When you have a website hosting plan and you set up an email address, you may take the option to send and receive messages for granted, but in fact, this is not always the case. Sending email messages isn't necessarily included in the website hosting plans that companies have and an SMTP service is required to be capable to do that. The acronym stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and that is the software application that permits you to send out email messages. If you use an email application, it creates a connection 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 system data is swapped, your SMTP server delivers the email to the remote IMAP or POP server and the email is finally delivered in the corresponding mailbox. An SMTP server is required if you are using some kind of contact page form as well, so if you work with a cost-free hosting plan, as an example, it is likely that you won't be able to use such a form as most cost-free website hosting service providers don't allow outgoing e-mail messages.