Don't overlook Zoho when shopping for on online suite of email and office tools.
Limiting the total cost of monthly subscriptions can be crucial for small businesses. Subscriptions that charge per-user per-month add up quickly so finding a low cost email provider is a great way to help cut costs. While Google and Microsoft are the big players in the email world I would recommend you take a look at Zoho if you're looking to minimize costs. Check out the following chart that details pricing as of November 2023:
| Storage (GB) | Other Services / Notes | Cost | |
| Google Workspace (Business Starter) | 30 | Includes google meet and google slides/docs/sheets. | $6 |
| Office 365 (Business Basic) | 1000 | Includes meetings and online office apps. | $6 |
| Zoho (Mail Lite) | 5 | Zoho meetings and zoho writer/sheet/show available via separate free plans. | $1 |
| Zoho (Forever Free) | 5 | Same as above, but a max of 5 users. | $0 |
Zoho's Free Forever plan is a great way to get business email setup for free. Then if you do need to expand, the entry level tiers for each of their services are very affordable. Note that Zoho prices plans for each of their services individually so you can mix and match subscriptions to precisely fit your needs.
In my opinion, the highest quality service is Google's. All of their tools work well and are very easy to setup and manage. Both Zoho and Microsoft's services have some drawbacks as far as overall quality and ease of management are concerned. So if price is not a major concern I'd recommend Google Workspace, but if you need to get online with the basics for minimal cost I'd suggest Zoho.