Advanced: cutting your email costs safely

This is an advanced service. It is for a business that pays for several mailboxes, has role addresses such as info@, quotes@ or bookings@, has had staff come and go, and has someone who can go through the email admin settings with the intern.

If you are one or two people with a single mailbox, you do not need it. There is nothing to cut. Leave your mailbox as it is, or, if you have a second address, have it forward to the mailbox you already use.

An intern does this work with you, from a workflow they were trained on. You make the decisions; they do the checking, the writing and the testing.

Why not your own email server?

Owners sometimes ask whether this can end with a free email server of their own. We say no. A home-made mail server has to stay off spam blocklists or your mail lands in junk folders; many internet providers block the connection mail servers need to send; and spam filtering and security updates never stop. Email is too important to your business for that. We connect your tools to an email provider; we never replace it. The saving comes from paying for fewer mailboxes, or for cheaper ones from a hosted provider.

What your intern does first

Your intern starts from what you pay: the amount and the number of seats on your own email bill, entered in your subscription review under "Email mailboxes, sending or delivery service".

Then they ask you, or whoever manages your email, for the list of accounts from your email provider's admin console, and show you where it is on a call. They read that list. Nobody reads anyone's mailbox, and your intern never goes through your email or bank statements to find costs.

The quick wins, and what you decide

From that list, your intern brings you three kinds of seat to decide on:

• People who have left. You decide whether each seat goes. Before it does, the person's mail is saved with your provider's own export or transfer tool, and you ask your accountant or lawyer how long you must keep business records.
• Suspended accounts. Google's own page says suspended accounts "are still charged at the same rate as active accounts", so suspending someone does not save money.
• Role addresses with a seat of their own. They can often become an alias, a group or a shared inbox your plan already includes. When we read the providers' pages on 9 October 2026, Google said you can add up to 30 aliases for each user "at no extra cost", and Microsoft said a shared mailbox "can store up to 50 GB of data without assigning a license to it".

Your intern also checks your plan's billing terms: Google's page says that on an Annual plan, deleting an account "doesn't reduce the number of licenses you have". All of it goes into a one-page plan, and nothing happens until you sign it.

Free forwarding services, such as Cloudflare Email Routing (free when we read its page on 9 October 2026), only receive and forward mail, and its setup page says "Cannot use Email Routing with external mail servers". Your intern uses it only for a spare domain with no mailboxes, never your main one.

Only if you choose it: a cheaper provider

Some providers charge per person, others a flat price for the whole account. For example, Migadu's pricing page on 9 October 2026 said its plan prices "are flat, per Migadu account", however many mailboxes you have, with daily limits on how much mail each plan sends. Prices change and differ by country, so your intern reads each provider's own page on the day and writes the date next to every price.

A move is the riskiest step, so you decide each stage:

• The move plan. You approve the dates, the settings that change, and how to switch back.
• The pilot. One mailbox moves first and is used for a few days. You decide whether everyone else follows.
• The switch. Your domain's email settings (MX, SPF and DKIM) change exactly as the plan says, and your intern runs a check that proves nothing else in your domain changed, including your website. Then they test mail both ways and set up each person's phone and laptop again with them.
• Cancelling the old plan. Your old provider stays active through a quiet period you pick. Only then, with your yes, is it cancelled.

What stays safe

• Your mail. Nothing is deleted before it is saved, and nothing moves without a pilot and a way back.
• Your passwords. You add your intern as an administrator with the smallest role that can read users and reports, or do the clicks yourself with your intern on a call. Never send a password. At the end, your intern removes their own role and tells you in writing.
• Your website and other settings. The check after any change proves only the planned email settings changed.

What you get at the end

The plan you signed, where each saved mailbox is kept, your next bill next to the last one, and, if you moved, the check that said only the planned settings changed.

To have an intern do this with you, post a project. To keep someone on it afterwards, see Keeping your intern on a retainer.