Microsoft Outlook is an excellent choice for businesses of any size. However, if you’re using a free plan, you’ll be stuck with the default email domain. That means, you’ll see ‘@outlook.com’ at the end of your email address.
Keeping the default email domain isn’t ideal, as it won’t leave a very good impression on your audience. This is because a generic email address doesn’t support a strong brand identity or look very professional.
Fortunately, the Microsoft 365 Business Premium plan allows you to use your domain name to create a business email address using Outlook. This creates a more professional look when sending emails. Plus, the premium plan also gives you powerful features like spam protection and better security.
In this article, we’ll show you how to set up a custom branded email address with Outlook.
What Is a Professional Branded Email Address?
A professional email has your business name in it. For example, ‘support@yourdomain.com’ is a professional email address. By contrast, ‘yourdomain@yahoo.com’ is not a professional email address.
There are many ways you can create a professional email address. You can use the built-in mail server that comes with most WordPress hosting companies.
This will work for most starter websites on a tight budget. However, it lacks several critical features like better spam and antivirus protection, enhanced security, easy account management, and more.
If you want the powerful features mentioned above, then you’ll need a professional business email service that works with your existing business name or domain name.
What Is Outlook.com?
Outlook is an email service offered by Microsoft. You can create a free ‘yourname@outlook.com’ account to use the service.
However, if you want to create a professionally branded email address with Outlook.com, then you will need to sign up for a Microsoft 365 Business Premium account.
It is a paid service starting from $6.00 per user/month. It includes 1 TB of OneDrive storage and the latest versions of Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for your PC or Mac.
At WPBeginner, we use and recommend Workspace or G Suite by Google for business email addresses because they are more cost-effective. We also prefer Google Cloud since our team is familiar with Gmail and other Google Apps.
For more details, you can see our comparison of G Suite vs. Office 365 to learn how it stacks up against Outlook.com.
That being said, let’s take a look at how to create a custom-branded email address with Outlook.com.
Signing Up for Outlook Premium with Microsoft 365
First, you need to visit the Microsoft 365 website and sign up for the ‘Microsoft 365 Business Premium’ subscription.
It is the only subscription that includes support for custom domains. To start, simply click the ‘Buy Now’ button.
You will have to enter your email address in the next step. This could be your existing work or school email.
Once you’ve entered the email, click the ‘Next’ button.
It will then check if the address is already associated with a Microsoft account or if you need to create a new one.
Next, you will be asked to provide personal information, like your name, business phone number, company name, company size, and country.
After entering these details, go ahead and click the ‘Next’ button.
On the next screen, you’ll need to verify your business phone number.
You can select to receive a text message or receive a phone call to get the verification code.
After verification, you will be asked to enter a password and domain name.
You can click the ‘Next’ button when you’re done.
From here, you’ll need to select the number of Microsoft 365 Business Premium accounts you want.
After that, click the ‘Add payment method’ to continue.
Microsoft will now ask you to select a payment method, like a credit card.
Go ahead and enter the payment details to complete the signup process.
After that, you will land on the Office 365 dashboard.
Setting Up Outlook Email with Custom Domain
In the dashboard, you’ll see different tools and apps offered by Microsoft under the Office 365 suite.
The left-hand sidebar is filled with shortcuts to the various services and apps that you get access to with your subscription.
Next, you can click the ‘Apps’ option from the sidebar menu.
More tools will now appear under Apps. Go ahead and select the ‘Admin’ option.
Next, you will see the ‘Microsoft 365 admin center’ at the top of the page.
From here, you can select the ‘Set up email with a custom domain’ option.
After that, a popup window will open where you’ll be asked to use an existing domain or buy a new one.
Simply click on the ‘Use a domain you already own’ button.
After that, a setup wizard will open to help you configure a custom domain with Outlook.
The first step will give you an overview of the steps you need to follow. Go ahead and click the ‘Continue’ button at the bottom.
On the next screen, you will be asked to enter the domain name you want to set up.
After entering the domain name, click on the ‘Continue’ button.
Microsoft will now look up your domain name.
After that, it will ask you to verify ownership by adding information to your domain’s DNS settings.
To do this, you need to open a new tab or window in the browser and go to your domain’s settings page. Depending on your domain registrar, this page will be located in your account. You need to find the DNS settings option.
If your domain is registered by your WordPress hosting company, then you will find the domain’s setting in your cPanel dashboard labeled as ‘Zone Editor’ or ‘DNS Zone Editor.’
Note: If you are a SiteGround user, you will not have cPanel. You will find this in the Domain section of your Site Tools dashboard.
For this tutorial, we will be using the Bluehost dashboard. To begin, you can go to Domains from the menu on your left. Then, locate your website and click the ‘Settings’ button.
From here, you can scroll down in the domain settings.
Go ahead and click the ‘Advanced Tools’ option.
Here, Bluehost will show the nameservers for your domain and other records.
To manage DNS records, you can click the ‘Manage’ button next to ‘Advanced DNS Records.’
Bluehost will then show a warning message.
You can click the ‘Continue’ button to move ahead.
Next, you will see different types of DNS records.
Simply click the ‘+ Add Record’ button.
A new popup window will now appear to add the record.
Next, click the dropdown menu and select ‘TXT’ as the type.
From here, you’ll need to enter the TXT details. These include the host record, TXT value, and TTL time.
You can easily find this information in the Microsoft Office 365 tab.
Once you’ve added the details, click the ‘Add’ button.
When adding a DNS record, make sure that the information you enter matches the information displayed by Office 365.
Next, you need to switch back to the Microsoft Office 365 admin portal and click on the verify button.
Office 365 will now check for DNS records to verify that you own the domain name. DNS verification can take 5 – 10 minutes because, sometimes, your DNS settings will not be updated right away.
After verification, you will be asked to set your new branded email address. Once that’s done, simply click the ‘Update and sign out’ button.
Next, you’ll need to sign in again using the new branded email address you just added.
Once logged in, you’ll see more records to add to your domain and connect to Outlook email.
The email exchange needs three DNS records to work with, including an MX record, a CNAME record, and a TXT record.
Once again, you will need to go to your domain’s DNS settings page and add these records individually.
First, you have an MX record, which provides instructions on where to deliver the email messages.
In Bluehost, go to your website’s DNS settings and click the ‘+ Add Record’ button to add a new MX record.
Next, you will see a popup with the record settings.
First, click the dropdown menu at the top and select ‘MX’ option.
If your website already had an MX record, then it will be replaced with this one. This ensures that you can use Outlook’s mail servers to send and receive emails from your custom domain email address.
After that, you have a TXT record, which helps prevent someone from spoofing your email to send spam.
Lastly, you have a CNAME record, which lets software like Outlook discover and connect to email service.
Simply add a new CNAME record in Bluehost and enter the details from the Microsoft dashboard.
Once you have entered all DNS records, you can go back to the Microsoft Office 365 tab and click the ‘Connect email’ button.
Office 365 will now check your domain DNS settings. Note that it could take 24 – 48 hours for TXT records to be verified.
Once everything checks out, you’ll reach the end of the setup.
In the last step, you’ll see a summary of your configuration. Go ahead and close the setup wizard.
That’s it! You have successfully set up your domain name to work with Outlook.
Adding Custom Branded Email Address in Outlook
You are now ready to create custom domain email addresses using Outlook.
From your Office 365 dashboard, go to Users » Active Users.
Next, you’ll see a list of your active users.
Go ahead and click the ‘Add a user’ option.
On the next screen, you need to provide the user’s personal information and then choose an email address.
After entering the details, simply click the ‘Next’ button.
Then, you’ll need to select a geographic location for your user and assign a product license.
In the Microsoft 365 Business Premium plan, you can assign up to 25 licenses. When you are done, simply click the ‘Next’ button.
Microsoft also offers additional settings for new user profiles.
For instance, you can select a user role and grant access to the Admin Center. There is also an option to add profile information, like job title, department, office, and more.
These are optional settings, and you can leave them blank as well. When you’re done, simply click the ‘Next’ button.
Lastly, you’ll see a summary of the new user you just added. You can review the details, make necessary changes, and then click the ‘Finish adding’ button.
At this point, you’ve successfully added a new user and created a branded email address in Outlook.
You can now log in using the email address and password you created in the earlier step to use your new professionally branded email with Outlook.
You can also install Office 365 apps on your Mac and PC, including Outlook. This will allow you to use your branded Microsoft Outlook business email address with offline access via the Outlook app.
We hope this article helped you learn how to set up a professional branded email address with Outlook. You may also want to see our article on the best SMTP providers with high email deliverability and our beginner’s guide to WordPress email automation.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Nishant Thakur
Was looking for this! Perfect!
Peter
Hello, thanks for this tutorial, please where do I need to add this
v=spf1 include:hotmail.com ~all
Jay
its more than 72 hrs of changing my dns. but now also it is showing “You need to prove ownership of this domain by creating a DNS record. Use the settings below.”
WPBeginner Support
This probably means your DNS records are not correctly set.
Admin
Abhay
hey! nice article…thank you
Rani
Hi,
I set up the account following your instructions.Thanks
But I have this problem , i am not receiving any mails in my inbox. when i send mails from other accounts to this mail it is bounced.
i checked the microsoft support. looks like it is some internal problem and not a settings problem. people are reporting other issues with accounts.Microsoft says they resolved the issue. But doesnt look like so.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/oemail-osend/my-outlookcom-email-account-is-not-receiving-any/02581144-c02b-4cdc-9132-98a8e0531ab1?msgId=2fd9d76f-6dfa-45bc-9a46-81e11265a7a1&page=1
R
Ankush
Hi,
I am trying to setup emails for my domain. This tutorial is really helping me since I am a non technical person. I have set up my live account and I am getting a message ‘You need to prove ownership of this domain by creating a DNS record. Use the settings below’.
When contacted a person where I have hosted my site, he is saying that the settings displayed here are for CPANEL and my sited is on DreamHost. DreamHost has its own CPANEL and that doesn’t support entries like ‘Priority: 10 (or High priority)’ etc.
Can you please guide us to take this forward.
Thanks,
Ankush
WPBeginner Support
Ankush dreamhost does support A records and Max records. For records ask the person managing your account to go to Mail » Custom MX in Dreamhost Panel. As for A or TXT records go to Domains and then click on DNS.
Admin
Ria Parish
I don’t suppose you’d still be able to use this email for Google+ and YouTube account though, eh…. Better than nothing, I guess.
Thanks for the alternative!
princess
Hi I set up my domain via Godaddy.com..and I already have my live mail set up. My question is: When I tried replying to the email my replies bounces back. what could be the problem?
WPBeginner Support
seems like you have not correctly configured your site to use Outlook’s mail servers.
Admin
Verma
Hi- I did a setup of outlook.com with my domain. All seems to be working fine except i am not able to get emails from MS Outlook. If it is possible to access email via MS Outlook app please let me know.
Paul Jones
Great article thanks.
We run a mail server and batch import mail into a sql server database. Would it be viable/possible to switch our mx to outlook.com and forward all inbound and outbound email to our mail server so that we can still import mail into sql?
WPBeginner Support
Sounds doable. But make sure before you implement it.
Admin
Chris
Hi, I just created an outlook email admin account with my own domain name. i create 2 users. Will I be able to see the emails sent to the users I created? If so, how do I enable that feature? Thank you
Great article by the way. Thanks.
sivakumar
Now showing it
You can create up to 50 accounts in your domain.
How to create 500 accounts
WPBeginner Support
Contact outlook support for more accounts.
Admin
david
If you want users to use mail.yourdomain.com to sign in for email address, then you can create a CNAME record in your domain’s custom DNS settings or in cpanel’s Simple DNS Editor. Enter Mail in the Name field, and enter subdomain in CNAME field, e.g. mail.example.com.
this is not well explained. Could you please…
WPBeginner Support
Using a subdomain will allow users to sign in to their accounts by typing in your domain name instead of outlook.com.
Admin
kaycee
please how can i create the sub domain
kaycee
If you want users to use mail.yourdomain.com to sign in for email address, then you can create a CNAME record in your domain’s custom DNS settings or in cpanel’s Simple DNS Editor. Enter Mail in the Name field, and enter subdomain in CNAME field, e.g. mail.example.com
…..Please can you provide a guide on how to create this? cos am using ipage and they said its not possible for me to have mail.businessname.com
thank you
Kelly
Hi, thanks for your tutorial.
So after a week of waiting for the service to become active it is now saying that “Your service is suspended. Please make the required DNS changes.” Can somebody please help?
Letitia
I’m having the same problem
Asad
Currently outlook allows 50 free Email addresses. If I need more Account then what is the procedure ?
WPBeginner Support
Contact outlook support and they will extend your user account limit.
Admin
Tihomir Valkanov
Very good article!!! It save me a lot of time
Thank you!
phil
Hi I have a question, I bought my domain name off Godaddy, but I built the site and its being hosted by wix.com, I want to use my own domain with outlook so who do I update my mx and txt with godaddy or wix?
Hope to hear from you soon
Phil
WPBeginner Support
Go Daddy if your domain is controlled by GoDaddy.
Admin
Murali
Thank you. I also got good email service.
Lynn Jackson
Awesome post! Very user-friendly. This was almost effortless. I was up and running after about 10 minutes! Thanks.
JANARTHANAN
Hi Syed, as said earlier I’ve done setting of my domains mails on outlook.com. Let me know how to configure this on blackberry and iPhone devices.
Thanks – Janarthanan
tilak
I want to view my old mails from my previous employers where we were using Outlook server. I have those .pst data files in my external hard disk. But don’t know how to configure them in Outlook 2013. Could any one please help me on the step by step guide. thanks.
Haseeb Ahmad Ayazi
Guys the New UI of outlook is tooooo slow. While loading it makes my PC also slow. Outllook can compete Gmail but will loss badly only due to his loading speed.
Jon Adams
Check your computer. Due to the new Gmail compose debacle, I have been testing Outlook.com for the past few months in case Google makes the change permanent and mandatory. The only reason I don’t make the switch now is six years of company emails in twenty accounts. Not to mention everything that lives in Google Drive.
The Outlook UI is vastly superior to Gmail even without consideration of the new compose.
Kunal
I already have an email account on Google Apps, if I were to move to Outlook, what would happen to emails that I already have in my existing accounts on changing the MX record ? Do I have to transfer my emails from google apps to outlook?
quocnt
Thank you. I have successfully setup my professional email.
But can I go to mail.mydomain.com to check mail or must I go to outlook.com every time?
Ana
Hi,
I followed the steps and everything went fine. But when I started using the email, I can send emails, but not receive them. Any idea what can be the issues?
Thanks!
hunter
I have the exact same problem. help
JANARTHANAN
Hi Ana,
Have you got the solution, did your mail work fine on both send & receive ways!
If you got the solution pls let me know.
Thanks
Ankush
Hi Ana,
Did you get solution to your problem? Are you able to send/receive from your new email account. Please guide us as well.
Thanks,
Ankush
Leon
Hi! I finally finally got to the last part.. I had to login using my old @live.com account, I never saw the DNS options when trying to signup using just my domain name http://hempconnection.net
Anyways I was able to create an info@ email for my domain, but now where do I go to login? I tried mail.mydomain.net and I just see the last page I was on showing the emails I created, but not able to actually access my new email
Leon
Screw this, Outlook and Microsoft sucks… I’ve been trying for 3 hours.. this is freaking ridiculous
marco
Me too, I’ve been trying for 3 days using chrome, maybe I should try using I.E.
JANARTHANAN
Hi Syed,
I have my website already set up at windows live admin center and the emails are already in use by users.
But now i planned to migrating my domain from godaddy to a Blue Host (i came to know about the cheapest and best service of this host by reading your site), what should i do so the emails will not be deleted and users can continue using the same mails.
Pls give me clarification thru email or on you blog. It will be very helpful for me and all others.
Thanks in advance
Janarthanan
Editorial Staff
In your bluehost account setup the MX records. Then do the transfer, and it will work.
Admin
JANARTHANAN
Hi Buddy, Thanks for the info. But i’ve a doubt, before transfering a domain from Godaddy how can i setup MX records in Bluehost for the same domain. PLs explain as i was a newbie on this field.
Thanks
Editorial Staff
In the DNS settings in your Bluehost cPanel, you can specify MX records. Bluehost support will be able to help you with this.
JANARTHANAN
Hi Syed,
Thanks for your info, i followed your tuts, also as per your comment i get details from Blue Host too. Now i successfully transferred my domain. And all my emails associated to it (functions on outlook.com) work fine.
Thanks once again for your great tuts.
Janarthanan
Tuyen
Hi I set up my professional mail on outlook.com, it’s work fine for about a month but now when I send email to client it alway have hotmail_77425feceaf13aa1@live.com on behalf of my email, pls advise how to remove (hotmail_77425feceaf13aa1@live.com on behalf of my email)
hope to hear soon
all the best
WPBeginner Support
Please contact outlook support, they would be able to help you better.
Mohamed
Guys,
Be careful when trying to create a “professional” email account that uses your domain; particularly when using Microsoft Outlook/Live/Hotmail…. It will send your email to the recipient, on receipt of your email the recipient will see “hotmail [a random number]@live.com ON BEHALF OF yourname@yourdomain,com”. This is not professional at all. Its actually less embarrassing than using a regular free @hotmail.com.
O, and Microsoft has no plans to correct this! I’ve tried several forums and made multiple requests.
All the best.
Ed Fishman
This isn’t true as far as I can tell. I have a couple of domains that use Outlook.com and all of them send as the actual sender. No ‘On Behalf Of’ appears anywhere – either in From: or even hidden in the message headers.
Now that Google isn’t offering a free version of Google Apps, Outlook.com is still your best bet for setting up a free, non-pop, e-mail system that can use your own domain.
Ed
Verna
Are u sure about this, does yourname@yourdomain.com not appear in the recipient mail?
Glenn F
Thanks for posting this Mohamed. There is no way I plan on using this now.
Joshua Caluette
If you follow the directions and confirm that your DNS is configured properly and you are not sending your email through your live account as an alias of your professional domain, then this does not happen. I have mine setup and it works just fine. I have seen similar issues on Google Apps as well, but it is always due to mis-configuration.
Marco
I need a catch all alias to be sure to receive all the email adressess i used in the past…. How do i setup a catch-all with live domains? Can’t find it.
lmcpa
When switching from a paid hosted version with godaddy is there a way to save or move emails from the godaddy service to this free outlook.com setup?
Editorial Staff
Not entirely sure about that. Perhaps asking Godaddy would be best. Usually it is hard.
Admin
pishka
I have my website already set up at domains.live.com and the emails are already in use by users. Currently i’m migrating my domain to a new host, what should i do so the emails will not be have to be deleted and users can continue using the same mails?
If i add the mx records on the new host i can continue to use the mails on the same domains.live.com account I had?
Pls reply its important
Thanks
nick bacon
Hi, I am following the instructions but when i get to the screen that will give you a choice to either use an existing Microsoft account to administer this domain or create a new Microsoft account on your own domain name, e.g. yourname@yourdomain.com.
I do not get this option, it automatically goes to a regular live sign in page?
any tips?
Muhammad Tauseef
Thanks you so much buddy.
Your article resolve my biggest problem.
God Bless You
Vivie
Hi, is it possible to have more than one administrator for one domain?
Thanks
Julia
Hi,
Thanks much for the tutorial, and I’ve set up the service successfully. However, for some reason, the interface is the old version of hotmail, which is very ugly. In case you wonder what the old interface looks like, here it is http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kDpSR53bY5U/UBnXmDiySfI/AAAAAAAAAlo/PwjJaZhdAFA/s1600/2-hotmail.jpg
Is this the interface everyone sees? How do I change it to the better interface?
Thanks.
Editorial Staff
They said they are slowly moving users over.
Admin
pishka
on the right side drop down click on upgrade to outlook or something similar
Lauren
Thank you! Outlook’s support is slooooow, you’ve helped me set up my email accounts, and in the comments above I learned that I could delete and recreate an email account.
Stephanie
Great tutorial!!!!!!! Worked like a charm. Using Joomla CMS though & Hostgator
Thank you so much! We were using the free <10 google apps accounts and have been looking for a replacement for awhile now.
Christine
Im being asked to verify my account. Outlook is sending the verification email to the same account Im trying to access. Do you know a way around that or if I can contact Outlook?
Christine
Also, can I just remove the domain email and just start over?
Editorial Staff
Yes you can do that.
Admin
Carlos Rivera
I followed the steps above and after clicking refresh Windows Live Admin Center says the service has been suspended. Any ideas how to get this corrected?
tony
Thank you! These instructions are much better than on the Live Admin site. Thank you, thank you!
Serge Conus
Thanks for the awesome post. Google apps for personal use was an amazing toolset, I have been forced to create forwarders to my personal gmail account which works ok for a small site, but an organization needs something bigger. I will check out outlook’s pro mail choice.
Rich C
Anyone know why I’d be getting this error message for any domain I’m entering in:
“This domain name can’t be used because it contains a protected word or inappropriate language. Please contact support if you feel this is not the case.”
Aamir Rizwan
I get the following error :
This domain name can’t be used because it contains a protected word or inappropriate language. Please contact support if you feel this is not the case.
Editorial Staff
Not sure why that is. We would suggest that you contact their support like the error ask you to do.
Admin
Héctor
I had the same thing! I searched in their forums and there were few people who had the same issue.
Bikash
I have a created email address in Microsoft using my domain and
How to Manage the user account in my admin panel in Microsoft account. Is there any option to reset the user password and read the user inbox mail for admin.
thanks
Bikash
Scott
My problem is this:
Step 2: Setting up DNS MX Records to use Outlook.com
After the registration, you will reach Windows Live Admin Center’s domain control page and it will be showing MX and TXT record strings which you need to add to your DNS settings.
After the registration, it did not take me to any such page.
Noumaan Yaqoob
@Scott: you can find those strings by going to Your domains click on YourDomain.com and then click on Domain Settings link in the left sidebar.
If that doesn’t work, check the email you provided during registration for an activation email.
Scott
OK. Now I was working with the support people on hostgator to try and figure out this tutorial between the two of us. The support person at hostgator showed me where to put all the codelines from the Windows Live Admin Center. Their chat support allowed him to tell me exactly where to copy and paste the lines of code, and where to paste them.
So…….On to step 3. According to your tutorial, The Windows Live Admin Center should say, “Your service is active” after 48 hours. I obligingly waited the 48 hours, logged in again, and it still was inactive, so I saw that the Windows support says it can take 72 hours. Now a week later I log in, and all it says is: “Your service is Suspended. Please make the required DNS changes.” I was never able to get the thing to the point where it says, “Your service is active.”
So, please kindly tell me what’s going on.
Rudy
When I click on mydomain.com in the YourDomains area, I’m just brought back to the YourDomains area again. It doesn’t go to a page that gives me the settings, etc.
Ed Nailor
Syed,
This is a great article and one work really investigating. I was disappointed to see Google do away with the free version of their Google Apps for Business. I had not yet really looked into Outlook.com, but will certainly have to try this out so I can best recommend options to my clients. Thanks for bringing this to light!
Ed
Damien Carbery
I take a simpler method – just set up a forwarder in the hosting control panel. In my client’s existing free email account (Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail) I add the new account I want to send email as. This sends a verification email which, due to the forwarder, arrives in the existing inbox.
An advantage of Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail is that they are built in account types in iOS. You can select the From address on your iOS device. I will admit that you are not using your hosting company email servers.
Editorial Staff
That is one way of doing it, and we have already shown that method a long time ago. Sometimes, when using that it ends up revealing your “real email” that you were sending it from. Even though you can mask it so it can be sent from yourname@domain.com, it will show sent from you@gmail.com
Admin
Carlos Acha
Hello,
I have tried to follow these steps but there is no Get Started button anywhere, I do get a Login button but it only sends me to Live Login Page. The address I am visiting is: domains.live.com
Any help I will appreciate.
Best regards,
Carlos
Noumaan Yaqoob
@Carlos: It is right above the sign in button. You can also click here to get started.
Noumaan Yaqoob
@Haseeb Ahmad Ayazi : Outlook allows you to create up to 500 accounts on one domain name. However, if you reach that limit and you need more free email accounts on your domain then you can contact support to extend your free accounts limit.
@Raheem Khan: I would recommend that you stick with Google Apps and try outlook.com separately by creating a yourname@outlook.com account. That way you can decide which one you like better.
Haseeb Ahmad Ayazi
You! There must be a comparison. How much accounts are allowed in free version?
Raheem Khan
Now there should be a compartision between Google Apps and Outlook Professional Emails. And do tell us which one is better. Currently I’m using Google apps.