What is an SMTP provider?

An **SMTP** provider offers infrastructure for sending email: servers, IP addresses, and connections to receiving mail systems. Unlike full ESPs, they focus on transmission rather than marketing features. You provide the message; they deliver it.

**SMTP** providers are infrastructure layers. Your application connects via **SMTP** protocol, authenticates, and hands off messages. The provider handles queuing, retry logic, bounce processing, and the actual delivery to recipient servers.

Use cases include: applications generating **transactional email**, custom email systems needing reliable delivery, high-volume sending requiring dedicated infrastructure, and organizations wanting separation between message creation and transmission. **Amazon SES**, **Mailgun**, and **SendGrid**'s **API** represent this category.

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