In case you have a cloud hosting package and you set up an email address, you might consider the option to send out and receive emails for granted, however, this is not always true. Sending e-mail messages isn't always a part of the hosting plans that service providers offer and an SMTP service is required to be able to do that. The abbreviation represents Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the set of scripts that allows you to send email messages. If you work with an e-mail app, it connects to the SMTP server. The latter then looks up the DNS data of the domain, that is a part of the receiving address to find out what mail server manages its emails. After some system data is exchanged, your SMTP server delivers the message to the remote IMAP or POP server and then the e-mail is finally delivered in the matching mailbox. An SMTP server is needed if you are using some kind of contact page also, so in case you have a no charge hosting package, for example, it is very likely that you won't have the ability to make use of such a form as many cost-free website hosting providers do not allow outgoing emails.