Business Email compared with a free webmail account

A free Gmail, Outlook.com or Yahoo address costs nothing, so why pay £25 a year for Business Email? Because of what the address says and what sits behind it.

What it says. yourname@somebusinessdomain looks like a real, established business. A free webmail address on a well-known consumer domain tells customers you're a hobby or a side project, and some will quietly take their business elsewhere.

What's behind it. Business Email sits on one of Transcom's professionally-run mail domains with correctly configured DNS, SPF, DKIM and DMARC and an actively-maintained sender reputation. Your mail authenticates cleanly and is trusted at the far end. Free accounts give you none of that control, and a shared consumer domain's reputation is out of your hands.

Protection. Every message is filtered by MxGuard with AI spam scoring and ClamAV virus scanning — a business-grade gateway, not a consumer spam folder.

Storage. Unlimited, with no upsell prompts to buy more room.

For a sole trader or freelancer, the difference between a free address and a professional one is often the difference between looking credible and looking amateur.