Is Gmail free for personal domains?

December 29, 2014 5:18 AM

Can I use Gmail for my own domain for free? Googling around suggests that this is possible, yet signing up for Google Apps for Business implies a $5 cost/month starting in 30 days. What gives? Do any of you use Gmail for your own domains? I need 2-3 email addresses to work on my domain, hosted off of Gmail.
posted by beshtya to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

My understanding is that it used to be free, but isn't anymore. Some, like myself are grandfathered into free usage, others who joined later like my father pay.
posted by cacao at 5:24 AM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

It was free with Google Apps, until December 2012, but now you'd have to pay a monthly fee, like you thought.

I'm a legacy Google apps user and if you decide to do this, just be aware that new Google features aren't available to apps users right away. For example, Google inbox.
posted by cabingirl at 5:25 AM on December 29, 2014

They discontinued the free tier back in 2012, so now it's paid only for new customers.
posted by revertTS at 5:25 AM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

There is no free gmail any more but you can still have unlimited aliases with your paid account. There are some limitations but generally speaking you can send/receive email using these aliases instead of your main address, so you can get away with paying for just one account per domain.

Also: I am not sure if your stipulation that the email be hosted off of gmail is a hard requirement - if not, there are options that are cheaper than gmail, for example atmail will give you your three accounts for the price of one gmail account, with most of the same features, such as calendar, provisioning, etc.
posted by rada at 6:11 AM on December 29, 2014

There are still ways to use gmail for free with your own domain name, though, using e-mail forwarding and gmail's support for sending from an alternate address. You create a regular @gmail.com account. Many web hosts and DNS providers include free e-mail forwarding from your domain, so have it forward messages to your @gmail.com address (if your hosting provider doesn't provide forwarding but provides POP/IMAP access, you can have gmail use that to download your messages as well). Then, in gmail's settings add a "Send mail as" address under the "Accounts and Import" tab, and make it the default. This is what I do, and I haven't had any trouble with it.
posted by Emanuel at 6:12 AM on December 29, 2014 [9 favorites]

I do what Emanuel does. Although I set my "send mail as" to reply as the email address it was sent to, as I have multiple accounts and they forward to my personal account, however if you're going to only use it for that account (for example not forwarding it to a personal email account) then you can set your domain address as your default From address.
posted by Crystalinne at 6:32 AM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

There are still ways to use gmail for free with your own domain name, though, using e-mail forwarding and gmail's support for sending from an alternate address.

Worth noting if you do this that some mail clients (especially Outlook) will report your email address as:

From: [e-mail] (on behalf of [e-mail])

Last time I checked it wasn't possible to fix this but things may have changed since then.
posted by mr_silver at 10:36 AM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]