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Best SMTP Hosting Providers

SIteGround Logo

SiteGround

Best overall SMTP host

  • Free email hosting
  • Email migrator tool
  • 99.9% uptime guarantee

Summary

  • Starting price
    $2.99 per month
  • Why it’s best
    SiteGround offers competitive pricing, industry-leading features, quality security, notable support, and a focus on continuous improvement.

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Our winner for the best overall SMTP hosting is SiteGround. It provides a customized hosting solution for managing unlimited email accounts on your domain.


To simplify your life, the company has added custom solutions (third-party in addition to its own) to ensure your email experience is fast, secure, and spam-free. For example, it will give you anti-spam solutions like SpamExperts enabled by default. And, easily manage your e-mail from the user-friendly control panel. Its email hosting supports SMTP, POP3, and IMAP.

Pros and cons of SiteGround

Pros

  • CDN included on all hosting packages
  • Premium support for small businesses
  • Over 18 years of experience

Cons

  • No dedicated or virtual private servers (VPS)

What customers are saying about SiteGround:

SiteGround is a reliable web hosting company with fast speeds, a user-friendly interface, and solid customer service. Some customers are not thrilled with the price increase and back-end support, though.

Full Bluehost Logo

Bluehost

Best SMTP host for unlimited email accounts

  • Free domain-specific email addresses
  • Advanced security options
  • Free Cloudflare integration

Summary

  • Starting price
    $2.95 per month
  • Why it’s best
    If you need many email accounts, Bluehost has you covered.

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With Bluehost, you’ll get unlimited email accounts and email storage on all but the cheapest of its shared hosting plans. Like SiteGround, Bluehost also has secure POP3 and IMAP support.


Its e-mail server is compatible with third-party clients like Roundcube so you won’t have to enter your control panel whenever you check your email.


Bluehost also gives you unique user account controls so your team can manage their e-mails however they want.

Pros and cons of Bluehost

Pros

  • Free anti-spam solutions
  • Lots of hosting options
  • Digital security features offered

Cons

  • Fee for migrating from another host
  • Long wait times for tech support

What customers are saying about Bluehost:

Bluehost is a reputable provider offering shared and VPS hosting. Its services are easy to use, affordable, and have decent uptime. Bluehost gears its services toward entrepreneurs and small online startups. Billing might be confusing, but they have solid customer service for any issues.

A2 Hosting Logo

A2 Hosting

Best SMTP host customer support

  • Unlimited email addresses
  • Free site migration
  • 99.9% uptime guarantee

Summary

  • Starting price
    $2.99 per month
  • Why it’s best
    Every time I needed help, Liquid Web’s live chat quickly responded with well-informed answers and fast solutions.

A2 Hosting landing page


Similar in price to both Bluehost and SiteGround, A2 Hosting also provides great e-mail hosting support. Even its cheapest shared hosting comes with unlimited e-mail accounts and storage.


Your A2 Hosting control panel makes SMTP hosting and email management easy to configure POP3 or IMAP for your favorite email client or access your mail with the pre-installed webmail software.

Pros and cons of A2 Hosting

Pros

  • 24/7 support availability
  • 30-day money-back guarantee
  • 99.9% uptime guarantee

Cons

  • Long-term contracts

What customers are saying about A2 Hosting:

A2 is a reliable, affordable hosting company that has fast speeds. The customer service is generally responsive but could use more updated tutorials and documentation.

FAQs About SMTP Hosting

What is SMTP?

SMTP stands for simple mail transfer protocol. It is the standard protocol used to send email messages.

How does SMTP work?

When you compose and send an email message, your email software opens a connection to an SMTP server. This normally involves logging in using a password.

To transmit the email, your software sends text-based commands, including details about the sender, recipient, and content. The server confirms each command, and once the message has been received successfully, it uses DNS records to find out the IP address where the email should be delivered.

Is SMTP secure?

Not always. If you want to ensure that nobody can read your emails in transit, use PGP encryption.

What is the difference between SMTP and POP3/IMAP?

SMTP is for sending email. POP3 and IMAP are for receiving email.

Are there any alternatives to SMTP?

There are some vendor-specific alternatives to SMTP, but these aren’t offered with regular web hosting accounts.

Where do I find the SMTP settings for my hosting company?

Before you sign up for a web hosting account, check that email service is included. Some hosts do not allow you to create email addresses alongside your web hosting files. Assuming you can create email addresses, you must create mailboxes in your hosting control panel. Then ask your host for the necessary server information to connect to it.