Email hosting for SMEs: Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or Proton?

Microsoft 365: Exchange email with Teams and SharePoint

Microsoft 365 Business Basic (approx. €5.25/user/month, verify at microsoft.com) provides Exchange email with 50 GB mailbox per user, Teams video conferencing, SharePoint and OneDrive cloud storage, but no desktop Office apps (Word/Excel/PowerPoint). Business Standard (approx. €10.75/user/month) adds the full Office desktop suite, including Outlook desktop. Microsoft 365 is ideal for SMEs already working with Windows and familiar with Outlook as their email client. EU Data Boundary: Microsoft stores European customer data in EU data centers (Amsterdam and Dublin); a GDPR Art. 28 DPA is available as standard. The Microsoft 365 Admin Center provides central user management, multi-factor authentication and email archiving. Related: see also our articles on

Microsoft 365 Copilot for business and Microsoft 365 versus Google Workspace.

Google Workspace: Gmail for business

Google Workspace Business Starter (approx. €5.75/user/month, verify at workspace.google.com) provides Gmail with custom domain, 30 GB shared storage per user (Google Drive + Gmail combined), Google Meet video conferencing and Google Calendar. Business Standard (approx. €11.50/user/month) increases storage to 2 TB per user and adds Gemini AI for writing assistance in Gmail and Docs. Google Workspace is the preferred choice for SMEs already relying heavily on Google services or wanting a familiar Gmail interface with a business domain. GDPR compliance: Google provides an EU Data Processing Amendment and stores Workspace data for European customers in EU data centers; a GDPR Art. 28 DPA is available as standard at workspace.google.com. Related: see also our articles on

Google Workspace for SMEs and Microsoft 365 versus Google Workspace.

Proton Business: privacy-first email with end-to-end encryption

Proton Business (Mail Essentials approx. €3.99/user/month, Business approx. €8.99/user/month, verify at proton.me) offers end-to-end encryption: even Proton itself cannot read the content of your email. Proton AG is a Swiss company; servers are located in Switzerland and the EU, outside the reach of the US CLOUD Act. A GDPR Data Processing Agreement is available as standard. Proton Mail Essentials offers 1 GB email storage per user; the Business plan increases this. The drawback of Proton: end-to-end encrypted messages can only be read via the Proton web interface or via Proton Bridge (a local IMAP/SMTP proxy) for use with Outlook or Thunderbird. Without Bridge, the experience is more limited than with Microsoft or Google. Proton is particularly suitable for lawyers, notaries, healthcare providers and financial advisers with strict privacy obligations towards clients.

Indicative — verify prices with the provider (microsoft.com, workspace.google.com, proton.me).

Email hosting and GDPR: Data Processing Agreement required

Email providers process personal data on your behalf: names, email addresses, message content and metadata are personal data under GDPR Art. 4(1). The email provider is therefore a data processor (GDPR Art. 4(8)), and you as the data controller are legally required to conclude a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) under GDPR Art. 28. Microsoft, Google and Proton all provide standard DPAs in their business subscriptions. Pay attention to data localisation: Microsoft offers EU Data Boundary (data in EU data centers in Amsterdam and Dublin); Google stores Workspace data for European customers in EU data centers; Proton has servers in Switzerland (outside the EU but with comparable privacy legislation) and the EU. For data transfers to the US, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF, 2023), the successor to Privacy Shield, applies. Verify whether your provider is certified under the DPF at dataprivacyframework.gov. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) remain available as a supplementary instrument.