15 Best SMTP Services With 99% Guaranteed Inboxing

Are you looking for the best SMTP services that ensure high deliverability?

Because just like you, there are tons of other business owners, SaaSs, bloggers, agencies, etc. who are trying to get their emails in their customer’s inboxes.

But constantly failing..!!

They (and I guess you too) have also tried sending bulk emails with either Gmail or Yahoo. But what more can you achieve with limited email sending?

Yeah, I too have felt the pain of such limitations and more importantly, emails ending up in the Spam/Junk folder of my subscribers.

Because of this, I started my search for the best SMTP service providers with guaranteed inboxing.

So over the course of a few weeks and rigorously testing out each and every SMTP service, I have managed to extract some of the best SMTP relay service providers.

Best SMTP Services Compared

But hold on… Let’s not rush to the SMTP aisle to start shopping. Instead, allow me to enlighten you more about the basics like what is SMTP and why should you use it.

(Or if you are already well-versed about the basics, feel free to skip this part and jump straight to explore all the top SMTP service providers.)

What Is A SMTP Server?

Technically speaking, SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is an application whose prime task is to send, receive, and relay emails among email senders & recipients.

In simple terms, you can say that as soon as you send your email, SMTP processes it and interprets which mailbox (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) is on the receiving end. Then it transfers all the required information to the mailbox which later downloads the email content and places it in the recipient’s inbox.

And, that’s how your inbox says – “1 new unread email“.

Why Should You Use SMTP Services?

The answer is obvious and quite simple i.e. to achieve the highest email delivery.

Along with this, the best SMTP service is also capable of helping you in the following ways –

• You’d be able to send bulk (probably millions) emails with just a push of a button.
• SMTPs use business emails for email sending which improves brand reputation.
• There aren’t any restrictions on email sending limits with SMTPs (unless it is plan specific).
• You get to send several emails in a matter of minutes.
• You avoid the risk of banning your personal Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL email account.

With that being said, here are some of the general key points that you must consider to narrow down your search –

How To Pick An Ideal SMTP Service

Here’s the checklist of the key points that would enable you to find the best SMTP for your email marketing needs –

1. Easy To Configure – You should check if the SMTP service is easy to integrate with your emailing software. After all, you do not want to handle the complication of technical aspects without any knowledge.
2. Good Reputation – It is advisable to pick the service that has a good-high reputation in the eyes of different ISPs and mailbox services.
3. High Delivery Rates – Since it’s all about delivering your emails to your recipients’ inbox, this is one of the most important factors you should look for in an SMTP service.
4. Bounce, Spam & Unsubscribe Handling – To maintain a good sending reputation, your SMTP service must be able to handle bounce, spam, and unsubscribe requests.
5. Flexible & Inexpensive Pricing – To narrow down your search, you should first look for the service that offers a free trial or a forever free plan. Once you are satisfied with its performance, you should analyze how much will it cost and how many emailinf credits you’d get in the corresponding plans.
6. Prompt Customer Support – At last, it is advisable to opt for the SMTP service that has prompt customer support.

Well, there you have it…

Now that we are perfectly synched, let’s jump straight to explore each of the 7 Best SMTP Relay Service Provider in detail –

1. Brevo – Free SMTP server for email marketing

Brevo is literally one of the best SMTP service providers right now in the business. You could very well see that Brevo has been listed on top of different blogs and that’s because it offers an efficient SMTP server for sending bulk emails and also for handling transactional emails. It is widely opted for by eCommerce businesses because of this ability.

Besides this, the software has evolved from just a simple email marketing service to a full-fledged marketing software. It means that with SMTP servers, you will also be able to send SMSs and embed a live chat widget on your website. At last, it also allows you to create landing pages with sign-up forms to capture leads and customers.

Brevo Feature Highlights

• Brevo is well renowned for its transactional SMTP service. Well, not just this, it has also firmly planted its foot in the marketing automation segment along with SMS marketing and Live Chat.
• The SMTP service also offers you an extensive set of APIs and seamlessly integrates with your preferred platforms like WordPress, Magento, Salesforce, Shopify, etc.
• Brevo has a detailed analytics & reports dashboard. This will help you easily monitor the performance of your email marketing campaigns.
• Apart from SMTP services, Brevo also has a very attractive and fluid email template builder. This ultimately pushes Brevo up the ranks.

Pricing Of Brevo

Brevo is offering several affordable pricing tiers that allow you to upload unlimited contacts and avail many more features.

As of now, there is only one plan but with flexible sub-tiers and a forever free plan.

• Free – Brevo is very generous with what they have to offer. So there’s a forever free plan which provides 9,000 emails/month with a 300 emails/day sending limit.
• Transactional Email Plans – Brevo offers complete access to its transactional emails and SMTP relay features. You are only charged for the emails that you send. The pricing of which starts at $15/month for 20,000 emails.

Also, keep in mind that Brevo offers a plethora of additional features. So to make a sound decision, I encourage you to compare Brevo’s plans in detail.

2. MailerSend – Best SMTP for transactional emails

If you are looking purely for a transactional SMTP service, your quest may end at MailerSend. This service is developed by the team behind MailerLite – a leading email marketing service provider. With 10+ years of experience in the email marketing field, the folks behind MailerSend knew what needs to be done to achieve the highest email delivery. And, that’s what this service provider has been doing for some time now.

Besides this, the stuff that makes MailerSend one of the best SMTP services currently is its user-friendliness. Not to forget, it can be used by a single user or a fleet of developers and marketing professionals. At the end of the day, this service provider is robust enough to handle the sending of a few emails to millions.

Feature Highlights

• For starters, MailerSend offers you the option to use its RESTful API or its SMTP relay to send your transactional emails. These two options will prevent you from managing any email servers.
• It is one of the only SMTP service providers that offer inbound routing of emails. In simple words, the application is completely capable of receiving emails on your behalf and facilitating email replies.
• While other SMTP services only offer the relay servers, MailerSend likes to take things up a notch by offering a drag & drop email builder. Additionally, you can also use its readymade email templates and also personalize them with dynamic tags.
• To boost your email delivery and maintain your sender reputation, MailerSend supports domain authentication by adding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records in your DNS records.
• MailerSend also amplifies its use cases by offering multiple integrations via Zapier and Integromat. Not to forget, the service is backed up by prompt, 24*7 customer support.

Pricing

MailerSend is a free SMTP service. The software offers a forever free plan that enables you to send 12,000 emails in a month. But keep in mind that if you exceed the 12,000 email threshold, you’d incur additional charges. Extra emails are charged at $1 per 1,000 emails.

The free plan offers almost all the essential features like SMTP relay, API, webhooks, email builder, personalization tags, suppression management, etc. But to be able to send a larger volume of emails and access its advanced features like multiple sending domains, email routing, etc., you should sign up for its subscription plan.

Here’s an overview of the plan –

• Free – A forever free and autorenewing email sending limit of 12,000 emails per month.
• Premium – The Premium plan offers multiple sub-tiers of pricing –
  • 50,000 emails/month – $25/month
  • 100,000 emails/month – $55/month
  • 250,000 emails/month – $85/month
  • 500,000 emails/month – $225/month
  • 750,000 emails/month – $475/month
  • 1,000,000 emails/month – $550/month
  • 1,500,000 emails/month – $725/month
  • 2,000,000 emails/month – $975/month
  • 2,500,000 emails/month – $1250/month
  • 3,000,000 emails/month or more – Custom pricing

3. SMTP – Robust SMTP Relay Service

Another SMTP service that has been flying under the radar is SMTP or SMTP.com. The service has been in the business for more than 20 years now. Due to their vast experience in the email marketing field, SMTP is managing to offer industry-best email deliverability. Hence, if you want to send a few hundred emails or require a higher emailing volume, SMTP is your ideal choice.

To further impart credibility in this field, you’d love to know that SMTP is offering its SMTP services to more than 100,000 customers. Some of its most notable clients include Virgin Atlantic, MobileIron, Best Buy, Nurse.com, etc. In addition to this, the team behind this service has developed other SaaS applications like Campaigner, iContact, and Kickbox.

Feature Highlights

• SMTP packs a proprietary technology by the name of Reputation Defender. It safeguards your domain and sender’s reputation by suppressing bounces from your email list.
• You have the flexibility to connect SMTP either with your own SaaS application, email marketing software, or any other third-party software with the help of its API.
• No matter if you are looking to send a few hundred emails or thousands, SMTP has a robust infrastructure to send a high volume of emails at a lightning-fast speed.
• Unlike other best SMTP services, SMTP offers multiple solutions. For instance, apart from sending transactional emails, this service offers solutions to developers, marketers, startups, and students.

Pricing

Unlike other SMTP services, SMTP.com is a premium service. In simple terms, if you want to use this service, you’d have to first purchase email sending credits.

Rest assured, all of its plans are curated to furnish your email sending needs. Not to forget, with 99% uptime, SMTP provides unmatched email deliverability. Lastly, you also get to use dedicated IP (available in higher plans) to send your emails.

Here’s an overview of SMTP pricing plans –

• Essential – This plan will cost you $25/month and enables you to send up to 50,000 emails with shared IPs.
• Starter – At the same time, this plan costs $80/month and supports sending of 100,000 emails. Furthermore, you are also provided with a dedicated IP address.
• Growth – Similarly, this plan comes with a price tag of $300/month and allows you to send 500,000 emails with a dedicated IP address.
• Business – Lastly, it will cost you $500/month to send 1,000,000 emails.

4. SendPulse – Best SMTP Service Provider

SendPulse claims to be the multi-channel marketing platform rather than just an email marketing service.

But truth be told, SendPulse rose to fame due to its SMTP. So, in addition to being an all-in-one marketing platform, SendPulse is also favored as the best SMTP service for email marketing.

SendPulse Feature Highlights

• Although SendPulse specifically lists itself as the best all-in-one marketing channel, it offers the best SMTP server for sending bulk emails.
• One of the best feature highlights of SendPulse is the availability of its API in 6 different languages. This streamlines its integration with any CRM, CMS, or any email builder platform.
• Except for the Basic plan, SendPulse provides you a dedicated IP address for sending your email campaigns.
• In addition to SMTP, SendPulse also offers a complete email marketing solution, web push notification services, SMS marketing, Facebook chatbot, and add-ons.

Pricing Of SendPulse SMTP

Due to SendPulse’s different offerings, there are different but dedicated pricings for all of its services.

Speaking about the pricing structure for its SMTP, there are 3 plans with monthly and annual (20% off) billing options.

• Basic – If you have a nominal need of sending 12,000 emails in a month, you could use SendPulse SMTP for free. However, you will be charged $8.85/month for 25,000 emails and $16.85/month for 50,000 emails.
• Pro – Similarly, to send up to 100,000 emails in a month, SendPulse will charge you $74.85/month. Next, for 200,000 emails, you will be charged $124.85/month and for 300,000 emails, you will be charged $174.85/month.
• Enterprise – Unlike other SMTPs, SendPulse showcases its enterprise plan’s pricing structure. The plan starts at a monthly quota of 500,000 emails for $274.86/month and ranges up to 5,000,000 emails for $1,824.85/month.

SendPulse offers a dedicated IP address in Pro and Enterprise plans for your bulk email sending needs. Besides this, there’s a Pay As You Go plan where you can buy email credits.

5. SMTP2GO – Top SMTP Service Provider

SMTP2GO is one of the underdogs when it comes to the list of SMTP relay services. It casually hides in the background and continues to excel in delivering your emails to the inbox.

Although, unlike other service providers who also provide additional services (email builder, automation, etc.), SMTP2GO focuses solely on providing the world-class SMTP service. That’s what makes it an ideal pick.

SMTP2GO Feature Highlights

• SMTP2GO has been marked as the best SMTP mail service which is ideal for transactional and marketing email campaigns.
• The service is prominent in all the technical aspects like DKIM & SPF validation, feedback loops, blacklist monitoring, and spam-trap detection. This ensures guaranteed inboxing.
• SMTP2GO also packs an insightful dashboard that displays all the major email activities and real-time analytics.
• The services have their SMTP servers located all around the world. This means that your emails will be sent at a lightning-fast rate even when there’s a major internet outage.

Pricing Of SMTP2GO

The SMTP service has a simple pricing structure with 4 plans and a forever free plan.

While opting for the annual plan, SMTP2GO offers 2 months’ worth of free SMTP services.

• Free – You could start sending 1000 emails per month right away by signing up for the forever free plan.
• Starter – Next, SMTP2GO offers you a couple of sub tiers – 10,000 and emails/month at the cost of $10 and $15/month, respectively.
• Professional – Similarly, this plan also offers multiple sub-tiers that start at $75/month for 100,000 emails/month and goes up to $520/month for 1,000,000 emails/month
• Custom – For a monthly emailing quota exceeding 3,000,000 emails, SMTP2GO recommends you to get in touch with them to generate a custom pricing plan.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you exceed your monthly emailing limit, you would be charged extra per email (depending on your subscribed plan).

You can also explore some of the best alternatives to SMTP2GO.

6. Moosend – Top SMTP server for email marketing

It was highly unlikely that Moosend would be featured among other best SMTP service providers. But due to its constant improvements, it has rightly earned his place.

Moosend, in totality, is an email marketing suite that also offers SMTP as a separate service. Due to this, it has managed to attract a good amount of users from across the world.

Moosend Feature Highlights

• Despite being classified as the best SMTP relay service provider for transactional emails, Moosend is reliable for marketing emails as well.
• Moosend proudly boasts about being easy to integrate with any bulk emailing platform.
• It also negates you from exerting a load of sending bulk emails on your own servers. Moosend’s spam-free servers do it for you.
• Also, to keep your emails out of the dreadful spam-folder, Moosend duly authenticates your emails as you send them.

Pricing Of Moosend

One of the greatest things about Moosend is that it allows you to send unlimited emails. The limit is imposed only on the number of subscribers.

So if you are using its email marketing suite, you get to send unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers for free, forever. But if you want only the SMTP then you have to start by subscribing to its paid plans.

• The first plan of Moosend starts at $10/month which allows you to send unlimited emails to 1,000 subscribers.
• Next, you have the option to pay $55/month for sending unlimited emails up to 10,000 subscribers.
• Similarly, for sending limitless emails to 50,000 subscribers, you’d have to pay $205/month.
• Lastly, unlimited emails to 100,000 subscribers would be charged at the rate of $390/month.

You should know that the above-mentioned plans are just listed as per the milestones. There are many more flexible plans available. Apart from this, there’s a pay-as-you-go plan as well.

7. turboSMTP – Top SMTP Server

Usually, the list of SMTP relay services consists of famous and notable names. But this doesn’t mean that turboSMTP won’t make the cut.

I can very well agree that most of us are not aware of this SMTP server but trust me, the services that they offer are world-class and possibly better than other “famous” SMTPs.

turboSMTP Feature Highlights

• The SMTP servers are well compatible with all the mail clients like Mozilla, Windows Mail, Thunderbird, etc.
• turboSMTP keeps its servers white-listed by maintaining its servers reputations. This ensures high email deliverability and the lowest filtering.
• You would be provided with the feature to manage Bounce, Spam, and Unsubscribed email addresses with ease. Moreover, all the important metrics can also be monitored in real-time.
• turboSMTP also offers a dedicated newsletter creator along with its SMTP relay servers. This newsletter creator builds HTML email templates by dragging & dropping the required elements.

Pricing Of turboSMTP

Just like other services, turboSMTP provides flexible pricing plans on a monthly and yearly recurring basis.

Also, you will get 2 months free if you opt to pay yearly for the corresponding plan.

• turboSMTP offers a free trial plan for 12 months in which you can send 6,000 monthly emails with 200 emails/day limit.
• Next, the Basic plan is very flexible. It enables you to send up to 50,000 relays/month at a price of $14.95/month. Similarly, for sending requirements up to 100,000 emails/month, you would be charged $29.95/month.
• Just like the Basic plan, the Professional plan is flexible. But by opting for this plan, you will be getting a dedicated IP (and other features) for your email campaigns. The pricing starts at $79.95/month for sending up to 200,000 relays/month. This plan goes up to 1,500,000 relays/month at the price of $979.95/month.
• If you even higher email sending needs then turboSMTP encourages you to talk to their expert for custom pricing.

Furthermore, if you do not want to subscribe to any monthly/yearly plan then you can opt for its “Pay As You Go” pricing structure.

8. Elastic Email – Best SMTP mail service

Just like a few other email marketing solutions, Elastic Email is also known as the cheap SMTP server for email marketing. Consequently, it became the go-to SMTP for developers and marketers

If you’d have asked me a couple of years ago about what are the best SMTP services, I would have not even mentioned Elastic Email. But with the recent development and major improvements, Elastic Email has climbed its way to become one of the best services.

Elastic Email Feature Highlights

• Elastic Email has taken email delivery extremely seriously. Hence it uses SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for maximum deliverability.
• If you are not already using an email builder, Elastic Email provides its own email designer for quick and easy email drafting.
• The Elastic Email API acts as a key for every lock. Meaning, you can integrate Elastic Email with any app, software, or website with the help of its API.
• In order to monitor the performance of your email campaigns, Elastic Email offers real-time reporting.

Pricing Of Elastic Email

One great characteristic of its SMTP server is its simple and inexpensive pricing structure. After all, they want to be one of the most used SMTP services across the globe.

It offers a forever free plan and a couple of pricing plans that are built on the “Pay As You Go” pricing model.

• Free – For starters, you get to send 100 emails per day for free.
• Email API – You can purchase email sending credits at the rate of $0.10/1000 emails plus $0.40/day. This also includes basic features like email designer, API access, analytics, etc.
• Email API Pro – If you’d like to extend your email sending capabilities with advanced features then you can purchase email credits at the rate of $0.12/1000 emails + $1/day. Some of the advanced features included in this plan are Webhooks, extended logs, custom rDNS, etc.

Also, if you want to leave no stones unturned with your email delivery then you can purchase dedicated IP as an add-on.

9. Mailify – New SMTP Service

You would be ecstatic to know that there’s a new SMTP service available in the market by the name of Mailify.

Mailify is the latest product of a French company, Sarbacane. It usually offers a complete email marketing platform with SMS marketing features but its SMTP server definitely steals the show.

Mailify Feature Highlights

• Along with SMTP, Mailify has the potential to provide you with the complete email marketing platform, SMS campaigns, sign-up forms, landing pages, etc.
• It provides an easy to use drag & drop email builder that creates responsive email templates for your email marketing campaigns.
• Unlike other SMTP services, Mailify is the only SMTP that allows you to send email campaigns with attachments.
• Mailify leaves no stones unturned in personalizing your email campaigns by offering you various merge-tags. These tags can dynamically and automatically add the names of your subscribers in the email template.

Pricing Of Mailify

The team behind Mailify doesn’t want you to either compromise your email marketing performance or your bank balance. Hence it offers a 30 days free trial.

This free trial allows you to send a total of 500 emails and 10 complimentary SMSs. After this, Mailify offers you 3 flexible subscription plans (monthly & yearly) with different sub-tiers and the ability to import unlimited contacts.

• Free – You can try Mailify for 30 days by sending 500 emails.
• Essential – This plan starts at $69/month and allows you to send 5,000 emails/month with 1 user access.
• Premium – Similarly, you can subscribe to this plan that starts at $159/month and offers some advanced email marketing features and 3 users access.
• Exclusive – Lastly, this plan starts at $289/month and offers all the features for 10 users.

The sub tiers for each of the plans are based on the number of emails sent per month. You can calculate the pricing as per your needs after signing up for the free trial of Mailify.

10. Pepipost – Best free SMTP relay service

Pepipost has been widely regarded as one of the top SMTP services due to its lightning-fast email delivery.

The service also boasts about its smooth integration with your desired system. Moreover, Pepipost also supports SSL and TSL which keeps your connection and email content protected while sending.

Pepipost Feature Highlights

• Unlike other SMTPs, Pepipost proudly talks about being the best transactional SMTP service. Meaning, all of your emails regarding Signup Confirmations, Order Receipts, etc. are sent instantly and straight to the inbox.
• To combat network latency, Pepipost has currently established servers at 6 different global locations – Delaware, New York, Frankfurt, Bengaluru, Singapore, and Mumbai.
• Pepipost’s latest feature – Artificial Intelligence assures high delivery for marketing email campaigns by auto-adjusting the email sending speed.
• You can effortlessly connect Pepipost with your preferred platform using its API. You also get to monitor important email activities like delivered, bounced, opens, etc. through webhooks.

Pricing Of Pepipost

Just like other best SMTP mail service, Pepipost too has a wide range of affordable pricing plans.

Although, there are no specific plans and all it takes is you to figure out how many emails do you want to send in a month and pay for it accordingly.

In simple words, it is known as volume-based pricing.

• The SMTP service has a unique approach to its free plan. It offers you 30,000 emails for the first 30 days then followed by 100 emails/day, forever.
• The first milestone in the volume-based pricing is 150,000 emails per month. You’d be charged $25/month.
• Similarly, Pepipost offers 400,000 emails per month package at a nominal charge of $85/month.
• Followed by this, Pepipost’s most popular package is 600,000 emails per month where you’d only have to pay $145/month.
• Next up is the package for 1,000,000 emails per month that will be charged $245/month.
• Lastly, to send up to 2,000,000 emails per month, you will be billed $445/month.

In case you have high-volume needs (above 2,000,000 emails per month), Pepipost requests you to get in touch with them.

Note – If you have exhausted your monthly email sending quota, you can avail extra 1000 email credits by paying extra.

11. Mailjet – Best free SMTP service

Mailjet has been in the business since 2010 and as per them, 130,000 companies have used their email marketing, SMTP, and other services.

In addition to this, according to recent email delivery tests, Mailjet has managed to deliver most of the emails and to most of the mailboxes. This proves that Mailjet has been in the ranks of the top SMTP service providers.

Mailjet Feature Highlights

• Mailjet is very confident about being easily integrable. You would be ready to send emails in just a matter of minutes and after a couple of settings configuration.
• The SMTP is highly concerned about the safety & protection of emails. So, it offers an option to user TSL or SSL encryptions.
• Mailjet also claims guaranteed inboxing after setting up SPF, DMARC, and DKIM records for domain authentication.
• Along with these, you would be able to create responsive emails using its builder, track your email campaigns and get alerts in case of delivery issues.

Pricing Of Mailjet

Even after accumulating a wide spectrum of clientele, Mailjet still offers reasonable pricing plans. On top of this, you could also avail 10% discount on all annual plans.

Currently, Mailjet has 4 volume-based plans – 3 monthly/yearly and 1 free plan.

• Free – You could subscribe to the forever free plan and send 6000 emails in a month with a 200 emails/day sending limit.
• Basic – This plan consists of sub-plans with a monthly emailing quota ranging from 30,000 to 900,000 emails. The price ranges from $9.65/month to $333.95/month.
• Premium – Similarly, this subsequent plan also has the same monthly emailing quota i.e. 30,000 to 900,000 emails. But the price ranges from $20.95/month to $398.95/month.
• Enterprise – Lastly, for email sending requirements above 900,000 emails/month, Mailjet invites you to get in touch with the sales team for a custom enterprise plan.

Once you subscribe to any premium pricing plans (Basic, Premium, or Enterprise), Mailjet removes daily sending limits. Moreover, each plan has some unique features set which unlocks as soon as you upgrade.

12. Inboxroad – Best SMTP Server

If you want to take your email marketing efforts to the next level then you must definitely try Inboxroad. I am quite sure that you might have not heard about it but trust me,  Inboxroad is one of the best SMTP services that has grown in recent times.

Inboxroad is a Dutch company that started as an email marketing company seven years ago. Since then, its constant development has made it a top service provider.

Inboxroad Feature Highlights

• Inboxroad is primarily turning lots of heads for its SMTP Relay & APIs. It is perfectly integrable with major email marketing services like Ongage, Interspire, Mailwizz, etc.
• The service provider also assigns a delivery expert for you. The expert then monitors your performance and offers actionable advice on a weekly basis.
• You alone will be responsible for your sender reputation as the SMTP service is backed up by dedicated IPs. If you want, it also offers custom IP warm-ups.
• If in case you find yourself stuck or don’t know what to do, you can refer to its extensive setup guides or get in touch with prompt customer support.

Pricing Of Inboxroad

Inboxroad doesn’t believe in leaving any stones unturned. Therefore, if you have bulk email sending requirements, you’d find its pricing plans quite affordable.

Although, the sad part is that there is no free plan or free trial. The subscription plans are built purely on the number of emails. Here’s a brief overview of the pricing plans –

• Basic – The basic plan lets you send out 100.000 emails a month, at $59/month. 
• Pro – Additionally, the first tier of the Pro plan offers 250,000 emails/month at the cost of $139/month. And, the second tier of the Pro plan is chargeable at the rate of $229/month and offers 500,000 emails sending quota.
• Premium – Finally, this plan enables you to send 1 million emails in a month at the cost of $299/month.

Apart from this, if you want to send more than 1 million emails, you must request for a custom pricing plan.

13. Amazon SES – Cheap SMTP server for email marketing

There are no lists of best SMTP service providers that do not feature Amazon Simple Email Service or simply, Amazon SES. It’s that great and highly popular.

Amazon SES is probably the oldest and cheapest SMTP service in the realm of email marketing. And, because of this, many reputable companies like Siemens, HBO, Vodafone, etc. rely on Amazon SES.

Amazon SES Feature Highlights

• Amazon SES is highly flexible when it comes to sending transactional, as well as promotional emails. This makes it the best SMTP server for sending bulk emails.
• It has a most respected track record of email delivery due to its email authentication policies. This includes SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
• Also, if you are quite serious about your sending reputation, you can easily and inexpensively get a dedicated IP address from Amazon SES.
• Since Amazon SES is part of Amazon, it can be easily integrated with other Amazon platforms like Amazon WorkMail, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS IAM, Amazon S3, and more.

Pricing Of Amazon SES

Another reason behind the supreme reign of Amazon SES is its pricing structure.

You’d be surprised to know that it does not have any monthly or annual subscription plans. Instead, you’d have to only pay for what and how much you use. Here’s a breakdown of its pricing –

• You are entitled to get the first 62,000 emails (each month) for free if you send your emails from an Amazon EC2 hosted application.
• If you have your own emailing platform, you’d be charged $1 for sending 10,000 emails.

If you are scared of commitments then Amazon SES could be the best blessing for your email marketing campaigns.

14. SendGrid – Finest SMTP Relay Server

SendGrid (now Twilio SendGrid) is one of the most renowned names among the SMTP relay services. Every blogger, business owner, marketer, etc. has at least heard of it or used it for their email marketing campaigns.

You can figure out the global popularity of SendGrid by knowing that it currently caters to 80,000+ customers. And, hopefully, you could be one of its proud customers

SendGrid Features Highlights

• If you have your own (or 3rd party) platform, then you can use its simple procedure to integrate its SMTP servers.
• SendGrid provides all the required measures to authenticate your domain like SPF & DKIM validation. Therefore, this increases email deliverability and creates a great reputation in the eyes of ISPs.
• All the SMTP relay servers of SendGrid come pre-signed up or pre-integrated with all the major feedback loops. Hence you would be to automatically receive all the spam & unsubscribe complaints and ensure that you won’t send them again.
• Also, if needed, you can request for a dedicated IP (extra charges applied) and start an automated IP warming procedure. By opting for this, you would be able to maintain your reputation and generate even high email delivery rates.

Pricing Of SendGrid

Unlike other top SMTP server providers, SendGrid provides separate pricing plans for its SMTP and complete marketing campaign services.

As always, both the services come at monthly payment options.

• SendGrid too offers a forever free plan which provides you 100 emails/day forever.
• The Essentials plan has a variable pricing module. It will allow you to start sending up to 50,000 emails/month at a charge of $14.95/month. However, you must know that after exceeding the 40,000 emails mark, overage charges will be applied. If your sending limits reach up to 100,000 emails/month then you’d be charged $29.95/month.
• At the same time, the Pro plan is the most popular plan of SendGrid as it offers a variable pricing structure. Next, you’d be charged $89.95/month for sending up to 200,000 emails. Followed by the sending limits of 650,000 and 1,300,000 emails/month, you’d have to pay $249 and $449/month respectively. Lastly, you can avail 1,500,000 emails/month package by paying $749/month.
• Finally, if you have a bulk email sending requirement of over 1,500,000 emails/month then you must get in touch with the SendGrid team for custom pricing.

Although, keep in mind that SendGrid applies overage charges if you exceed the monthly email sending quota of your subscribed plan.

15. Mailgun – Efficient SMTP Server

The final entry in the list of best SMTP servers would be Mailgun. But being mentioned at the last doesn’t mean that Mailgun is in any way ineffective. In fact, Mailgun is one of the best SMTP service providers developed specifically for developers and businesses to deliver their emails seamlessly.

Some top customers of Mailgun include GitHub, Shopify, Reddit, etc. And, to add the cherry on the top, recently, Mailgun has acquired Mailjet – one of the best email marketing software.

Mailgun Features Highlights

• Mailgun is one of the unique SMTP relay service providers who also offer Email Validations along with its other services.
• Not only Mailgun provides insightful real-time analytics but you also get detailed logs in case of email delivery failures.
• Sending transactional emails from Mailgun is ideal. But you could also send bulk email campaigns such as Promotional, Newsletter, Acquisition or Retention without having to worry about the delivery.
• To make a great impression on your subscribers/customers, Mailgun enables you to include Recipient Variables (available in the email marketing software) and personalize your emails accordingly.

Pricing Of Mailgun

The pricing plans for the Mailgun SMTP server is by far the most flexible and scalable available in the market. The plans are the perfect amalgamation of Fixed Based and Pay As You Go.

Evidently, this is one of the reasons that makes Mailgun one of the best SMTP services.

• Flex – Mailgun provides 5,000 emails free every month for up to 3 months. After that, you will have to subscribe to any of the premium plans.
• Foundation – The Fixed Based part of this plan includes a dedicated IP, 50,000 emails/month, etc., and starts at $69/month.
• Growth – Similarly, this plan allows you to send 100,000 – 2,500,000 emails/month along with dedicated IP, live chat support, and other advanced features. The pricing of this plan starts at $80/month.
• Scale – Finally, the plan starts at $90/month and offers email sending packages of 100,000 – 2,500,000 emails/month.

The Fixed Based pricing system of Mailgun is quite crystal clear. But while exceeding the monthly email sending and validation quota, Pay As You Go is automatically applied.

You can find out your estimated monthly bill by using Mailgun’s price calculator. All you have to do is select how many emails do you want to send and validate in a month. The pricing will be generated automatically and instantly.

Don’t forget to check out some of the best alternatives to Mailgun.

Wrapping Up

Well, there you have it…

To conclude, here are other notable factors which provided the above-mentioned SMTP services a boost against their competitors –

• They have a great status in the eyes of ISPs
• They offer flexible pricing plans with proper scaling options
• Compatible with major mailboxes and email clients
• Provides whitelisted servers for email sending and with detailed analytics
• Prompt customer support

I hope that your quest to find the best SMTP services with guaranteed inboxing has come to an end.

Next, all you have to do is pick the service that suits your needs, sign up and start sending your emails.

Or, if you would still like to consider other options, feel free to go through these blogs too –

• Amazon SES Alternatives for sending bulk emails.
• Email List Cleaning Tools for removing invalid and expired email addresses.
• Transactional Email Services for eCommerce and SaaS businesses