How to move your business email off GoDaddy to Microsoft 365

If your business runs its email through GoDaddy, you've probably hit the ceiling: you're paying a monthly fee for mailboxes, but there's no Teams, no SharePoint, and no real way for your team to work together. It's one of the most common situations we see with Quebec SMBs, and moving to Microsoft 365 usually costs less while giving you far more.

Here's a plain-language look at why businesses make the switch, how the migration actually works, and what to watch for, including Quebec's Law 25.

Why businesses leave GoDaddy email

GoDaddy is great for buying a domain. As a place to run your company's email and files, it tends to fall short once you have a team:

• You pay for email, but not much else. No Teams for chat and meetings, no SharePoint for shared files, no real collaboration.
• Files end up scattered. Without structured storage and permissions, the right document is always on someone else's desktop.
• Security is basic. Proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and multi-factor sign-in aren't set up by default.
• It often costs more, not less. Buying Microsoft 365 directly frequently comes in cheaper than GoDaddy's resold plans, with much more included.

What you get with Microsoft 365 instead

Microsoft 365 bundles the tools a small team actually needs: professional email on your own domain, Microsoft Teams for chat and meetings, SharePoint and OneDrive for structured, permissioned file storage, and the Office apps. Set up properly, it also gives you real security and a clear answer to "where does our data live?"

How the migration works (no data loss)

A good migration is boring on purpose, nothing should break and nothing should disappear. The shape of it:

1. Plan. We map your mailboxes, files and current GoDaddy setup, and agree on a fixed scope.
2. Set up the tenant. Create your Microsoft 365 environment, add users and licenses, and verify your domain.
3. Migrate the data. Move email, contacts and calendars (and files, if they're scattered) across, with the old system kept live as a safety net.
4. Cut over DNS. Point your domain's mail records to Microsoft 365 and configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC so messages land in inboxes, not spam.
5. Hand over and train. Your team gets a short walkthrough and documentation, in English or French.

Most setups go live in 5 to 10 business days, depending on how many mailboxes you have.

What about Law 25 and where your data lives?

For Quebec businesses, data residency matters. With Microsoft 365 we set the data-residency region and tell you exactly where your data is stored, so you can make informed choices. We say "data residency," not "sovereignty," for tools we don't control, no overclaiming. If compliance is top of mind, our Law 25 & data residency page goes deeper.

Should you do it yourself?

You can, GoDaddy and Microsoft both publish guides. But the parts that go wrong (DNS cutover, email authentication, no-loss mailbox migration, permissions) are exactly the parts that are painful to fix after the fact. If you'd rather it just work, a fixed-price migration removes the risk.