Best Email Provider to Use
Choosing the right email provider for sales outreach matters more than most teams realize. The two primary options: using established providers like Gmail, Outlook, or Zoho versus building custom servers.
Key Decision Factors
Start by considering whether the email will serve outbound purposes exclusively and which system your team knows best. Critically, research which email provider your market is predominantly using through tools like DNS Checker, then match that choice for better deliverability.
Provider Comparison
Gmail (Google Workspace)
Gmail offers an intuitive design and widespread familiarity. However, it costs more when running multiple accounts across domains and slightly underperforms competitors on raw deliverability metrics.
Worth noting: warmup service users choose Google over Outlook by a factor of 12 to 1. Familiarity drives adoption even when it’s not the optimal choice.
Outlook (Microsoft 365)
Outlook delivers superior deliverability and higher sending limits. The tradeoff: setup is more challenging for multiple domain accounts. If you’re willing to invest the setup time, Outlook tends to outperform Gmail for outbound.
Zoho Mail
Zoho provides affordability for numerous accounts but has suffered from recent deliverability troubles and limited tool integrations. Its reputation took a hit when many sales teams adopted it simultaneously for cost savings, overwhelming the shared server infrastructure.
Best Practices
- Purchase paid business accounts — free email accounts are instantly flagged
- Maintain separate outreach domains from your primary domain
- Configure DNS settings (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) before sending anything
- Avoid SendGrid or Mailgun for cold outreach — these are designed for opted-in audiences, not cold email
Custom Servers
We built custom mail servers to exceed standard sending limits (250 versus 50 emails daily per account) and achieve superior open rates. This approach requires more technical investment but removes the constraints of shared infrastructure.