An email hosting service is an Internet hosting service that operates email servers.
Email hosting is a service that runs email servers. Put simply, if you own a domain name and want email service on that domain name, you would need to sign up for an email hosting service.
Most web hosting companies provide you with email hosting as well; however, the email hosting service provided by web hosting companies for the most part only supplies you with POP3 email and the basics in spam/virus protection and other features. Additionally, some of the free email hosting providers are ad-supported. Again, if you own a small or medium sized business (SME), then you should not want to operate your business email using one of these providers since the email service is typically sub-par as compared to a professional email hosting service.
Using a professional email hosting service should give you peace of mind. You should be able to focus on your business while the email hosting provider manages your email service. Most email hosting providers offer a rich set of webmail features including unlimited aliases, unlimited forwarders, autoresponders, large attachments, robust spam/virus protection, mail rules, IMAP/POP3, online storage, calendars, mailing lists, whitelists, blacklists, backups, archiving, folder management, contacts management, etc. You would also be able to access your email from anywhere using webmail, smartphone and your favorite email client such as Outlook.
Best of all, professional email hosting service is very affordable. It eliminates the need for in-house email servers and IT people to manage those email servers. Compare email hosting providers by taking advantage of the free trials that most email hosting companies tend to provide and then choose the one that works best for your needs.
Email hosting services usually offer premium email at a cost as opposed to advertisement-supported free email or free webmail. Email hosting services thus differ from typical end-user email providers such as webmail sites. They cater mostly to demanding email users and small and medium-sized (SME) businesses, while larger enterprises usually run their own email hosting service on their own equipment using software such as Microsoft Exchange or Postfix. Hosting providers can manage a user's own domain name, including any email authentication scheme that the domain owner wishes to enforce in order to convey the meaning that using a specific domain name identifies and qualifies email senders.
Most email hosting providers offer advanced premium email solutions hosted on dedicated custom email platforms. The technology and offerings of different email hosting providers can therefore vary with different needs. Email offered by most webhosting companies is usually more basic standardized POP3 based email and webmail based on open source webmail applications like Horde, RoundCube or SquirrelMail. Almost all webhosting providers offer standard email hosting.