You want an address like info@yourbusiness.com instead of a free Gmail address. In Ghana, two routes get you there: pay Google for Google Workspace, or use the email that comes with a web hosting plan. Both put your business name after the @, but they charge you differently and give you different things alongside the inbox.
If you are weighing Google Workspace in Ghana against the email that comes with your hosting, here is the short answer. Google Workspace is the better choice if your team shares documents, files and video meetings every day and keeps large mailboxes. Hosting email fits a small team that mainly needs professional addresses at a steady cost in cedis, on the same plan that already runs its website.
Settle one point early. Your domain’s incoming mail goes to one receiving system first, so make this choice before you print addresses on business cards and invoices.
What is the difference between Google Workspace and business email hosting?
Google Workspace is Google’s paid suite for businesses. According to Google’s Workspace pricing page, every Business plan includes custom business email, and Workspace bundles Google’s apps for working together, including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Chat and Meet. You pay for each person who has an account.
Business email hosting means the mailboxes that come with a web hosting plan. All three LuminWeb shared hosting plans with email included (Basic, Standard and Professional) come with unlimited email accounts, along with email forwarders and spam protection. You create and manage the mailboxes in your control panel, which is either cPanel or DirectAdmin depending on the plan you choose. You pay for the hosting plan, and the email comes with it.
Both give you a professional address. The choice comes down to two things: whether your team needs Google’s shared working tools, and how you want your bill to behave as you hire.
Google Workspace vs email hosting at a glance
For current prices, see Google’s Workspace pricing page and LuminWeb’s hosting plans in Ghana.
| Google Workspace | Hosting email (LuminWeb shared hosting) | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Per user account, monthly or on an annual plan | Included in the hosting plan you pay for |
| What makes the cost go up | Each user you add | Moving to a larger plan when you need more storage |
| Email addresses | One account per paid user, plus free aliases for each user | Unlimited email accounts on every shared hosting plan |
| Storage | Pooled per user and shared across the organisation | Shared with your website: 5 GB, 20 GB or 50 GB, depending on the plan |
| Shared documents and video meetings | Included (Drive, Docs, Sheets, Meet) | Not included: the plan covers email, not office apps |
| Also on the same plan | Google’s apps, plus security and management controls | Your website, a free domain and free SSL certificates |
| Setup | Sign up with Google, then point your domain’s MX records at Google | Create mailboxes in cPanel or DirectAdmin |
| Currency | Confirm at Google’s checkout; listed prices exclude tax | Ghana cedis |
| Support | From Google | LuminWeb’s local support team |
How is Google Workspace billed, and how does hosting email compare?
Google offers two payment plans. On the Flexible Plan, you are billed monthly for each user account and you can add or remove users at any time, according to Google Workspace Admin Help. On the Annual/Fixed-Term Plan, your price depends on the number of user licences you buy, and you can reduce licences only when you renew. A licence here is a paid seat for one user.
Google’s listed prices are per user per month and do not include tax, so add tax to any figure you see on the pricing page when you budget.
Hosting email works the other way round. The mailboxes are part of the hosting plan, so adding an address does not add a charge. What you share instead is storage: every mailbox draws on the same allowance as your website.
The illustration below shows how that plays out as a business grows.
- One person. Workspace bills you for one user account. With hosting email, you pay for one hosting plan, which also runs your website.
- Five people. Workspace bills you for five user accounts. With hosting email, you are still on the same plan, and five personal mailboxes plus info@ and sales@ are all included. They share the plan’s storage.
- Fifteen people. Workspace bills you for fifteen user accounts. On an annual plan, if three people leave halfway through the contract, you keep paying for their licences until renewal. With hosting email, you stay on the same plan unless fifteen busy mailboxes and your website outgrow its storage, at which point you move up to a larger plan.
In short, a Workspace bill follows your headcount, while a hosting email bill follows your storage.
Already leaning towards hosting email? Follow our step-by-step guide to set up business email on your hosting plan, which covers creating mailboxes in cPanel and DirectAdmin and adding them to your phone.
Is Google Workspace worth it for a small business in Ghana?
Workspace is worth it when your team works together in shared files every day. It is harder to justify when email is the main thing you need. Use the two lists below to see which description fits your business better.
Choose Google Workspace if…
- Your staff edit the same documents and spreadsheets and need them in one shared place, which is what Drive, Docs and Sheets are for.
- You hold regular video meetings and want them in the same account as your email. Every Business plan includes video meetings.
- Your mailboxes and files are large. Workspace gives you pooled storage, meaning each user’s allowance goes into one pot the whole organisation shares. Google’s pricing page lists it as follows: Business Starter includes 30 GB pooled storage per user, Business Standard includes 2 TB, and Business Plus includes 5 TB.
- You want to manage many staff accounts centrally, with Google’s security and management controls.
- You plan to keep hiring, and you are comfortable with a bill that rises with each new user. Google’s pricing page lists the current user limit for each Business plan.
If several of these describe you, Workspace is the stronger choice, and the per-user cost buys working tools your team will use daily. LuminWeb does not sell or resell Google Workspace, so buy it directly from Google.
Choose hosting email if…
- You are a small team, and email is mainly how you talk to customers and suppliers.
- You need role addresses such as info@, sales@ and accounts@ as well as personal ones. Every LuminWeb shared hosting plan includes unlimited email accounts, so each one can be its own mailbox.
- You need hosting for your website anyway. The same plan includes a free domain with free renewal and free SSL certificates, the security certificates that put the padlock in your visitors’ browser. Our guide on how SSL certificates are managed explains what that covers.
- You want a predictable bill in Ghana cedis, which you can pay with Mobile Money (MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash or AT Money).
- You want local support from LuminWeb’s team, on the same account as your website.
Plan for one limit. Mailboxes on LuminWeb shared hosting have no separate quota: they share the plan’s SSD storage with your website, which is 5GB on Basic, 20GB on Standard and 50GB on Professional. “Unlimited email accounts” means you can create as many addresses as you need. It does not mean unlimited mail space. If your team keeps years of large attachments, start on a larger plan and keep an eye on storage use in your control panel.
Can you use Google Workspace and hosting email on the same domain?
Yes, but it takes extra setup, so decide whether you need it before you change anything. Where your email goes is decided by your domain’s MX records (mail exchange records). They are settings in your domain’s DNS, the system that connects your domain name to the servers behind it, and they tell the rest of the internet which server receives your mail first.
To use Workspace email, Google’s MX setup instructions tell you to point your MX records at Google’s mail servers and remove any other MX records. Google also warns that your email might not work correctly if you keep old or incorrect MX records.
That makes Google the first stop for all of your domain’s incoming mail. From there, a Workspace administrator can pass some of it on. According to Google’s guide to email routing and delivery options, split delivery lets you deliver incoming email messages to two different email systems in your domain, based on recipients you specify. Google’s example is an organisation where some people use Gmail and others use a different email system. An administrator has to set this up in Workspace before any mail is split.
Your website is separate from this: it can stay on your hosting plan whichever email provider you choose.
When should you switch from hosting email to Google Workspace?
Starting on hosting email and moving to Workspace as the team grows is a sensible path, because you only pay per user once the shared tools are worth it to you. Consider switching when you see signs like these:
- Files your team works on together are scattered across personal phones, laptops and chat threads.
- Your mailboxes and website together are close to the plan’s storage limit.
- You are hiring several people who will work on the same documents.
How to move your email to Google Workspace
- Sign up for Google Workspace on Google’s site, and create a user account for each person who needs their own inbox. Decide which role addresses become aliases. A Workspace administrator can add email aliases for each user at no extra cost, and because an alias belongs to a user, its mail arrives in that one person’s inbox.
- If you already have mail in your hosting mailboxes that you want to keep, copy or export it before you change anything else. Then open the copy and confirm your older messages are in it. If you are not sure how to export your mail, or the copy is missing older messages, talk to our team before you continue.
- Once you have opened the copy and seen your older messages in it, change your domain’s MX records wherever your domain’s DNS is managed. For a domain registered with LuminWeb, that is its DNS management tools. Use the values in Google’s setup instructions, and remove the old MX records as Google directs. The switch is not instant: Google says it can take up to 72 hours for new MX records to be recognised, and until then some mail may still arrive in your old mailboxes.
- Next, update the records that show your outgoing mail is genuine. If your domain already has an SPF record (a DNS record that lists the servers allowed to send your domain’s mail), edit that existing record. Google’s guide to setting up SPF says to update your SPF record when you start using a new mail server. Google also recommends that you set up DKIM and DMARC. Follow Google’s instructions for the exact values.
- Send a test message to each address from an outside email account, and confirm it arrives in Workspace.
- Before you remove anything, keep your old hosting mailboxes and check them again. Once the new MX records have had time to be recognised, open each old mailbox, look for mail that arrived after you made your copy, and copy that too. Only after that check, decide whether to remove the old mailboxes.
Your website does not need to move. It keeps running on your hosting plan.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Workspace available in Ghana?
Check this on Google’s side before you commit. Start the sign-up with your business details, and confirm that your country is accepted and which currency you will be billed in before you enter any payment details.
Can I use Gmail with my own domain?
Google sells business email on your own domain through Workspace, and every Business plan includes custom business email. If you choose hosting email but still like reading mail in an existing inbox, an email forwarder on your hosting plan can pass copies of incoming messages to that address.
How many email addresses do I get with hosting email?
Every LuminWeb shared hosting plan includes unlimited email accounts. They all draw on the plan’s storage, so the number of addresses is not the limit to watch. Storage is.
Is hosting email secure?
LuminWeb shared hosting includes spam protection on your mailboxes. For your outgoing mail, set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, the DNS records that show receiving servers your messages really come from your domain. Our business email setup guide explains each one.
Your next step
If hosting email fits your business, compare the shared hosting plans with email included, see current prices on LuminWeb’s web hosting in Ghana page, and then follow the setup guide to create your first mailboxes. If you have not picked your address yet, start with how to choose a domain name and then register your business domain.
If Google Workspace fits, sign up with Google directly. Your domain and website can still live with your hosting provider, and our guide to building a business website in Ghana covers the rest of getting your business online.
