Where should I host images for emails?

Image hosting affects load speed, reliability, and deliverability. Choose infrastructure designed for high availability and email-specific needs.

Options:

ESP's image hosting: Most ESPs provide image storage. Optimized for email delivery, often includes CDN distribution. Simplest option.

CDN services: Cloudflare, AWS CloudFront, Fastly provide fast global delivery. Good for high-volume senders wanting control.

Your web server: Possible but may lack CDN performance and could be overwhelmed by email-triggered traffic spikes.

Requirements:

HTTPS: Required for modern email clients. HTTP images may be blocked or trigger warnings.

Reliability: Images must load quickly and consistently. Broken images hurt engagement and look unprofessional.

Persistence: Don't delete images that are referenced in sent emails. Recipients open emails days or weeks later.

Optimization: Compress images appropriately. Large images slow loading and may hit size limits.

Caching considerations:

Gmail caches images through its proxy after first load

Apple MPP prefetches all images at delivery

Plan for images being cached; don't rely on real-time image serving for personalization

Your image server is the warehouse. It needs to be accessible whenever someone opens the crate.