Which should I choose?

If you send modest volume and nobody on your team wants to own deliverability, use a relay. If per-message pricing has become a real cost, or you need control a relay will not give you, or you specifically want the sending reputation to be yours, run your own. Volume and appetite for responsibility decide it, not principle.

Is self-hosting cheaper?

Only above a certain volume, and the crossover is higher than people expect once you count your own time. A relay's free tier beats a VPS at small volumes. What changes the maths is sustained sending, where a flat monthly server cost stops scaling and per-message pricing does not.

Will my mail land better if I run my own server?

Not automatically, and often worse at first. A new IP has no reputation, which in practice means throttled, and building it takes weeks of careful sending. A relay hands you an established reputation on day one. Self-hosting wins on control, not on instant deliverability.

Yes, and it is a sensible hybrid. Campaign software such as MailWizz lets you define several delivery servers, so you can send transactional mail through a relay while running marketing from your own MTA, or split by domain. You get the relay's reliability where it matters most and your own economics elsewhere.

Why is Port 25 such a big deal?

Because delivering mail yourself requires it, and most large providers block it. AWS blocks outbound port 25 by default on all EC2 instances and requires a written request that can be refused; Google Cloud blocks connections to external port 25 and offers no unblock path at all. If you plan to self-host, check this before anything else.

What if a relay refuses my use case?

That is the strongest single argument for self-hosting. Relays enforce their own acceptable use policies and can decline or terminate an account, at which point your sending stops. On your own server the equivalent question is our acceptable use policy, which permits opt-in marketing and transactional mail.

What does self-hosting actually commit me to?

Patching an internet-facing mail server indefinitely, not becoming an open relay, keeping SPF, DKIM, DMARC and rDNS correct, watching bounces and blocklists, warming the IP gradually, and taking your own backups. None of it is exotic, but all of it is ongoing.

Is Port 25 guaranteed on every plan, or just open?

Both, depending on the range, and the difference is worth knowing before you buy. Outbound Port 25 is open by default on all 16 plans — no ticket, no approval step. On NVMe VPS, Cloud VPS, Classic VPS and VDS it is written into the published plan specification. On it is open because of how the network is run rather than as a documented guarantee. In practice it behaves the same on all of them, but if your business stops when you cannot send, buy the range that puts it in writing.

Own Mail Server vs Relay

Plenty of people should use a relay. This page says so.

We sell VPS hosting, so the incentive here is obvious. It is still true that for a large share of senders a relay such as Amazon SES or SendGrid is the better choice — and a customer who self-hosts against their own interest becomes a refund, not a customer. Here is the comparison written the way we would give it to a friend.

Volume decides it
New IPs start slow
Port 25 open here
Hybrid is allowed

Side by Side Which Are You?

Time before a new IP performs

Weeks

A relay hands you an established reputation on day one

Self-host: flat cost, full control
Relay: no warm-up, no maintenance
Self-hosting is not instantly better
A relay can decline your use case

The Short Answer

Use a relay if you send modest volume and nobody wants to own deliverability. Run your own if per-message pricing has become a real cost, if you need control a relay will not give you, or if a relay might decline what you send. The trade is clean: a relay buys you a team of deliverability engineers you do not have to hire, in exchange for a fee on every message and a reputation you do not control. Your own server gives you a flat cost and complete control, in exchange for taking on IP warm-up, blocklist monitoring, bounce handling and indefinite patching. Neither is the sophisticated choice.

Low volume: relay wins, often on a free tier.
Sustained high volume: a flat server cost stops scaling; per-message pricing does not.
Day one deliverability: relay, comfortably. A new IP is unknown, and unknown means throttled.
Control and data residency: your own server.
If a relay might refuse you: your own server is the only answer.
Hybrid is normal — transactional through a relay, marketing from your own MTA.

Side by Side

Written to be useful rather than flattering. Several rows favour the relay, and those are the rows most hosting comparisons leave out.

	Your own VPS	SMTP relay
What you pay	A fixed monthly server cost	Per message, forever
Cost at low volume	Poor value — you pay the same for 100 as for 100,000	Excellent — often free at small volumes
Cost at high volume	Flat. This is where it wins	Scales with every message sent
Sending reputation	Yours. Good or bad, you own it	The provider's, shared with their other customers
IP warm-up	Your job, and it takes weeks	Already done
Blocklist monitoring	Your job	Theirs
Bounce and complaint handling	Your job	Theirs, usually with a dashboard
Patching the mail server	Your job, indefinitely	Not your problem
Port 25	Required — and blocked by default at most large clouds	Not needed; relays use 587 or 465
Deliverability expertise	You need some	Bought in
If they decline your use case	Not applicable — it is your server	You are stuck, and may lose the account
Data residency	Your server, your chosen datacenter	Their infrastructure
Time to first send	An afternoon to set up, weeks to warm up	Minutes

Which One Are You?

Read both. If the left column describes you, do not buy a VPS from us for this.

Use a relay if…

You send a few thousand messages a month. Nobody on your team wants to be responsible for deliverability. You need mail working this week, not after a warm-up period. Your volume is spiky rather than sustained. Or you simply have better things to do than read bounce logs — which is a completely respectable position.

Run your own if…

Per-message pricing has become a line item you notice. You need routing, data residency or retention a relay will not do. You want the sending reputation to be yours rather than shared. Or a relay has declined your use case, or might — which is the one argument that makes self-hosting not just cheaper but necessary.

Or both. Campaign software that supports multiple delivery servers lets you relay transactional mail while sending marketing from your own MTA. You get the relay's reliability where a failure would hurt most, and your own economics on the volume that would otherwise cost the most. MailWizz handles this natively →

If You Do Self-Host, This Is What You Are Taking On

Not to discourage you — to make sure nobody is surprised.

Warming the IP, gradually A new address is unknown, and unknown means throttled. Sending a large campaign on day one is the fastest way to damage an address you are then stuck with. Yours
SPF, DKIM, DMARC and a matching PTR Not once at setup, but whenever you rotate keys, add a domain or change infrastructure. We set the PTR record; the DNS records are on your domain and therefore yours. Yours
Watching what happens after you press send Bounces, complaint feedback loops, blocklist entries. Nobody notifies you that your reputation is sliding — you find out from your own monitoring, or from falling open rates weeks later. Yours
Patching, and not becoming an open relay A misconfigured MTA is found by scanners within hours and used to send spam, which burns your IP. Every plan here is unmanaged, so this is genuinely yours. Yours
What we provide Outbound and inbound Port 25 open by default, a dedicated IPv4 address on every plan, custom reverse DNS set free on request, and the hardware and network underneath. VPS For Life

VPS or Relay — Questions

If self-hosting is the right call, everything you need is already open.

From $4.95 a month with Port 25 open, a dedicated IPv4 and reverse DNS set free on request — and a 7-day money-back guarantee if you decide a relay suited you better after all.

See All 16 Plans Ask Before You Order