How Much Does a Custom Email Address Cost?

Short answer: a custom email address usually costs less than $6 a month. The longer answer comes down to one choice — whether you just want a professional address that lands in your existing inbox, or a completely separate mailbox.

The two things you're paying for

Every custom email setup has two parts:

• A domain — your yourname.com. Expect about $10–15 per year for a typical .com.
• A way to receive mail at that domain — either forwarding (cheap) or a full mailbox (more).

Option 1: Forwarding — the cheapest path

Forwarding sends mail from your domain straight to an inbox you already use, like Gmail. There's no separate account and no per-mailbox fee. With forwarding through Routr, it's $4.99/month (or $39.99/year) for every address on your domain. Add a domain at roughly $1/month and your all-in cost is about $5–6/month.

Option 2: A full mailbox

If you need a standalone inbox — its own storage, calendar, and login — a hosted mailbox like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 runs around $7 per user/month, billed for each mailbox you create, plus the domain. It's more powerful, but you're also paying for a second inbox to check and per-person pricing as you grow.

Side-by-side

Which should you choose?

If you want a professional address that shows up in the inbox you already live in, forwarding is the simplest and cheapest answer — and you can always upgrade later. If you need a separate, full-featured mailbox per person (shared drives, admin controls, lots of storage), a hosted suite is worth the higher price. Plenty of freelancers and small teams happily run on forwarding for years.

Frequently asked questions