Do you want the best SMTP plugin to fix email delivery issues on your WordPress site?
SMTP is used to improve the reliability and deliverability of email notifications and transactional emails sent by your WordPress website.
While this seems really technical, SMTP plugins make it easy for anyone to apply these changes to their site.
In this guide, we’ve handpicked the best SMTP plugins for your WordPress site that will fix email delivery issues and make sure your emails hit the recipient’s inbox.
First, let’s be clear on what SMTP is and why you need it.
What is SMTP in WordPress?
SMTP is a communication protocol used for sending email messages between servers. It stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol,
In the context of WordPress, SMTP is used to improve email delivery.
By default, WordPress uses the built-in PHP mail() function to send emails. However, this method has limitations and may not work reliably, especially in shared hosting environments.
This is why you need an SMTP plugin. Once SMTP is set up, all email notifications generated by your WordPress website are sent through the configured SMTP server. This includes contact form submissions, user registration emails, password reset emails, and WooCommerce order notifications.
You can usually test the connection to ensure that your website can successfully communicate with the SMTP server.
SMTP allows you to authenticate your website when sending emails, reducing the likelihood that your emails will be flagged as spam.
In a nutshell, SMTP helps in the following ways:
- Improve email deliverability
- Reduce spam flags
- Customize email ‘From Name’
- Monitor the status of email delivery
- Test and troubleshoot any issues
SMTP will help you avoid common email delivery problems and enhance the professionalism of your communication.
With that said, let’s check out the list of the best SMTP plugins.
Best SMTP Plugins for WordPress
1. WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP is the best SMTP plugin for WordPress. It helps you configure and send email notifications from your WordPress website without any issues.
If you’re sending transactional emails from your WordPress website, such as user registration emails, password reset emails, and contact form submissions, WP Mail SMTP will make sure they are delivered successfully to recipients’ inboxes.
WP Mail SMTP includes a testing feature that allows you to send a test email to ensure that your email configuration is correct and that your WordPress website can successfully communicate with the SMTP server.
It will also send you email alerts if your emails fail to be sent. You’ll get weekly summaries and you can create custom email reports with graphs of deliverability statistics.
Highlights
- Simple set up
- Set up a secondary email provider in case your primary provider fails
- Instant alerts when emails fail to send
- Use conditional logic to send emails through different providers
- Email log with every email sent from your WordPress site
- Check open and click-through rates for your WordPress emails
- Email reports with graphs of email tracking and deliverability statistics
- Integrations with SendLayer, SMTP.com, Brevo, Mailgun, Gmail, and more
If you want to hand off the process, WP Mail SMTP offers a white glove setup where the team will do everything for you. You simply have to sign up and let them handle the rest.
Get started with WP Mail SMTP »
2. Easy WP SMTP
Easy WP SMTP is a WordPress plugin designed to make it really simple to configure SMTP settings for sending emails from your WordPress website.
It comes with an easy-to-use interface where you can specify the SMTP server address, port number, authentication credentials (username and password), and encryption method (like SSL or TLS).
The plugin allows you to choose between different email-sending methods like SendLayer, Brevo, SMTP.com, Amazon SES, and more. You can also use SMTP – it’s one of the most commonly used and recommended methods for reliable email delivery.
This plugin also supports other email services like Gmail or Yahoo SMTP servers.
Highlights
- Easy setup wizard
- Choose your favorite email provider
- Create custom reports
- Email logs and reports
- Send test emails
Get started with Easy WP SMTP »
3. Post SMTP Mailer
Post SMTP Mailer helps provide authentication that makes sure your emails get delivered and don’t end up in the spam filter or the undelivered email queue. It’s trusted by 300,000+ users worldwide.
The plugin comes with an intelligent setup wizard that guides you each and every step of the way. Even if you’re new to this, the wizard will guide you from start to finish.
There’s also a connectivity test that scans your SMTP server to detect firewall blocks. This helps avoid any configuration mistakes.
Highlights
- Smart email failure detection
- Multisite compatible
- Fallback to the second SMTP server
- Post SMTP Notification Chrome Extension
Get started with Post SMTP Mailer »
4. SMTP Mailer
SMTP Mailer is a WordPress plugin that helps you easily set up a mail server that handles all outgoing email from your website.
Like most other SMTP plugins, SMTP Mailer also lets you choose whether to use SMTP authentication when sending an email. If you choose to authenticate you will also need to provide your username and password. This allows the plugin to connect to your SMTP server.
You can use this plugin with Gmail, Mailgun, Brevo, SendGrid, Postmark, Office365, Zohomail, and any SMTP port.
Highlights
- Straightforward setup
- Test emails
- Tested with popular form plugins
Get started with SMTP Mailer »
5. SendLayer
SendLayer isn’t exactly a WordPress SMTP plugin. Instead, this is an SMTP service that ensures your transactional emails are delivered.
An SMTP service is an external service or server that specializes in sending emails on your behalf. It works independently of your website or web application. So you can use this service alongside an SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP.
SendLayer has a dedicated infrastructure and expertise in email delivery. It makes sure your emails hit the inbox every time.
You can use this service for transactional emails, order confirmation and shipping notifications, and password resets. It also supports API-based emails.
Inside the dashboard, there’s built-in analytics to track emails that are sent, open and click rates, and bounce rates.
It also comes with a feature to protect your delivery reputation by easily suppressing email addresses you don’t want to send to.
The platform is easy to set up and the first 200 emails are free. So you can try the platform before you make an investment.
As for integrations, SendLayer works seamlessly with 1000+ platforms including WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Drupal, and HelpScout.
Highlights
- Create and manage email lists
- SMTP and API-based email relaying
- Event-based webhooks
- Spam filter protection
- Protect delivery reputation
6. SMTP.com
SMTP.com is another powerful email delivery service to send transaction emails.
It is built on a highly responsive infrastructure to make sure your emails are delivered on time without delay. It’s easy to set up and get started with so you can start sending out emails right away.
If you want to monitor your email list health, there’s an addon called Reputation Defender that you can install. This will give you insights into what’s happening with your email list and protect you against both soft and hard bounces.
Finally, SMTP gives you access to reports with comprehensive data about your email delivery and performance.
Highlights
- Support high volume emails
- Proactive monitoring
- Scalable infrastructure
- Expert support
- Detailed reporting
There you have it! The best SMTP plugins and services for WordPress. We hope this post helped you find what you were looking for.
To simply resolve email issues on WordPress, WP Mail SMTP is our top choice. To get onboard a transactional email service, we recommend SendLayer.
If you liked this post, you may also want to see our Ultimate WordPress Toolkit: Everything You Need For Your Website.