Infrastructure

SMTP Relay

A third-party service that sends email on behalf of your app or server.

Definition

SMTP relay is an outbound email service your application connects to via SMTP credentials (server, port, username, password). The relay handles authentication, IP rotation, bounce management, and deliverability. Common in apps, websites, and dev tools that need to send email but don't want to manage email servers. SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark, SMTP2GO all offer SMTP relay.

Related terms

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