Shared mailbox: handling contact@ as a team without stepping on each other

Every organization eventually has an address that belongs to no one: contact@, support@, billing@. And almost all of them start with the same solution: forwarding it to two or three personal inboxes. The outcome is familiar — a prospect gets two contradictory replies on Monday, then none on Thursday because everyone assumed someone else was on it.

The next step is usually worse: a shared Gmail account whose password circulates on Slack. Nobody knows who replied to what, two-factor authentication becomes impossible to enable, and the day Google flags logins from four devices, everyone is locked out at once.

This guide covers what to demand from a team shared mailbox, how to set one up with SMTPy — it is our product; the honest comparison with alternatives is below — and the point at which a real help desk becomes the right choice.

What a shared mailbox must guarantee

• A shared read/unread state. When one member handles a message, the others see it handled. This is the fundamental difference from a distribution list or multi-recipient forwarding, where every copy lives its own life in every personal inbox.
• Replying from the common address. The customer wrote to support@; the reply must come from support@ — not from the personal inbox of an employee who will eventually leave with the history.
• Separate accounts, not a shared password. Each member keeps their own login and two-factor authentication; offboarding means revoking one access, not rotating a common password everywhere.
• A trail of who did what. An audit log of account actions, so nobody has to debate who deleted the customer's message.
• Basic organization. Labels, folders, snooze: the minimum needed to triage without maintaining a tracking spreadsheet on the side.

Setting it up with SMTPy

SMTPy is first an email alias service: an address on your domain is an alias that either forwards to a real mailbox or is handled directly in the interface — inbox mode. The shared mailbox is that second mode, opened up to the team:

1. Add your domain and publish the generated MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records — at your registrar, without delegating your name servers.
2. Create the alias contact@ in inbox mode instead of forwarding.
3. Invite the team — up to 5 members on the Business plan, each with their own account, role and two-factor authentication.
4. Organize the flow: shared labels and folders, snoozing a message until Monday, automatic spam quarantine, full-text search across the whole history.

Replies go out from the alias address, the read/unread state is shared, actions are recorded in the account audit log, and messages arrive in real time without refreshing the page. Retention is 90 days on the Business plan — sized for day-to-day correspondence, not for legal archiving.

Honestly: when SMTPy is not the right tool

• There is no per-message assignment. Teams organize with labels and folders ("Taken by Claire"), which works well at 2-5 people. If your volume requires assigning every ticket, measuring response times or managing on-call rotations, a help desk — Front, Crisp, Zendesk — is the right layer above, at a per-seat price to match.
• Google Groups remains unbeatable for pure distribution. If the common address only needs three people to receive the information, with no shared handling state, a free group is enough.
• Gmail delegation covers a duo. An executive delegating their inbox to one assistant does not need another tool — as long as there is one delegate and no custom-domain address to share.

What it costs

The shared mailbox is included in the Business plan: €29/month (€23.20/month billed annually) for the whole account — 5 members, 50 domains, unlimited aliases — not per seat. The same need covered by a help desk is billed per user (Front starts around $19/user/month); by Google Workspace, per mailbox. For a small team sharing one or two addresses, account-based pricing changes the math — and the data stays hosted in France.

Conclusion

A common address deserves better than triple forwarding or a circulating password. An alias in inbox mode, individual accounts, shared state and an audit log: that is the minimal structure that survives departures and vacations.

The Business plan is €29/month, with a 14-day trial, no commitment. Create your team's account →

Going further: Use case: startups · Understanding email forwarding · Email aliases: the complete guide