Short answer
Zoho Mail's Forever Free plan gives up to five mailboxes on one domain you own, with 5 GB each, at no cost. You need a domain and access to its DNS settings to add the MX, SPF and verification records. The main limit is that you use webmail and the Zoho app only: no IMAP or POP, so no Outlook or Apple Mail on the desktop.
Free tools for this
What you need first
A domain name you own, such as yourshop.in, and a login to wherever its DNS is managed: your registrar, your hosting panel or Cloudflare. The email itself is free; the domain is not, and usually costs a few hundred rupees a year for a .in.
Decide the addresses before you start. Most small businesses need a personal address for each person plus one shared address such as hello@ or orders@.
The free option that works
Zoho Mail's Forever Free plan is the realistic choice for a free mailbox on your own domain. It allows up to five users on one domain, 5 GB of storage per user, and access through webmail and Zoho's phone apps. Indian accounts are hosted on Zoho's India data centre.
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 do not have free business plans. Both are good, both are paid per user per month, and both are worth it once you need desktop mail apps or more users.
Try it now: Email Deliverability Check → · DNS Checker →
What the free plan leaves out
No IMAP, POP or ActiveSync. You cannot add the mailbox to Outlook, Apple Mail or Thunderbird on a computer, or to the phone's built-in mail app; you use the Zoho web inbox and the Zoho Mail app instead. For most small teams that is fine. For anyone who lives in Outlook, it is a deal breaker.
The plan also covers one domain only and has no email routing or migration tools of the paid plans. If you outgrow five people, you move up to a paid plan rather than adding free accounts.
The DNS records to add
Verification: a TXT or CNAME record that proves you own the domain. MX records: these tell the world to deliver your mail to Zoho, and any old MX records must be removed. SPF: a TXT record that lists who may send mail for your domain. DKIM: a TXT record with a key that signs your outgoing mail.
Add DMARC last, starting with a monitoring policy. Without SPF and DKIM set correctly, your messages are far more likely to land in spam, especially at Gmail and Outlook.com, which now expect authenticated mail from businesses.
Forwarding as an alternative
If you only want a professional address that lands in your existing Gmail, email forwarding is enough. Many registrars and Cloudflare Email Routing forward hello@yourdomain to a personal inbox for free.
Forwarding handles incoming mail only. Replying from the business address needs extra setup with an outgoing mail server, and it is easy to get wrong in a way that sends replies to spam. A real mailbox is simpler.
When paying is worth it
Pay when your team needs desktop mail apps, more than five people, shared calendars and drives at scale, or stronger admin and retention controls. Paid plans from Zoho, Google and Microsoft start at modest per user prices, and moving from the free plan later is straightforward.
Whichever you pick, keep the admin login in the business owner's name. Email tied to a former employee's or freelancer's personal account is a common and painful lock-out.