Custom Domain emails on Office 365 Home

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Earbanean

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#281101 29-Jan-2021 14:34

It seems that Office 365 Home versions now offer email hosting with custom domain names. I was sure that only the business plans had that. Have they added it into the Home plans relatively recently?

So for a 6 user Family account ($165 pa), you could then get 6 emails at $2.29 per user per month. The cheapest business plan is $7.60 per user per month and that doesn't include desktop office apps. A like for like comparison with apps, would be $18.90 per user per month. So it works out massively cheaper if you're going to make use of most or all of the 6 accounts.

The only catch I can see is that you need to move your domain to GoDaddy, which may be dearer than others (will need to check those costs). Also, the terms and conditions state it can't be used for a business - but I wouldn't be doing that anyway.

Is there anything I'm missing here, or is this a very good deal?

Hammerer

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#2644149 29-Jan-2021 14:56

Thanks for the heads up. It sounds like a good deal if you need Office 365 for other reasons, even if only for the cloud storage.

askelon

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#2644152 29-Jan-2021 15:03

Looks pretty reasonable to me. There are a few downsides like not being able to have aliases on your addresses. Im not seeing any pricing though other than requiring a domain name via godaddy - Im sure they will allow others eventually. "Get a personalized email address in Microsoft 365"

Pretty sure they used to offer something very similar on outlook.com a few years back.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2644153 29-Jan-2021 15:06

Hammerer:

Thanks for the heads up. It sounds like a good deal if you need Office 365 for other reasons, even if only for the cloud storage.

Yeah, exactly. If you want the Office apps and OneDrive anyway, then it's an extremely cheap email option. I already have an individual Office 365 account, so for the small extra cost of going to Family, I'll get 6 hosted custom domain name emails (as well as 6 x OneDrive etc).

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2644197 29-Jan-2021 17:43

askelon:

Pretty sure they used to offer something very similar on outlook.com a few years back.

It looks like was part of stand alone outlook.com premium. That was killed off in 2017 and the benefits bundled into Office 365.

Lias

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#2644298 30-Jan-2021 08:29

It's been available for awhile now, but it's to heavily nerfed.

If 365 Family supported multiple domains and wildcard aliasing I'd be all over it like a bad rash. Alas Microsoft appears to be overly concerned that if they have a decent power user home offering it will undercut their business revenue.

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Mattnzl

281 posts

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#2644324 30-Jan-2021 09:27

Interesting.... does it support Shared Mailboxes? (I'd guess not, but....)

Earbanean

937 posts

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#2666337 1-Mar-2021 16:38

It turns out I can get a 30% discount on Microsoft 365 as part of Home Use Program. So that's $115 for Office apps, 6 x 1Tb OneDrive, 6 x custom domain mail boxes. That seems pretty good so I've grabbed it.

Question. If I add family members to the account, but their email is already on the custom domain, can I add them using that as their ID and still set up custom email for them on that domain? And if I have younger kids who don't have an email yet, how do I add them and add them to the custom email? I'm a little confused about differences between Microsoft accounts and Microsoft 365 based email addressees.

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allan

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#2666377 1-Mar-2021 18:12

Are you meaning via the Microsoft Home Use programme via your employer? If so, that is still the Microsoft 365 Personal or Home subscriptions with a 30% discount. So yes you would have access to the email custom domain service via Outlook.com, but that's not the commercial 365 email service.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2666507 1-Mar-2021 21:12

allan: Are you meaning via the Microsoft Home Use programme via your employer? If so, that is still the Microsoft 365 Personal or Home subscriptions with a 30% discount. So yes you would have access to the email custom domain service via Outlook.com, but that's not the commercial 365 email service.

Yep, I know it's Microsoft 365 Home. That's what this whole thread is about. It literally says "Office 365 Home" in the thread topic. The point being, you can get custom domain email accounts on the Home subscription, which means they're really good value. And given I can get an HUP discount, its even better value.

allan

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#2666536 1-Mar-2021 22:46

Earbanean: Yep, I know it's Microsoft 365 Home. That's what this whole thread is about. It literally says "Office 365 Home" in the thread topic. The point being, you can get custom domain email accounts on the Home subscription, which means they're really good value. And given I can get an HUP discount, its even better value.

Too many Microsoft products and terminology with similar names. I was confused, even if you weren't 😀

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2666576 2-Mar-2021 08:09

allan:Too many Microsoft products and terminology with similar names. I was confused, even if you weren't 😀

Yeah, agreed. Confusing. I was confused about needing Microsoft accounts for each family member with an email as login ID, before being able to set up email for some of those family members. You are advised not to use custom domain email as primary login ID for an MS account if you're going to use MS 365 for that email. And that would be impossible anyway, for members (kids) who don't have that email set up yet (i.e. can't create MS account with email address that doesn't exist yet).

After playing around, it seems the trick is to create a new, free outlook.com address for each family member and use that as the ID when creating an MS account for each of them. Then create the custom domain email for each member. Then make the custom domain email an alias on their account and the default 'sent from' address.

I've done the first part (5 x MS accounts add to Family group). Now need to set up the custom domain email. That will involve importing existing email for a 3 of us from an existing IMAP email, which could be slow/difficult.

dacraka

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#2666587 2-Mar-2021 08:25

Thanks! Now to find the cheapest way to purchase a single licence!

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2666594 2-Mar-2021 08:35

dacraka:

Thanks! Now to find the cheapest way to purchase a single licence!

The Home Personal account is $119 per year. Cheaper if you can get HUP discount, because your employer uses MS.

allan

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#2666769 2-Mar-2021 13:24

dacraka:
Thanks! Now to find the cheapest way to purchase a single licence!

If you can't take advantage of the Home Use programme discount, check out buying a 365 Personal key card from the likes of PB Tech, or Noel Leeming. They both have them at $99 currently and often include them in their sales. You can buy more than one and "stack them up" — if you bought two, you get two years worth of subscription etc.