This may be a horribly obvious question, but I'm learning and just need someone to confirm it for me.

I putting together a private social network that needs to email their members (through the social network software, Elgg) regularly. I'm hosting it on a shared HostGator plan (because they won't receive much traffic) and they'll email 10-1000 emails a few times a week. HostGator restricts you to 500 per hour. I'm also worried about deliverability.

I've been searching up and down about how to throttle the emails so it will all send reliably... but then I came across the idea of an outside SMTP relay service.

Would using an SMTP service resolve this issue? If so, any opinions on quality SMTP services?