Should your business use a free e-mail provider

Should your business use a free e-mail provider? There are pros and cons to using a free e-mail provider. You need to be aware of these pros and cons before you make a decision on which type of e-mail to get for your business. Consider the pros and cons and decide which ones are more important and which do not matter to you and your business.
First let's discuss the pros of a free e-mail provider. The first obvious pro is that the service is free. You can get all of your employees on a free e-mail provider. There is no limit to how many employees you can add, because it is all free. Another pro is that it provides confidentiality to employees. Employees can send and receive e-mails without worrying about employers finding out personal and private information. This is a benefit employees would get, but employers would not see it as a benefit. They would want to monitor incoming and outgoing information.

Another pro to have a free e-mail provider is that it is easy to access your account no matter what computer you are on, as long as you have the Internet. If you decide to go through the same company you get your Internet through, it is sometimes harder to access your account from any computer. Of course it is possible, but it is often a different process that what you are used to at home or in your office.
The first con to having a free e-mail provider would be that employers have less monitoring. Employees are free to email and do whatever, without the employer ever finding out. This is scary because it could lead to viruses that could affect the entire business. Free e-mail providers are pretty obvious that they are free, and they don't look very professional. If you decide to get a free e-mail provider, make sure there is some consistency and professionalism in the addresses your employees choose. There needs to be some kind of uniformity. A first initial and last name is a good standard way to pick email addresses.
If you get a free e-mail provider, you may not get as much storage capacity as you want. Most free e-mails have very limited storage capacity. It depends on your business and what types of e-mail you are sending. If you have e-mails with a lot of attachments and big files to send back and forth, a free e-mail provider may not be the way to go. Some free e-mail providers let you upgrade to a larger capacity of storage for a monthly fee, but then your "free e-mail" is no longer free.
Another downside to using a free e-mail provider is security issues. You have to rely on their filtering and security system to keep viruses out. You are more likely to get a lot of spam (junk) mail if you have a free e-mail provider.
So it's up to you. Decide if the pros or cons mean more to you and decide from there. Decide if cost, privacy, and accessibility is more important than security and professionalism. If you do decide to get a free e-mail provider, research the features of each one. You want to get one that is easy for your employees to learn how to use, one that is as secure as a free e-mail provider can be, and one that has all the options you are looking for. Good luck with the search!

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