It's one of the first things a contractor sets up, usually in about two minutes: a Gmail account with the company name in it. Years later the business has trucks, a crew and a website, and the email on the contact page still ends in @gmail.com. Is that a problem? Many of the articles that answer the question are written by companies that sell domains or email accounts.
So we counted. On October 27, 2026, we opened 2,281 contractor websites from Google's business listings in 16 cities across the US and Canada and recorded every email address on the home page and the contact page.
Of the 1,451 contractor websites that show an email address, 337 (23.2 percent, nearly 1 in 4) show a Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, iCloud or internet-provider address. Among shops with 1,000 or more Google reviews, it's 9 of 140.
That doesn't mean a Gmail address is costing you jobs. Nobody independent has measured that, and the trust numbers that get passed around come from a company that sells domains. We found a smaller group with a bigger problem: 29 sites list an address that may never reach them.
How We Checked the Email on 2,117 Contractor Websites
We ran 128 Google business searches: plumber, HVAC company, electrician, garage door repair, pest control, roofing contractor, house painter and landscaping company, in Dallas, Las Vegas, Nashville, Kansas City, Columbus, Orlando, Portland, Minneapolis, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Hamilton and Victoria. That gave us 2,546 business profiles and 2,281 different websites.
We opened each home page in a headless browser and then the site's own contact page when the home page linked one (1,836 did). We blocked the analytics tags so our visit never showed up in anyone's Google Analytics. 2,117 sites opened properly. 95 showed a bot check, which we logged and did not try to get past. 59 didn't load, 6 were parked domains, 3 listed a Facebook page or similar instead of a website, and 1 now sends visitors to an unrelated gambling page.
An address counted if a visitor could see it or click it: an email link, an address in the page text, a spelled-out version like “name (at) company.com” or one hidden behind a spam-protection script. An address that sat only in the page's code didn't count. Then we sorted every address: free webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook.com, iCloud, AOL and similar), an internet provider's mailbox, the site's own domain, or another domain the same company uses.
What this can't tell you:
- We only see the website. The address on your quotes, invoices, truck or Google profile might be different. Google's business listings don't include an email field.
- Pictures are invisible to us. An address shown only inside an image wasn't counted.
- “No address” is close, not perfect. We re-opened 80 random sites from that group with a longer wait and their about pages too. 2 of the 80 had an address we'd missed.
- One day, one sample. Search results change, and so do websites.
We haven't named any business, and every example address below is made up.
Nearly 1 in 4 Contractor Websites That List an Email Use a Free or Internet-Provider Address
Here's what the 2,117 websites show:
| What the site shows | Sites | Share of sites with an email |
|---|---|---|
| Show at least one email address | 1,451 | 68.5% of all 2,117 sites |
| Only an address on their own website's domain | 997 | 68.7% |
| Only an address on another domain the same company uses | 117 | 8.1% |
| A Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, iCloud or internet-provider address | 337 | 23.2% |
| Only the free or provider address | 311 | 21.4% |
| Both a free address and their own domain | 26 | 1.8% |
The other 666 sites show no address at all, and 531 of those have a contact form instead. That's a choice too, and a reasonable one for a business that would rather get the job details in a form.
Gmail is most of the free group: 278 of the 337 sites (82.5 percent). Microsoft's free addresses (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Live and MSN) are on 22, Yahoo on 14, iCloud on 4 and AOL on 2. 19 sites use the mailbox that came with their internet plan, and 17 of those are Canadian, with Shaw alone on 10. That kind carries a risk Gmail doesn't: the mailbox is tied to the internet account, so switching providers or closing the account can take the address with it.
Most of these addresses aren't sloppy. The large majority carry the business name, something like yourcompany@gmail.com. Only 13 of the 337 look like a personal account, a first or last name with a number on the end.
The Biggest Shops Almost Never Use a Free Address
The share drops hard as businesses get bigger. Each row below counts the sites that show an email, then how many of those use a free or provider address:
| Group | Sites with an email | Free or provider address |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 49 Google reviews | 176 | 51 29.0% |
| 50 to 199 reviews | 637 | 181 28.4% |
| 200 to 999 reviews | 498 | 96 19.3% |
| 1,000 or more reviews | 140 | 9 6.4% |
| Built on Wix | 110 | 42 38.2% |
| Built on GoDaddy | 79 | 27 34.2% |
| Other or custom build | 416 | 112 26.9% |
| Built on Squarespace | 56 | 11 19.6% |
| Built on WordPress | 790 | 145 18.4% |
| Garage door companies | 175 | 56 32.0% |
| Painters | 198 | 63 31.8% |
| Landscapers | 218 | 53 24.3% |
| Plumbers | 164 | 36 22.0% |
| Roofers | 199 | 40 20.1% |
| Electricians | 192 | 38 19.8% |
| Pest control | 161 | 29 18.0% |
| HVAC companies | 160 | 22 13.8% |
| United States | 608 | 148 24.3% |
| Canada | 844 | 189 22.4% |
| In the top 3 of at least one search | 218 | 42 19.3% |
| Never in a top 3 | 1,233 | 295 23.9% |
Among shops with fewer than 200 Google reviews, more than a quarter of the sites that list an email use a free address. Shops with 1,000 or more do it on 6.4 percent. Of the 13 companies behind three or more Google profiles that list an email, none uses one. That tells you what established companies end up doing. It doesn't prove the switch is why they got big.
Sites built on Wix and GoDaddy show a free address about twice as often as WordPress sites. We can't see why from the outside. Our guess is that more of those sites were built by the owner, and nobody ever set up email on the domain.
Being in the top 3 of a search made only a small difference (19.3 versus 23.9 percent). Bigger shops tend to rank well and also use their own domain more often, so we make no ranking claim from that gap. The US and Canada came out about the same.
77 of Them Already Have Email on Their Own Domain, and Still Print the Gmail
Every domain has a public record, called an MX record, that tells the rest of the internet where its email should go. We looked up the MX record for the website domain of all 337 free-address sites.
54 of them point their domain's mail at Google and 23 at Microsoft. That's 77 businesses with the setup for an address like you@yourcompany.com already in place, and often already paid for, while the website still sends customers to the Gmail. Another 114 have no mail record on their domain at all, so they'd have to set one up first.
The record only shows where mail is routed. It doesn't show whether anyone reads that mailbox. If you're in this group, though, it's worth a look: whoever set up your domain may have created a business inbox nobody has opened since.
Not sure where your domain and email are set up? Book a free 20-minute call. We'll look up your domain's mail records with you, check every address on your website and tell you what it takes to switch.
Book a Free Email and Domain Check →The 74% and 85% Trust Numbers Come From the Company That Runs .com
Search for this topic and you'll see two numbers over and over. We traced both.
The first is a 2017 Verisign blog post: “Seventy-four percent of consumers in a 2015 Verisign survey would trust a company-branded email address more so than a free email address.” The footnote says “Verisign 2015 Online Survey.” The post doesn't give the number of people asked or the question they were asked.
The second is a 2021 Verisign post about a study “commissioned by Verisign and conducted in December 2019 and January 2020 by 451 Research.” It “surveyed 5,450 online consumers across key markets in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia,” and “85%” agreed that “a business with a branded email address is more credible than one that uses a free email account.”
Verisign is the company behind “registration services and authoritative resolution for the .com and .net top-level domains,” in its own words. It's a wholesale seller of .com and .net domains, so it has a stake in that answer. Another figure that circulates comes from Ireland's .ie registry, also a domain seller. None of that makes the numbers wrong. It means the people who asked had a reason to ask, and saying a branded address looks more credible isn't the same as picking a different contractor because of it. Our data can't settle it either. We can see what's on a website, not who picked up the phone.
Worse Than a Gmail: 29 Websites List an Address That May Never Reach Them
A Gmail address still delivers. These don't, or might not. We checked the domain of every address on every site and re-checked each failure at a second public DNS service.
- 11 sites show an address on a domain that doesn't exist. Most are typos: “mechanical” spelled “mechancial,” “electrical” missing its second r, a garage door company's name with one d too many, two letters of a company name swapped. Others point at a domain the company never registered or let go. For 4 of those sites, it's the only address shown. The email standard, RFC 5321, says that when a domain doesn't exist, “this situation MUST be reported as an error.” The customer's message bounces back, and unless they read the bounce notice, they just think you never answered.
- 10 more show an address on a domain with no MX record. Under the same standard, when the list of mail servers comes back empty, the sender tries the domain's own address instead, which is usually the web server. The mail only lands if that server happens to accept email. 5 of those sites show no other address.
- 8 sites show an address that isn't theirs. These are leftovers: the same placeholder address on 2 unrelated sites, two more made-up placeholders like “hello@” an invented business name, a website theme maker's Gmail in the footer, two web hosts' temporary site names, and one heating company whose contact section still lists a tire shop's address.
That's 29 of 2,117 sites, about 1 in 70. Small, but every one of them can lose a customer who did everything right.
How to Switch to a Business Email Without Losing a Single Message
If you decide to move off Gmail, the switch is mostly setup and a little patience. Do it in this order:
- Check what you already have. Ask whoever manages your domain, or look up your domain's MX record with any free DNS lookup tool. If it already points at Google or Microsoft, you may only need to set up the inbox.
- Create the mailbox on your own domain. Google's Workspace pricing page, checked from Canada on October 27, 2026, lists Business Starter at CA$9.20 per user per month before tax, with an introductory discount on top. Microsoft and many domain companies sell business email plans too. One shared address like office@ or info@ is enough to start.
- Set up the three sending records before your first quote goes out. SPF, DKIM and DMARC tell Gmail and Yahoo your mail is really from you. Our email records check walks through all three.
- Keep the old address alive. Leave the Gmail open and set it to forward to the new inbox, then reply from the new address. Customers who saved the old one still reach you, and they pick up the new one from your replies.
- Change it everywhere a customer sees it. Your website header, footer and contact page, your Google Business Profile and other listings, your quote and invoice templates, the sender settings in your scheduling or CRM software, your truck, business cards and yard signs. If that software sends mail that claims to come from your Gmail address, change it to the new one: Google's sender guidelines say “Don't impersonate Gmail From: headers.”
- Send a test from your phone. Email the new address from a Gmail account and an Outlook account, then reply. Make sure both directions land in the inbox, not spam.
- Read every address on your own site. Look for typos, old staff, placeholder text and anything a web designer left behind. If an address on your site isn't one you check every day, take it down.
If your website is due for a rebuild anyway, the domain, the site and the inbox should be set up together, in your name. That's part of our website design work, or book a call and we'll check your current setup with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it unprofessional to use Gmail for my contracting business?
It's common, not a deal breaker. In our check of 1,451 contractor websites that show an email, 23.2 percent used a free or internet-provider address, and most of those carried the business name. The widely quoted trust numbers (74 and 85 percent) come from surveys paid for by Verisign, which runs .com. What our data does show is that established shops rarely do it: 9 of 140 companies with 1,000 or more Google reviews.
Will a Gmail address hurt my email deliverability?
Not by itself. Mail you send from Gmail goes out through Google's servers, and that works. Trouble starts when another tool, like a quoting or CRM app, sends mail that claims to come from your Gmail or Yahoo address. Google's sender guidelines say not to impersonate Gmail From: headers, and Yahoo's and AOL's published email policy tells other servers to reject that kind of mail. The usual fix is to send from an address on your own domain, or from the tool's own address with yours as the reply-to.
How much does a business email cost, and can I keep my old Gmail?
Google's pricing page, checked from Canada on October 27, 2026, lists Workspace Business Starter at CA$9.20 per user per month before tax. One shared mailbox is often enough for a small crew. And yes, keep the Gmail open and set it to forward to the new address while customers catch up. Close it only once a few months go by without real mail landing there.