Hi there,
I've got bad news, and good news for you. The bad news first:
Unfortunately, I don't believe any free SMTP relay services exist.
Even with limits for their usage, the risk for spam is too great.
The good news is that I've found SMTP.com (http://www.smtp.com) which
I believe would be the best service for you. Direct from their FAQ
page (http://www.smtp.com/faq.html#cost) here's what they offer:
" How much does service cost?
Our subscriptions are based on length and amount of email relays per
day. We offer six subscription plans as follows:
- 1 year, 150 relays per day, $90
- 1 year, 50 relays per day, $50
- 3 months, 150 relays per day, $50
- 3 months, 50 relays, $30
- Monthly, 150 relays per day, $30
- Monthly, 50 relays, $20"
The 1 year, 50 relays per day plan looks like a pretty good deal to
me.
If keeping your old email address doesn't matter to you, I've found 3
POP and SMTP providers which might interest you.
One totally free service is Smail.info (http://www.smail.info) which
offers POP3, SMTP, IMAP, webmail, and other services. Problem is, I
doubt you'll be able to send messages from another address through
their server.
Both SoftHome (http://www.softhome.net) and HotPOP
(http://www.hotpop.com) allow you to sign up to their sites for a free
email account which comes with both POP and SMTP access. Both have
premium services as well which I'll detail below.
For SoftHome, their free service includes 500 messages per month, 45
MB bandwith cap, and a limit of 10 recipients per message. They have 6
different premium plans, starting at $30/year, full details of which
can be found at http://www.softhome.net/hosting/prices.html?a=a.
HotPOP's free service which is ad supported (they send ads to your
inbox), has a maximum message size of 500KB, and a limit of 500
messages sent per day. Full details on their free and premium plans
can be found in table form at http://www.hotpop.com/accountlevels.jsp.
I've tested out both HotPOP and SoftHome for you, and as I suspected
you need to use the email address provided by them to send messages
through their server, so if you have another email address (from your
ISP, company, etc...) that you're using, this service might not be for
you.
Another route you might want to use, is to run your own SMTP server
off your computer. However, if your ISP disallows servers and/or
blocks port 25 you won't be able to run one. You can download a free
server called PostCast Server from http://www.postcastserver.com.
From their website:
"PostCast Server is a free server program that enables you to send
messages directly from your computer. When you install it, it turns
your computer into outgoing mail server which can send more than 3500
messages per hour with an ordinary modem connection. This is a perfect
solution for sending newsletters, distributing messages to different
mailing lists, sending notifications to your customers, as well as for
sending individual messages. You can use it instead of the SMTP server
of your Internet Service Provider."
I found and used iOpus software's top 5 list of free POP3 and SMTP
email providers during this research session, which found both HotPOP
and SoftHome for me. It looks as if they do update and change the list
every so often so you may want to keep an eye on it in the future. You
can find this list at http://www.iopus.com/guides/bestpopsmtp.htm.
I hope that's what you're looking for! If you need any further
clarification, please feel free to ask.
Deadlychiapet-ga
Google search terms used:
smtp relay service
free smtp service |
