings on that domain that tell the world which server handles your mail
- The mail host — the service that receives, stores and sends your mail, and gives you mailboxes
How a message reaches you
When someone emails you@yourcompany.com, their mail server looks up the MX records (the settings that tell the internet where to deliver email for your domain) for yourcompany.com. That record names your mail host’s server, so the message is delivered there and stored in your mailbox. When you send, your host signs the message with DKIM and sends it from servers listed in your SPF record, so the receiving server can check it really came from you.
Ways to read your mail
- Webmail — in any browser, nothing to install
- Desktop apps such as Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird, connected over IMAP and SMTP
- Your phone’s mail app, using the same IMAP/SMTP settings
- An API, for mail your website or app sends automatically
What you do not need
You do not need to run a server, move your domain or have a website. With OquMail you add a handful of DNS records at your current registrar, create mailboxes and start sending. It is free for up to 15 mailboxes.