Your business email address and inbox
Every business gets a free, built-in email address that customers can write to — you don't need to set anything up. Ask your co-founder "what's my business email?" and it'll give you the exact address.
How it works
The address is based on your website's address, not necessarily your full business name spelled out — so if you're not sure what it is, just ask rather than guessing. Anything a customer sends to that address lands in your business Inbox, which you can read any time by asking things like "read my inbox," "any messages from customers?", or "check my email."
Everything that arrives is in one place
Your Inbox holds three kinds of message, and your co-founder will tell you which is which so you always know what's new:
- Mail a customer sent to your business address.
- Replies your co-founder has already sent on your behalf.
- Emails your co-founder sent you — your welcome email when you signed up, and your daily update.
So if you ask "do I have any emails?" you'll see all of it, not just customer mail. If you only want to know whether a customer has written in, say so — "any messages from customers?" — and you'll get just those.
Your Inbox at a glance
The Inbox card beside chat (the Activity tab on a phone) shows how many customer emails need a reply — every one that arrived after your last reply, however old — plus this month's received and sent totals. Reading a message doesn't change it; any reply resets it, so if several people wrote in, check each one in your Inbox. My emails to you are never counted. Not receiving yet means I'm holding customer mail until you verify your email address.
I'll tell you when a customer writes in
You don't have to keep checking. When a customer emails your business address, I notice it and come to you with a reply already drafted — you read it, and either send it as-is or tell me to change it. That approval shows you a short excerpt of what the customer actually wrote, right alongside the reply, so you're never approving a send without seeing what prompted it. Nothing goes out to a customer without your say-so.
This keeps happening — it isn't only the first message. Once you've answered someone, I won't keep bringing that same message back to you, and if you'd rather handle one yourself, just skip it and reply from your Inbox in your own words.
What I bring you is always the most recent message still waiting on a reply. So if several people write in close together, work through them from your Inbox rather than waiting for me to draft each one.
If you'd like me to stop asking every time, you can tell me to always send replies for you, and I'll take it from there.
Your website's contact form also emails you straight away when someone uses it — see "A contact form on your website".
Attachments don't come through
If a customer attaches a file to their email — a photo, a PDF, a spreadsheet — the message itself reaches your Inbox, but the file doesn't. You'll see a note on the message telling you an attachment was left behind, so you always know something was there rather than wondering. This is true of images pasted directly into the body of an email too, not just files clipped on the end.
When it matters, ask the sender to share it another way — sending it to you in chat works, and so does a link to wherever the file already lives. Support for email attachments is something we plan to add.
This is your business inbox, not your personal email
This built-in inbox is separate from your own personal email account (your Gmail, Outlook, or whatever you use day to day) — your co-founder can't read your personal email, only the business address it manages for you.
Why your address looks the way it does
Your built-in address uses our own verified sending domain, so it works from the moment you sign up, with nothing to configure, just as your website starts on a shared address.
Custom email domains
If you already own a domain, you can send this business email from it — tick Email at Settings → Domain. See Sending email from your own domain. Your free built-in address stays the default until you connect Email, and it remains a real, working way for customers to reach you.
Owning a domain is a fairly low expense, and it makes a real difference in how easily customers can find and trust your business. Buying a new domain through us isn't available yet; newsletters and campaigns stay on your Velo address even after Email is connected.
Sending marketing email
Reading and replying to individual customer messages is different from sending a campaign to your whole contact list — see "Sending marketing email to your list" for that.