A classic beginner trap: bundling website hosting and email on the same cheap shared plan, then wondering why deliverability is a nightmare.
Host-provided email — free/included, convenient, fine for a couple of low-volume addresses. Downsides: shared-IP reputation you don't control, weaker spam filtering, storage limits, and if the host has an outage your mail and site go down together. 📉
Dedicated providers (Google Workspace / Zoho / Fastmail) — far better deliverability and spam filtering, proper mobile/calendar/sync, and — crucially — your email survives a website migration untouched. Zoho even has a genuinely usable free tier for a single domain. Downsides: monthly per-user cost (except Zoho's free tier), and you must set up MX/SPF/DKIM correctly.
Rule of thumb: anything business-critical → dedicated email provider. Keeping web and email separate also means switching hosts never risks your inbox.
What's your setup, and have you had a deliverability horror story that changed your mind? 📬
