Top 5 SMTP Email Relay Services 2024: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol(SMTP):– A simple mail transfer protocol delivers outgoing emails and is a universal protocol for sending emails. The term SMTP relay service is commonly used, especially if you’re out shopping or use an email service provider for newsletters or transactional email delivery.
But why does getting into the details of SMTP matter so much to businesses? How does email deliverability get affected and how does it directly impact your business?
SMTP comes in when peer-to-peer email services hosted over the cloud are not enough. All businesses send out marketing or bulk emails, transactional emails, and email newsletters. They require better services than peer-to-peer cloud-hosted services to send out their emails on a large scale and ensure good deliverability.
Here’s where SMTP relay email-sending services step in.
What is SMTP Relay Service?
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is the basic protocol for sending emails. This is a widely used and global protocol for sending emails. An SMTP relay is several servers through which your ESP sends out your emails.
This protocol is implemented by the use of certain Message Transfer Agents or MTA which hand off your emails to another mail server that can get your messages as close to its intended recipient. MTAs keep on relaying your email message until it reaches its final destination.
An SMTP relay service is simply an SMTP relay that is run and hosted in the cloud rather than in your data centers. The service works on the logic that it receives your message and queues it up to reach its final destination. Top 5 SMTP Email Relay Services 2024.
Also Read: 10 Best Email Marketing and Newsletter Services
The MTA either succeeds or fails to deliver your message. In case of a failure, it generates an ‘NDR’ or non-delivery report or ‘bounce’ notification, after this, the message is delivered to its original sender. This is followed by a reason for the bounce- depending on the reporting your ESP provides. The bounce of the email can be a soft or a hard bounce.
Top 5 SMTP Email Relay Services 2024
1. Pepipost SMTP Service
Pepipost is a cloud-based, AI-powered SMTP Relay Service that can get you great email deliverability at a very affordable pricing plan. This is one of the best email delivery services to send via SMTP. You can also send emails via API, the service is developer-friendly and you can integrate it into your backend seamlessly. They also have migration APIs for quick migration if you’re switching from another email service provider.
Pricing:
You can send 150,000 emails for a starting plan of $25, and save 30% on plans with the annual pricing.
Free emails:
30,000 free for the first month and then 100/day, free forever
Features:
1. They use API integration or SMTP service to send outgoing emails from your WordPress installation
2. 24X7 developer support
3. Gives real-time reporting with detailed reports.
4. The speed with transparency
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2. Gmail SMTP Server
Gmail SMTP is the most well-known SMTP provider. Instead of using third-party email-sending services or technologies for sending emails, all you can do is configure Google’s SMTP server settings into whatever script or program you wish to send email from.
Since a lot of people use Gmail to access their Emails, emails sent from Gmail SMTP have a very small chance of going into the spam folder. It provides the best deliverability for Gmail users. Top 5 SMTP Email Relay Services 2024.
Pricing:
Google SMTP server is completely free of cost. There are limits on no. of SMS send per day, recipients per message, etc
Free emails:
It gives 500 emails per day for a trial account. This is the biggest drawback of Gmail SMTP as you can get a lot more free emails from other email service providers. Then you must choose a plan and upgrade
Features:
Features of Google SMTP Server are :
1. Instant access to Google Drive and other Google services
2. Access to Google Forms, sheets, etc to create whatever you want
3. Manage users, devices, and data securely and easily
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3. Sendinblue SMTP Service
Sendinblue is one of the most popular SMTP service providers and supports services like API integration, Plugins, and third-party app integrations. Integrating with Sendinblue is quite simple and hassle-free.
Pricing:
It provides a free plan in their service where you can send 9,000 emails/month, limited to 300 emails per day.
Free emails: SendinBlue provides 9,000 emails/month for free.
Features:
1. You can send both transactional emails and standard email campaigns from different servers if you wish to pay separately for the servers.
2. Import/export features for email data
3. You can send the email manually using the user panel or create automation.
4. Sendgrid
SendGrid is a US-based email-sending service that allows you to send marketing and transactional emails. They have really good deliverability which is why they are very popular with businesses. There are some other Sendgrid tend to have pricing on the heavier side which is more than a lot of businesses are willing to pay, so you can check out some of the Sendgrid alternatives as well.
Pricing:
This service is free for a limited period for any number of emails i.e. 30 days during which you will get 40,000 emails per month and then you will have to pay for the plan which you choose.
Free Emails:
SendGrid gives you 40,000 emails in a month. And then the pricing starts from $15 to $90. One of the Top 5 SMTP Email Relay Services 2024.
Features:
The features of SendGrid are :
1. Good security for your emails using TLS, SSL encryption, and 2FA.
2. Scheduling, segmentation, and A/B testing are available.
3. APIs supporting Node JS, PHP, and other programming languages.
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5. Elastic Email
Elastic Email is a mail relay service that instead of your website sends mail via its own SMTP Server. It has a set of tools for everyone whether you are a developer, a marketer, or a designer, the tools developed by them, fit all. It provides an ultra-fast global infrastructure for transactional emails. Top 5 SMTP Email Relay Services 2024.
SMTP Pricing:
The plan’s price ranges from $150 to $4000. You can send extra and pay the overage.
Free emails:
They provide 150,000 emails/month for free.
Features:
1. 150,000 free emails per month
2. Tools for designers, marketers, as well as developer
3. A/B testing for creating emails that perform better for your campaign.