Leave Google, keep your addresses.
Work Inbox is open-source team email on your own domain, with free shared mailboxes and notes your team writes together. It does less than Google Workspace, costs less, and can run on your own Cloudflare account.
What you keep
- Mail on your own domain, for every person
- Shared mailboxes like support@ and sales@
- Aliases, a catch-all and plus addressing
- Your old mail, imported from a Google Takeout .mbox
- Notes your team edits together, live
- One address book for the team, with Google contacts imported
- A shared drive with folders, previews and public links
- Team calendars with invitations Gmail and Outlook users can answer
- Search with from:, has:attachment, is:unread
- Two-factor sign-in, an audit log and an API
What you give up, for now
- Calendar sync with phone apps over CalDAV, and booking pages (not yet)
- Sheets, Slides and Meet (not planned)
- Gmail on phones and IMAP apps (an IMAP gateway is planned)
What five people and a support@ mailbox cost
The cheapest plan with mail on your own domain, a month, billed yearly, list prices before tax, in the currency each vendor shows. Checked 9 November 2026.
| Plan | Per person | Five people | The shared mailbox |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work Inbox Starter | €1 | €0 (up to 5 people free) | Included, free |
| Work Inbox self-hosted | €0 | €0 + your Cloudflare usage | Included, free |
| Google Workspace Business Starter | $7 | $35 | Google Groups' collaborative inbox |
| Microsoft 365 Business Basic | $7 | $35 | Free up to 50 GB and 25 users |
| Zoho Workplace Standard | $3 | $15 | Shared mailbox group |
| Proton Mail Essentials | $6.99 | $34.95 | No shared mailboxes listed |
Feature by feature
| Feature |  Work Inbox |  Google Workspace |  Microsoft 365 |  Zoho Mail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price per person | €1 / €2.50 / €5 a month (Starter, Pro, Business), billed monthly; first 5 people free, at least 5 billed; self-hosted free | $7 to $22 a month (annual), $8.40 to $26.40 flexible | $7 to $22 a month, annual commitment | Free for 5, then $1 to $7 a month |
| Free plan or trial | Included: Free for up to 5 people; 14-day trial for teams, no card. Self-hosting free for good | Partly: 14-day trial, no free plan | Trial terms not confirmed on Microsoft's page | Included: Free plan for 5 people; 15-day trial of Workplace Professional |
| Shared mailboxes | Included: Unlimited on every plan, no licence per mailbox | Partly: No shared mailbox as such: Google Groups' collaborative inbox | Included: Shared mailboxes without a licence up to 50 GB, up to 25 users | Included: Shared mailbox group type |
| Aliases and catch-all | Included: Unlimited aliases, catch-all per domain, plus addressing | Partly: Up to 30 aliases per user | Aliases supported; limits not confirmed | Partly: 30 aliases per mailbox; catch-all per domain |
| Notes or docs edited together | Included: Shared notes with live editing, checklists, tables, @mentions | Included: Google Docs, the most polished live co-editing | Included: Word, OneNote and Loop with co-authoring | Included: Zoho Writer in Workplace; Notebook separately |
| Self-hosting and source code | Included: Open source; runs on your own Cloudflare account | Not available: No: hosted by Google only | Not available: No (Exchange Server on premises is a separate product) | Not available: No: hosted by Zoho only |
| IMAP and mobile mail apps | Not available: Not yet: web app only (installable). IMAP gateway planned | Included: Gmail apps on iOS and Android; IMAP | Included: Outlook on desktop and phones | Partly: Not on the free plan; paid plans not confirmed on the pricing page |
| Claude / ChatGPT (MCP) | Included: MCP server: search and read mail, notes, contacts and drive files on every plan; replies and changes on Pro and Business | Partly: Official MCP servers in developer preview; Gemini on Standard and up | Partly: Work IQ MCP server; Copilot may need a licence per user | Included: Official Zoho Mail MCP server |
| Calendar, contacts, files | Partly: Calendar, contacts (a team address book) and a shared drive; no office documents or video calls | Included: Calendar, Contacts, Drive, Meet, Sheets, Slides | Included: Outlook calendar and contacts, OneDrive, Teams | Included: Calendar, contacts, WorkDrive, Meeting, Cliq |
More detail, with sources: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail, Proton Mail, Fastmail, Nextcloud, Cloudflare Agentic Inbox.
Moving your domain's mail
- 01
Add the domain
In Settings → Mail. Work Inbox shows the DNS records it needs (MX, DKIM, DMARC); on Cloudflare, Connect Cloudflare adds them.
- 02
Add your people
Each person gets a mailbox with the same address they had in Gmail.
- 03
Switch the MX records
Replace Google's MX records with the one Work Inbox lists. New mail arrives in Work Inbox; keep Google as an archive.
Questions
Can Work Inbox replace Google Workspace?
For mail, shared notes, contacts, files and calendar, yes: a team address book, a shared drive, and team calendars with invitations that Gmail and Outlook users can answer. For office documents and video calls, no: Work Inbox has no Docs/Sheets editors or video calls, and the calendar has no CalDAV sync or booking pages yet.
Can I move my domain's mail from Google Workspace?
Yes: add the domain in Work Inbox and replace its MX records with the one Work Inbox lists. New mail then arrives in Work Inbox. Old mail comes along too: upload an export (.mbox or .eml files) in Settings → Mail → Import mail.
Is there a free Google Workspace alternative?
Work Inbox is free when you run it on your own Cloudflare account; you pay Cloudflare for what you use. Hosted, up to 5 people are free for good, with shared mailboxes, aliases and notes; a bigger team pays from €1 a person a month, the first 5 still free. Zoho Mail also has a free plan for up to five people, without shared mailboxes.
Is there an open-source Google Workspace alternative?
Work Inbox is open source and runs on Cloudflare. Nextcloud is open source too and covers files, calendar and office documents, but it has no mail server of its own.
Bring your domain
Your team's mail on it this afternoon.