Araz Gholami

Most people think you need expensive hosting to have a professional email address like [email protected]. Wrong.

Here’s what you actually need:

• A Gmail account (free)
• A Cloudflare account (free)
• A domain name ($1–12/year depending on extension)
• 20 minutes of your time

That’s it. No hosting. No monthly fees. Just a one-time domain cost.

Part 1: Receiving emails (the easy part)

First, add your domain to Cloudflare. If you haven’t done this before, just create a Cloudflare account and follow their setup wizard.

Once your domain is active in Cloudflare:

1. Click on your domain name in the dashboard
2. Find “Email” in the left sidebar and click it
3. You’ll see “Email Routing” — click “Get started”
4. Create an email address (like “info”) and set Gmail as the destination
5. This means when someone emails [email protected], it forwards to your Gmail

Cloudflare will ask you to verify your Gmail address. Check your email and click the verification link.

Then Cloudflare suggests some DNS changes. Just click “Add records and enable” and it handles everything automatically.

Done. Test it by sending an email to your new address. It should appear in your Gmail.

Part 2: Sending emails (the trickier part)

Receiving is easy. Sending requires an SMTP service.

Most SMTP services cost money, but some offer free tiers. Brevo gives you 300 emails per day for free, which is plenty for most people.

Here’s how to set it up:

Step 1: Set up your domain in Brevo

1. Sign up for Brevo (free account)
2. Go to account settings → “Senders, Domains & Dedicated IP”
3. Click “Add a domain” and enter your domain name
4. Choose the first option to let Brevo automatically configure your Cloudflare DNS
5. Login to Cloudflare when prompted
6. Click “Authenticate” — Brevo will add the necessary DNS records

Step 2: Add your email address as a sender

1. Go to the “Senders” tab in Brevo
2. Click “Add sender”
3. Enter your name and email address ([email protected])
4. This tells Brevo you’re allowed to send emails from that address

Step 3: Get your SMTP settings

1. In Brevo, go to account menu → “SMTP & API”
2. Note down these four settings:

• SMTP server
• Port
• Login
• Password

Step 4: Configure Gmail to send from your domain

1. Open Gmail settings
2. Go to “Accounts and Import” tab
3. In “Send mail as” section, click “Add another email address”
4. Enter your name and email address ([email protected])
5. In the next screen, enter those four SMTP settings from Brevo
6. Click “Add Account”

Gmail will send a verification email to [email protected]. Since you set up forwarding earlier, this email will appear in your Gmail inbox. Click the confirmation link.

Back in Gmail settings, click “make default” next to your new email address.

Test it

Compose a new email in Gmail. You should see your professional email address as the sender.

When people reply, the emails will appear in your Gmail inbox as usual.

Why this works

You’re using Cloudflare’s free email routing to receive emails and Brevo’s free SMTP service to send them. Gmail is just your interface for both.

No hosting required. No monthly fees. Just a professional email address that works exactly like you’d expect.

The only ongoing cost is your domain renewal, which you’d have anyway.

Most people overthink this. They buy hosting plans they don’t need just for email. Don’t be most people.