Email has become an indispensable communication tool for both personal and business use. With the ability to send messages instantly over the internet, email is convenient, fast, and easy. But does sending an email actually cost money?
The Short Answer
For most individual email users, sending an email does not directly cost money. However, there are some indirect costs associated with maintaining an email account and sending emails, such as:
- Internet access fees
- Cost of devices used to send and receive emails (computer, smartphone, etc)
- Email service provider fees (if using a paid email service)
So while an individual email does not have a specific price tag, being able to send and receive emails requires infrastructure, equipment, and services that do have costs. But for most individual users, these costs are indirect or absorbed into a general internet/device access fee.
Internet Access Fees
In order to send and receive emails, you need access to the internet. This usually requires paying a monthly fee for an internet service provider, whether it’s for home broadband, cellular data, or public WiFi. So while the email itself is free, having the infrastructure to transmit the email comes with a recurring cost.
Here are some typical internet access costs that enable email services:
- Home broadband – $25 to $100 per month
- Cellular data plan – $40 to $85 per month
- Public WiFi (coffee shops, libraries, etc) – Hourly rates or membership fees
When you pay these fees, you are essentially paying for your ability to access the internet, which includes being able to send and receive emails. So while the email doesn’t have a per-unit fee, you are paying indirectly for the connectivity required to use email.
Mobile vs Broadband Costs
It’s important to note the difference in email costs between mobile data plans and home broadband plans. Most home internet plans include unlimited data usage, whereas mobile data plans have monthly data caps.
This means the cost of an individual email sent from a home internet connection is essentially zero, since it doesn’t add to your bill. However with a mobile data plan, each email contributes incrementally to your monthly data usage, bringing you closer to potential overage charges if you exceed your cap. So mobile email usage does have a small but real cost associating with eating into your paid data allocation.
Device Access Costs
In addition to internet connectivity, being able to send and receive email requires hardware like computers, smartphones, tablets or other devices. Even if you have free WiFi access, you still need a device to actually use email. These also carry indirect costs associated with emailing.
Some typical costs of devices used for email access include:
- Laptop computer – $200 to $1500+
- Smartphone – $100 to $1000+ without carrier contract
- Tablet – $50 to $500+
Of course, no one buys these devices solely for the purpose of emailing. But being able to send and receive emails is often a primary or highly-valued function. So a portion of the hardware cost is essentially attributable to having email access.
In addition to upfront costs, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets require recurring monthly costs for cellular service and data plans to enable email while away from WiFi. This amounts to $40 or more per device per month.
So while mobile devices provide convenient on-the-go email access, they also raise the indirect costs associated with maintaining an email account compared to only using it on a home computer with broadband.
Paid Email Service Fees
The most common email services like Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo Mail provide free consumer email accounts. So for most individual users, there are no direct fees to open an account or send emails from these services.
However, there are some paid email services that charge a fee. Examples include:
- ProtonMail – $5/month basic plan
- FastMail – $5/month basic plan
- Rackspace Email – $2.50 per user per month
Paid services typically offer more storage, advanced features, enhanced security and privacy, and better customer support. But for basic email needs, free providers like Gmail and Outlook offer plenty of value before needing to upgrade.
For business users, there are also paid email hosting and management services that charge per user fees but make it easy to set up company email accounts and domains. Prices range from around $3 to $10 per user per month.
So the cost to send an email can be zero for most individual users on free accounts. But those wanting premium email services may pay a monthly or annual fee, which allows sending a certain allotment of emails per period as part of the subscription cost.
Internet Infrastructure Costs
In addition to individual user connection and device fees, there are also infrastructure costs associated with transmitting emails over the global internet.
This includes expenses for:
- Data centers
- Networking equipment like routers, switches, and fiber optic cables
- Bandwidth usage
- Servers, storage and security infrastructure
- IT personnel to manage systems and networks
These costs are absorbed and distributed across all internet activity, both personal and business. So email makes up a portion of global internet infrastructure costs. But it’s challenging to isolate the share attributable specifically to email vs. all other types of internet traffic.
Major consumer email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft host their own email infrastructure or use cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services. The expenses are covered as part of their overall business models, which typically rely on advertising revenue rather than direct fees from users.
Of course, someone ultimately has to pay for this infrastructure, but it’s spread across so many users and uses that the cost per email or per person becomes negligible. But it all adds up to real costs for maintaining email globally.
Spam and Security Costs
Another indirect cost associated with email use is fighting spam, abuse, malware, phishing, and security threats. Email providers spend heavily on technical solutions like spam filters, malware detection, authentication, encryption, and more.
These measures cost millions for email platforms but are necessary investments to keep their users safe and their services operational. So the spending on security contributes in a small way to the costs associated with providing email, even though most individual users don’t directly pay for it.
Productivity Costs
There are also productivity costs associated with excessive or unnecessary email usage in the workplace. According to McKinsey, the average professional spends 28% of their workweek reading and responding to emails. Excessive low-value email traffic can burden users and reduce their ability to focus on substantive work.
Some estimates suggest the productivity loss associated with wasteful business email costs the U.S. economy $650 billion per year. While hard to measure directly, reducing unnecessary emails could recapture lost productivity and increase profits. So there is an efficiency opportunity cost with over reliance on email for business communication.
The Environmental Impact
There are also environmental impacts associated with the data storage and transmission required for billions of emails sent globally. By one estimate, if the carbon footprint of all emails sent and stored in 2020 were calculated, it would be equivalent to over 900,000 tons of CO2 emissions or 100,000 passenger cars driven for a year.
Major companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook have committed to reducing their emissions and investing in renewable energy. But wider email usage still contributes to energy consumption, emissions, and e-waste from electronics. So there is a small but measurable environmental cost to supporting our email infrastructure globally, amplified by the sheer scale of messages sent.
Conclusion
In summary, while an individual email does not have a specific cost or fee in most cases, sending and receiving emails is associated with a variety of indirect costs including:
- Internet access fees
- Hardware expenses
- Paid email account subscriptions (in some cases)
- Infrastructure, bandwidth, and personnel costs
- Security and anti-spam solutions
- Lost productivity from excessive low-value emails
- Environmental impact of electricity and equipment used
These costs mainly take the form of monthly service fees, hardware purchases, or efficiency and environmental impacts. But they allow instant, global, digital communication via email which provides significant utility and value for society.
So while an individual email or inbox access is free for most individual users, our collective email usage does have real economic and environmental costs to consider. Knowing these can help individuals and businesses ensure they are using email thoughtfully, efficiently, and sustainably.
| Category | Types of Cost |
|---|---|
| Internet Access | Broadband fees, mobile data fees, WiFi hotspot fees |
| Devices | Smartphones, laptops, desktops, tablets |
| Email Services | Paid email account subscriptions |
| Infrastructure | Data centers, networking equipment, IT personnel |
| Security | Anti-spam, malware protection, encryption |
| Productivity Loss | Excessive low-value business email traffic |
| Environment | Emissions, e-waste from electronics |