Lesson 2: Buying domains and email accounts outside of Woodpecker

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In this lesson you’ll learn best practices for buying domains and email accounts for cold outreach, using trusted providers like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and GoDaddy.

I’ll walk you through where to buy the right domains, how many email accounts to create, and what mistakes to avoid to protect your deliverability. You’ll also learn the pros and cons of cheaper cold email providers, what pricing models to expect, and how to scale your cold email setup without running into technical issues.

Whether you’re just starting out or upgrading your sending infrastructure, this lesson will help you build a reliable, cost-effective cold email setup.

In this lesson, you’ll learn:

• How to source domains from reputable registrars like Porkbun, Cloudflare, or Namecheap, and why the 2–5 email accounts per domain ratio is a deliberate balance between cost efficiency and reputation risk
• Why Google Business Starter and Microsoft 365 are the standard choices for email accounts, with monthly billing recommended for new senders so burned accounts can be cancelled without being locked into annual contracts
• How resellers and bulk buyers can reduce per-mailbox costs below the standard $7-9/month rate, and why sticking to US or EU-based IPs matters more than saving a few dollars on accounts tied to lower-income country infrastructure
• Why skipping proper DKIM configuration – such as with cheaper GoDaddy mailboxes – is a false economy that will cost you in deliverability, regardless of how much you save upfront

Hi, welcome to my lesson where I give you a bit more information on how to buy domains and email accounts outside of Woodpecker.  Let’s start with domains.

I recommend to go with proven providers that I see some of our clients use, these are:

1. Porkbun 
2. Cloudflare
3. Namecheap 
4. GoDaddy
5. and Squarespace 

And just as with buying domains in Woodpecker here you are paying in advance for a whole year. 

Now, for Google you will need a workspace where you can add the domains you purchased.

In the workspace you can buy email accounts. 

Best practice is to create 2-5 email accounts on one domain. 

Typically agencies in the lead generation space go with 2. 

The more email accounts you have on your domain the higher the risk.

If you damage your domain reputation more of your email accounts will be affected.

But the more email accounts you have on one domain the cheaper it will be.

You will need less domains.

In the end you need to decide the ratio.

Okay, so with email accounts from Google go with the “Business Starter”.

If you are new you may want to go with a monthly subscription.

The reason is if you completely burn an email account you can cancel it on a month to month basis. 

As of making these materials the cost for a Google email account is about $8 per month.

There are ways to get Google (or Outlook) accounts cheaper through:

1. Resellers that buy email accounts in lower income countries for cheaper
2. Certified partners that have access to better prices
3. Bulk buyers that buy large quantities of email accounts from the Google or Outlook reps

Lower income country resellers often sell email accounts with IPs from those countries. 

For cold email you want to stick to having US or EU based IPs.

These markets are better regulated and it will typically result in better deliverability for you.

As for the certified partners or bulk buyers, make sure to research the companies before buying.

You could go with provider like:

• premiuminboxes 
• inboxlogy
• zapmail 

These providers claim to provide US based IPs.

But remember to use them at your own discretion.

Now, for Microsoft email accounts you can either directly buy with Microsoft or use GoDaddy.

GoDaddy is an official reseller and often has bulk discount deals at the checkout.

Without any discounts a GoDaddy email account goes for $8.99 per month. 

GoDaddy sells cheaper email accounts than those for $8.99.

But they do not allow you to configure your own DKIM settings.

I would avoid those cheaper mailboxes, your deliverability will thank you later 🙂

As for Microsoft directly they currently sell access to email accounts for about $7 per month. 

Keep in mind though there is almost never a bulk discount there.

So that covers domains and email accounts. 

Next we need to cover some technical settings you need to have in place before sending. 

If you used Woodpecker’s Domain and Email Account setup all of that was done for you. 

However, if you want to learn more about those settings regardless, join me in the next lessons.