MailHow vs Google Workspace
Google Workspace Business Starter is about €82/year and covers several domains on one licence — but every alias domain gives you the same address, and it can't keep your data in the EU.
The short version
Gmail has the best spam filtering in the world, Google is not going to disappear, and Workspace gives you Docs, Drive and Meet on top of mail. If you want an office suite, buy it — this page will not talk you out of it. But if what you actually want is several domains in one mailbox, there are two catches worth knowing before you pay. A free “user alias domain” gives every domain the *same* address — you get john@a.com and john@b.com, and you cannot have hello@a.com and sales@b.com. To do that you add them as secondary domains, which bills per user, per domain. And Business Starter cannot keep your data in the EU at all.
What it costs: one person, five domains
$29/yr flat. Unlimited domains, any address you like on each of them, 10GB — and free to receive for as long as you want before you pay.
Business Starter is €6.80 per user/month (currently €6.12 with a 10% promotion), so roughly €82/year for one person, with 30GB of pooled storage. Up to 20 user alias domains cost nothing extra — but they mirror the same address on every domain. No free tier; a 14-day trial.
Side by side
| MailHow | Google Workspace | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for the persona | $29/yr | ~€82/yr (per user) |
| Domains | Unlimited | Up to 20 free alias domains; more as billed secondary domains |
| Different addresses per domain | Yes — anything@anything | Not on free alias domains: they mirror the same local part (john@a.com, john@b.com) |
| Storage | 10GB | 30GB pooled |
| Spam filtering | Stalwart + Amazon SES reputation | Gmail's — the best in the business |
| Office suite | None — we sell mail | Docs, Sheets, Drive, Meet |
| Native apps & calendar | Web only; no calendar UI yet | Full apps and calendar |
| EU data residency | Germany (Hetzner), always | Business Starter is not eligible for data regions |
| Free tier | Free to receive, forever, with IMAP | None — 14-day trial |
| IMAP | Yes, with an app password | Yes, but OAuth-gated |
A green check marks a row where Google Workspace beats us. Figures checked 2026-07-08 — they change their prices and we change ours, so verify before you buy.
Where Google Workspace is better
- Gmail's spam filtering and search. We are not going to claim we match it — nobody does.
- Docs, Sheets, Drive and Meet, plus real native apps and a calendar. We sell mail and nothing else.
- Three times our storage, and the reliability of the largest mail operator on earth.
- If you are a business with employees rather than one person with projects, Workspace is simply the right shape of product.
Documented friction with Google Workspace
Every item below links to its source. We list only things that are published and checkable — not rumours, and not our opinion of them.
A free “user alias domain” gives each user the same address at every domain — so you cannot have different addresses on different domains without adding them as secondary domains, which are billed per user, per domain.
Google: add a user alias domain or secondary domainBusiness Starter is not eligible for data regions — on this plan you cannot choose to keep your data in the EU. That requires upgrading to a more expensive tier.
Google Workspace: data regions eligibility
Which one should you actually buy?
- You want an office suite, not just email.
- You want Gmail's spam filter and are happy to pay roughly three times as much for it.
- You are buying for a team — Workspace is per-user for a reason and it is good at that.
- The same address on every domain (john@a.com, john@b.com) is genuinely what you want.
- You want different addresses on different domains — hello@one.com and sales@another.com — without paying per user, per domain.
- You need your mail data to stay in the EU. Business Starter cannot do that.
- You want to run your domains for free while you decide.
- You want mail, and you do not want to buy a suite to get it.
Receiving on your own domains is free on MailHow, with no card — so you can point one domain at us, leave the rest where they are, and see for yourself before moving anything. Start free.
Sources
Checked 2026-07-08. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it — including when the correction favours Google Workspace.