A business email on your own domain, such as anna@yourcompany.com, makes you look established and keeps your address yours, whatever tools you use later. It doesn't have to cost anything either. This guide walks you through creating one for free with PostPike, from the domain to your phone.
What you'll end up with: a real mailbox on your domain that sends and receives mail, in webmail and in your own mail apps, with room for 5 mailboxes in total.
What you need
- A domain. If you already have one for your website, you can use it. Email doesn't change your website.
- Access to its DNS. That's usually the company where you registered the domain, or Cloudflare if you moved its nameservers there.
- About 15 minutes. Most of it is waiting for DNS changes to show up.
Step 1: Get a domain, if you don't have one
Pick a name that's short, easy to spell when you say it out loud, and matches your business. A .com costs about $10 to $15 a year at registrars such as Cloudflare, Namecheap or GoDaddy. Country domains, such as .nl or .co.uk, work just as well.
Free domain names have mostly disappeared, and the few that remain can be taken back. For an address people will rely on, buy one.
Step 2: Sign up with the address you want
Go to the sign-up page and enter the address you want, such as anna@yourcompany.com, and a password of at least 12 characters. No card is needed. You'll land on your domain's page in the admin console.
Already get mail on this domain? That keeps working. PostPike notices your current provider and only takes over when you change the MX record, or never, if you'd rather keep that provider alongside.
Step 3: Prove the domain is yours
The domain page shows one TXT record, named _postpike, with a value that starts with postpike-verify=. Add it where your
domain's DNS is managed, then select Verify. As soon as the record is found, your mailbox is created.
The help center has steps for Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, IONOS, Hostinger, OVHcloud, STRATO, TransIP and others. DNS changes usually show up within minutes, but can take longer at some providers.
Step 4: Add the mail records
Next, the domain page lists the records that make mail work, and checks each one. For a domain whose mail moves to PostPike, they look like this:
| Type | Name | Value | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| MX | @ | mx1.postpike.net, priority 10 | Delivers your mail to PostPike |
| TXT | @ | v=spf1 a:mx1.postpike.net -all | SPF: lets PostPike send for your domain |
| TXT | Two names ending in ._domainkey | Keys shown on your domain page | DKIM: signs your mail |
| TXT | _dmarc | v=DMARC1; p=quarantine | DMARC: stops others forging your address |
| CNAME | autoconfig, autodiscover | autoconfig.postpike.net, autodiscover.postpike.net | Lets mail apps set themselves up |
Copy the values from your own domain page rather than from here: the DKIM keys are unique to your domain. If your domain already has an SPF record, PostPike shows it with its own part added, so other services that send for you keep working. On Cloudflare, leave the proxy off for the CNAME records.
When every record shows as ready, your domain is set up. Send yourself a test from another address to see it arrive.
Step 5: Open your mail
You can now use your new address in two ways, or both:
- Webmail: sign in at mail.postpike.com from any browser.
- Your mail apps: add the address to Apple Mail, Outlook, the Gmail app or Thunderbird. On iPhone, iPad and Mac, the setup profile fills in everything. The help center has steps for each app.
Step 6: Add your team and shared addresses
In the admin console, add a mailbox for each colleague, up to 5 on the Free plan, and share the 5 GB between them. For shared addresses such as info@, sales@ or invoices@, add aliases instead: they arrive in an existing mailbox and don't use up a mailbox. Free includes 10.
Optional: give your AI agent an address
If you use Claude, ChatGPT or Grok, it can have its own address on your domain, such as agent@yourcompany.com, and read and send mail with your approval. See how to give your AI agent an email address.
When to upgrade
The Free plan covers one domain. If you need more domains, more mailboxes, a catch-all address or forwarding to outside addresses, Basic, opening soon, will be €3.99 a month for the whole account, VAT included. Compare the plans.
Troubleshooting
- Verify says the record isn't there. Wait a few minutes and try again. Check the name is exactly
_postpike; some providers add your domain to the name by themselves, so don't type it twice. - Mail doesn't arrive. Check the MX record, and remove old MX records from your previous provider if you're moving.
- Mail lands in spam. Check that SPF, DKIM and DMARC all show as ready on the domain page.