What Business Email and Domains Cost per Year
By CodexierPublished 5 min read
A domain and business email are among the smallest items in a company's budget, which is exactly why nobody reviews them. Year by year the total creeps up: an introductory domain price that quadruples on renewal, a licence for an employee who left last spring, a security add-on that duplicates what the plan already includes. This guide goes through each cost component, from domain registration to backups, explains what drives the price, and lists the places where small Swedish companies most often pay for more than they use.
Domain registration and renewals
A .se or .com domain usually costs a few hundred kronor per year, but registrars often advertise a low first-year price and charge considerably more on renewal. Extra services, such as privacy protection, premium DNS or email forwarding, may be bundled or sold separately. Defensive registrations, such as the .com next to your .se, spelling variants and old brand names, add up quietly. Our guide on choosing .se or .com covers which ones you actually need.
- Register domains in the company's name with the organisation number, not an employee's.
- Turn on auto-renewal and keep a payment card that will not expire unnoticed.
- Keep domains you depend on at one registrar you trust, and let unused defensive domains expire deliberately.
- Note that a web agency or host may have registered the domain for you; check who is the registered holder.
Email per user
Business email for small companies in Sweden is dominated by Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, both priced per user per month, with higher tiers adding more storage, security and admin features. Email from the web host is cheaper but usually weaker on spam filtering, storage and the calendar and file sharing most teams use. The main cost driver is therefore the number of paid users, and the main saving is not paying for mailboxes that do not need a person behind them.
| Need | Paid user? | Cheaper alternative |
|---|---|---|
| An employee who sends and receives email | Yes | None; this is what the seat is for |
| info@, order@, support@ | No | Shared mailbox or group that employees access |
| Alternative addresses for a person | No | Aliases on the existing user |
| A former employee's mail | Not long-term | Convert to a shared mailbox or export, then remove the licence |
| Occasional contractor | Sometimes | A guest account or a lower tier if they need email at all |
Microsoft 365 shared mailboxes do not need their own licence within their size limit; Google Workspace achieves similar results with groups and collaborative inboxes.
Security and archiving add-ons
Security add-ons are sold aggressively, and some are worth it. Before buying, check what your current plan already includes: spam and phishing filtering, two-factor authentication, device management and basic retention are often included, while advanced threat protection and archiving are in higher tiers. Configuring what you already have, including SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your domain, often matters more than buying more. Our guide to SPF, DKIM and DMARC shows the setup.
Usually worth it
Two-factor authentication for everyone, which is typically free, and an upgrade to the tier with better phishing protection if you handle payments by email.
Check before buying
Third-party spam filters on top of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace; the built-in filtering is often enough for small companies.
Archiving rules
Invoices and other accounting records that arrive by email must be kept for seven years under the Swedish Bookkeeping Act; saving them in the accounting system is often simpler than a separate email archive.
Backups for email and files
Microsoft and Google keep your data available, but that is not the same as a backup you control. Deleted items are recoverable only for a limited period, and a compromised account, a mistaken bulk deletion or a ransomware sync can remove data everywhere at once. A third-party backup service for email, calendars and cloud files is priced per user per month and is reasonable insurance for any company whose email is its main record of customer agreements.
- Back up mailboxes, shared mailboxes and cloud file storage, not only email.
- Keep backups with a different provider from the email service.
- Test a restore of a single mailbox or folder at least once a year.
- Remove departed users from backup licences once their data is exported and retained as needed.
Where small firms overpay
- Licences for people who have left or never used their account.
- Paid seats for role addresses that should be shared mailboxes or aliases.
- Domain renewals at list price for domains nobody needs.
- Security add-ons that duplicate features in the current plan.
- Email bundled with a hosting package you no longer use for the website.
- A higher plan tier chosen for one feature that one person needs.
When you do not need help: a company with a few users can run this review in an hour with the admin console and last year's invoices. Help pays off when domains, email and hosting are spread across several suppliers and logins nobody remembers. Our monthly maintenance package keeps domains, DNS and the website under watch; see pricing or book a call. For the hosting side, see web hosting costs explained.
Frequently asked questions
Is email from our web host good enough?
For one or two people with simple needs it can be. Most growing teams move to Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for better spam filtering, shared calendars, file sharing and admin controls, which are hard to get from host email.
Do we need a paid licence for info@ and order@?
Usually not. Shared mailboxes in Microsoft 365, or groups and collaborative inboxes in Google Workspace, let several employees handle a role address without an extra paid user.
What happens if our domain expires?
The website and email stop working, and after a grace period the domain can be registered by someone else. Auto-renewal, a valid payment card and the company as registered holder prevent it.
Do we really need a separate backup of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
The providers keep the service running, but restore options for deleted or corrupted data are limited in time and scope. If email holds your customer agreements, an independent backup is inexpensive insurance.
Find out what your domains and email really cost
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