{"id":72012,"date":"2023-07-21T20:38:24","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T20:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/glossary\/email-service-provider-esp\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T13:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T13:16:30","slug":"email-service-provider-esp","status":"publish","type":"glossary","link":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/en\/glossary\/email-service-provider-esp\/","title":{"rendered":"Email service provider (ESP): What is it? Best providers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An email provider<\/strong> is the company that gives you an email account and the servers to send, receive and store your messages: Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo Mail, for example.<\/p>\n\n

If you send email marketing campaigns, it’s worth knowing how they work, because their filters decide whether your emails reach the inbox or the spam folder.<\/p>\n\n

What are email providers?<\/h2>\n\n
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Email providers<\/strong> are companies that offer the technical resources and means needed to create an email account and, with it, be able to send and receive emails.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

When you need to run bulk email campaigns, you have to be very careful when choosing your email provider, because part of the success of your sends depends on that company.<\/p>\n\n

There are many email providers, some paid and others free. Among the free ones, the most popular are Gmail<\/a>, Yahoo!, Outlook (Hotmail), GMX Mail and Zoho.<\/p>\n\n

Email provider or ESP?<\/h2>\n\n

The two terms are often mixed up, but they are not the same thing. The email provider gives you the mailbox where you receive and send your everyday emails. The ESP<\/strong> (email service provider<\/em>) is the platform companies use to send campaigns and newsletters to many contacts at once.<\/p>\n\n

<\/th>Email provider<\/th>ESP or sending platform<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
What it’s for<\/td>Sending and receiving your personal or work emails<\/td>Sending campaigns, newsletters and automated emails to your list<\/td><\/tr>
Examples<\/td>Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail<\/td>Mailrelay and other email marketing platforms<\/td><\/tr>
Volume<\/td>A few hundred emails a day<\/td>Thousands or millions of emails a month<\/td><\/tr>
Statistics<\/td>No<\/td>Deliveries, bounces, unsubscribes, opens and clicks<\/td><\/tr>
Unsubscribes<\/td>You handle them yourself<\/td>Handled automatically<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo are also known as mailbox providers<\/em>, and they are the ones that decide whether your campaign reaches the inbox.<\/p>\n\n

Differences between an email provider and an email client<\/h2>\n\n

As we mentioned earlier, the email provider is the company that gives you your email account, along with the means to send and receive emails.<\/p>\n\n

An email client, on the other hand, is the application or software that lets you use the features email providers offer.<\/p>\n\n

In other words, the email provider allows you to create the email account on their servers and the email client allows you to access and read emails, send new messages and, in short, manage your emails.<\/p>\n\n

Some examples of email clients are:<\/p>\n\n