Digital sovereignty starts with owning your identity on the internet. This applies to individuals just as much as businesses. A Gmail address ties you to Google’s services, and changing email providers later is difficult, if not impossible. With your own domain, you can switch providers at any time or even host email yourself, though the latter is not recommended.
Should I Host Email Myself?
No. Email is notoriously hard to host. You are better off using a dedicated service provider.
Picking a Service Provider
There are several solid options for email with a custom domain. The most widely used are Proton, Tuta, and Zoho. We have personal experience with both Proton and Zoho.
Proton is a European platform headquartered in Switzerland. Your data is end-to-end encrypted, which means you need to use either their own open-source applications or set up their bridge software that handles decryption locally.
Tuta (formerly Tutanota) is based in Hanover, Germany, making it a true EU option. Like Proton, Tuta is fully end-to-end encrypted and open source. They have also started implementing quantum-resistant encryption for future-proofing.
About Costs
The domain itself depends on the name you choose, but you can find one for less than 10 EUR per year. Some email providers even include a free or discounted domain. Beyond the domain registration, you will need either a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or a platform that provides the services you need.
For a family of four, here is what the costs look like:
| Zoho Mail Lite | Zoho Mail Premium | Tuta Legend (family) | Proton Family |
|---|
| Annual cost | ~43 EUR | ~173 EUR | ~384 EUR | ~288 EUR |
| Storage | 5 GB per user | 50 GB per user | 500 GB per user | 3 TB shared |
| E2E encryption | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Based in | India | India | Germany (EU) | Switzerland |
| Extras included | Email only | Email + archiving | Calendar | VPN, Drive, Pass, Calendar |
The comparison is not entirely apples-to-apples. Proton does not offer a mail-only family plan, so you are paying for the full suite including VPN, cloud storage, password manager, and calendar. Tuta offers their family option on both the Revolutionary (3 EUR/user/month, 20 GB) and Legend (8 EUR/user/month, 500 GB) plans. The table above uses the Legend tier, which makes it the most expensive option for email alone, but also gives you the strongest encryption story and EU jurisdiction. Zoho, on the other hand, is email-only at these prices, which makes it dramatically cheaper if that is all you need.
Owning your domain does come at a higher cost than a free Gmail address. Then again, with Gmail you are paying with your data and platform dependence.
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Don’t Forget to Buy Your Own Domain
Digital sovereignty starts with having your own identity on the internet, not just for businesses, but for individuals too. Having a Gmail address ties you to Google’s services and it is very hard, if not impossible to change email addresses to a different provider. However, if you have your own domain, you can seemlessly switch to a different provider or even host email yourself, although the latter is hard.
Should I Host Email Myself?
You shouldn’t. Email is notoriously hard to host, it’s better to go with a dedicated service provider.
Picking a Service Provider
There are many service providers that you can choose from for your email. The most widely used ones are Proton, Tuta and Zoho, all are good options - and this comes from personal experience, we have tried and used both Proton and Zoho. Proton is a European platform headquarterd in Switzerland. Another interesting aspect of Proton is that your data is end-to-end encrypted, even for email you need to use either their own (open source) applications or set up a piece of software that decrypts your data. Tuta (formerly Tutanota) is based in Hanover, Germany - making it a true EU option. Like Proton, Tuta is fully end-to-end encrypted and open source, and they have even started implementing quantum-resistant encryption for future-proofing.
About Costs
It depends on the domain name you choose, but you can most definitely find one that is less than 10 EUR per year. Some email service providers even include a free or at least discounted domain name. Besides registering and keeping a domain alive, you will probably need either a VPS (Virtual Private Server) or use a platform that provides the services you need.
For a family of four, if you want to create email addresses for everyone, costs look like the following using Proton and Zoho:
| Zoho Mail Lite | Zoho Mail Premium | Tuta Legend (family) | Proton Family |
|---|
| Annual cost | ~€43 | ~€173 | ~€384 | ~€288 |
| Storage | 5 GB per user | 50 GB per user | 500 GB per user | 3 TB shared |
| E2E encryption | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Based in | India | India | Germany (EU) | Switzerland |
| Extras included | Email only | Email + archiving | Calendar | VPN, Drive, Pass, Calendar |
Note that the comparison is not entirely apples-to-apples: Proton does not offer a mail-only family plan, so you’re paying for the full suite including VPN, cloud storage, password manager, and calendar. Tuta’s family setup requires their Legend plan with additional users at €8 per user per month, which makes it the most expensive option for email alone - but you get the strongest encryption story and EU jurisdiction. Zoho on the other hand is email-only at these prices, which makes it dramatically cheaper if that’s all you need.
As you can see, it comes with a higher cost than having a Gmail address, on the other hand for a Gmail address you pay with your data and platform dependence.