Email hosting services usually offer premium email as against advertisement-supported free email or free webmail. Email hosting services thus differ from typical end-user email providers like webmail sites. They cater mostly to demanding email users and little and medium-sized (SME) businesses, while larger enterprises usually run their own email hosting services on their own equipment using software like Microsoft Exchange Server, IceWarp or Postfix. Hosting providers can manage a user's own name , including any email authentication scheme that the domain owner wishes to enforce so as to convey the meaning that employing a specific name identifies and qualifies email senders.

There are various sorts of email hosting services. These vary consistent with the space for storing available, location of the mail boxes and functionality.

Various hosting providers offer this service through two models. a standard email hosting or per mailbox hosting. Traditional email hosting charges a group amount for a particular number of mail boxes whereas the per mail box model charges per mail box needed.