Sending emails is make-or-break for most WordPress sites. But the built-in WordPress mail methods are notoriously unreliable, resulting in missing emails that damage site functionality.
In this ultimate guide, you‘ll learn how to flawlessly send WordPress emails using the highly popular WP Mail SMTP plugin.
We‘ll cover choosing an SMTP provider, recommended settings for all major WordPress hosts, securing your password, and even delivering high volumes of email using specialized third-party services.
Whether you just need the basics or an enterprise-grade email solution, this guide has you covered.
Why You Need WP Mail SMTP
- Over 30% of notifications sent through the native WordPress
wp_mail()function never reach inboxes according to industry studies. - WordPress sites relying on default PHP mail see ~15% of messages sent to spam folders on average (source).
This means critical emails from your website never reach customers and site visitors.
WP Mail SMTP fixes this by using proper SMTP authentication to reliably deliver your emails directly to inboxes.
Benefits of Using WP Mail SMTP
- Deliverability – SMTP emails bypass spam filters and land consistently in the inbox.
- Security – Encrypted connections prevent emails being intercepted.
- Reliability – Direct integration with major email services to prevent losses.
- Analytics – View delivery success rates, failed messages, and other insights.
- Support – Dedicated customer support via live chat or support tickets.
- Convenience – Easy to configure for any WordPress host or mailing service.
With over 3 million active installs, WP Mail SMTP is without question the #1 SMTP solution for WordPress in terms of usage and ratings.
Choose Your SMTP Email Provider
You have two options when it comes to choosing an SMTP service for sending WordPress emails:
1. Web Host SMTP
Most managed WordPress hosting companies provide "business" or "professional" email plans bundled with your account. This gives you fully functional @yourdomain.com email addresses with SMTP capability.
Typical starting limits are 25 messages per hour and 1,000 emails per month. Performance oriented hosts like Kinsta offer higher initial quotas.
The main downsides to relying solely on web host SMTP:
- Mediocre email deliverability since email is not their specialty.
- Strict sending limits that easily breach on busy sites.
- No advanced email analytics or insights.
We generally recommend host SMTP accounts for:
- New websites
- Small traffic blogs and sites
- Developers hosting multiple small projects
It‘s a free way to get basic SMTP email sending without monthly costs. Ideal if you have low email volume.
2. Third-Party Email Service
For professional sites, online businesses, ecommerce stores, and high volume senders – the best practice is using a dedicated third-party email delivery service.
Options like Sendinblue, Mailgun, SparkPost, and Amazon SES specialize specifically in reliably sending emails at scale.
Key benefits are:
- Excellent inbox placement and deliverability.
- Generous sending plans to support busy sites.
- Dedicated IPs for maximum email security.
- Powerful analytics into opens, clicks, unsubscribes etc.
- Scalability as your site and email needs grow.
Drawbacks are mainly cost – ranging from $10 to $75+ per month depending on volume. However, budget services like Sendinblue start cheap.
We break down the leading email marketing services here.
Below we‘ll show you how to configure WP Mail SMTP with both types of SMTP providers.
Installing WP Mail SMTP
First you need to install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
For detailed setup instructions see our step-by-step guide on installing plugins.
Upon activating WP Mail SMTP, you‘ll see an initial setup wizard screen:
Feel free to skip the wizard for now as we‘ll walk through the settings manually. Just click "Go back to settings".
Overview of Key Settings
Within your WordPress dashboard, navigate to WP Mail SMTP » Settings to configure the core options:
Here‘s what each setting means:
- Mailer – Choose between your Host SMTP, Gmail, or another integrated email service
- From Email – The email address your messages are sent from
- From Name – The name your emails are sent from
- Return Path – Enable to receive bounce alerts
- SMTP Host – Domain of your mail server
- Encryption –
TLSorSSLsecurity protocols - SMTP Port – Standard ports used are
25,465, or587 - Auto TLS – Switch encryption protocol via STARTTLS
- Authentication – Check this to enable SMTP authentication
- SMTP Username – Your full email address
- SMTP Password – Your email account password or API key
Now let‘s cover configuring both web host SMTP and third-party email services with WP Mail SMTP.
Using Your Web Host SMTP Server
Most managed WordPress hosts provide free business email accounts you can leverage for sending admin notifications, contact form emails, user emails, and other system messages.
While they can work to deliver basic WordPress emails, limitations around message volume and lacking deliverability controls make them less than ideal for marketing and mass mailing purposes.
However, with WP Mail SMTP properly configured, host SMTP accounts are reasonably reliable for low-to-moderate traffic sites like blogs and small business websites.
To set this up you need access to your host‘s SMTP server credentials and settings. Some common options are below:
Bluehost
A popular and affordable WordPress host for new sites. Here is how to use Bluehost SMTP with WP Mail SMTP:
Key Settings
- SMTP Host:
smtp.yourdomain.com - Encryption:
TLS - Port: `587
- Authentication: check enabled
- Username: Your @yourdomain.com email
- Password: Your email‘s password
Reputable But Limited
Bluehost is owned by well-known Endurance International Group. Their SMTP servers have reliable uptime and performance.
However, strict daily sending quotas can hinder email functionality on busier sites:
Overall Bluehost SMTP represents a free, convenient way to enable emails on blogs and very small business sites. But rapidly growing sites may outscale capabilities.
InMotion Hosting
A popular premium WordPress host with quality support.
SMTP Settings
To use InMotion‘s SMTP servers:
- Host:
smtp.inmotionserver.com - Encryption:
SSL - Port:
465 - Authentication: On
- Username: Your email address
- Password: Email password
Reliability and Volume
As a mid-upper tier managed WordPress host, InMotion provides dependable SMTP services combined with higher volume allowances exceeding most shared hosts:
With over 1.2 million sites hosted, InMotion‘s SMTP capability can easily power most moderate traffic blogs and small business sites.
Gaming High Volume Limits
One clever way to overcome limited monthly email allotments is utilizing multiple host provided accounts in a round-robin setup inside WP Mail SMTP.
For example combining 3 separate 25k accounts allows sending 75k emails monthly.
While this works up to a point, ultimately third-party mass sending services provide highest reliability and volume (more details below).
Using Dedicated Third-Party Email Services
For professional and high volume email functionality, leaning on your host‘s basic SMTP servers has some clear downsides:
1. Volume Limits
Even upper tier hosts enforce limits as low as 1,000 – 50,000 emails per month. Not viable for active sites and robust mailing lists.
2. Deliverability Issues
Common complaints around reliability and emails hitting spam folders. Lacking advanced analytics to optimize.
3. Support Challenges
Hosting companies aren‘t email experts. Difficult to troubleshoot delivery issues.
Third-party services bypass these problems completely and provide enterprise-grade WordPress email capabilities tailored specifically for sending marketing and transactional messages reliably at very high scale.
Let‘s examine some popular options:
Sendinblue SMTP
One of the most popular options in 2022, Sendinblue specializes mainly in email marketing but provides fully capable SMTP services starting at free tiers.
Key Features
- 9,000 Free Emails Monthly
- Deliverability Features
- Analytics and Reports
- Scales As Site Grows
Within WP Mail SMTP, you simply choose "Sendinblue" from the Mailer dropdown and enter the SMTP API key within your Sendinblue control panel. Extremely easy configuration.
Amazon SES SMTP
The SMTP offering from Amazon Web Services, designed specifically for developers and tech professionals sending high volumes of email.
Why Choose Amazon SES?
- Reputation of Amazon reliability
- Scales to billions of emails per month
- Very developer friendly setup and API
- Extremely high deliverability
Downsides are a complex onboarding process and very technical configuration – tradeoffs for AWS level scalability and inbox placement. Cost starts at $2 per 10k emails.
Mailgun SMTP
Mailgun specifically targets developers, IT teams, and marketing professionals sending large volumes of email while retaining ease of use.
Benefits of Mailgun
- Simple 5 minute setup
- Free 10,000 emails per month
- Powerful analytics and insights
- High deliverability reputation
- Easy integration with WP Mail SMTP
The generous free tier combined with savvy monitoring and tracking tools make Mailgun a compelling choice for developers seeking advanced email functionality beyond basic host SMTP.
Mixing Providers is Ideal
The best practice followed by veteran WordPress developers is utilizing your web host SMTP accounts for internal system notifications to keep overhead low.
While routing customer and marketing focused emails through unlimited volume third party services like Sendinblue or Mailgun to enable emails at enterprise scale while optimizing inbox placement.
WP Mail SMTP easily facilitates mixing multiple mailers.
This blended setup gives you the best of both worlds in terms of optimized deliverability and economics.
Securing Your SMTP Password
It‘s highly recommended not to directly store your SMTP account password in the WP Mail SMTP settings. This poses a security risk if your site is compromised.
Below we examine two safer alternatives to obscure your password from prying eyes.
Utilize wp-config File
A very common technique developers use to hide sensitive credentials and keys is placing them in the core wp-config.php file located in your main WordPress directory.
To set this up:
- Open wp-config.php with FTP or file manager.
- Add anywhere below top info comments section:
define(‘WPMS_ON‘, true);
define(‘WPMS_SMTP_PASS‘, ‘YOUR_PASSWORD‘);- Save changes to
wp-config.php.
That‘s it! WP Mail SMTP will now automatically pull your password from here without exposing in the admin settings area.
Leverage Server Environment Variables
Another secure option supported by certain hosts like SiteGround is using server-level environment variables to store SMTP credentials.
Benefits:
- Fully encrypted values
- Password stored outside of WordPress files
- Easy to update
- Supported by hosts like SiteGround and Flywheel
Check with your WordPress host‘s knowledge base articles to see specifically how to set this up. Video tutorials are also readily available.
Then reference the parsed password value normally within WP Mail SMTP configuration using syntax like:
process.env.WP_MAIL_SMTP_PASSWORD
This setup completely obscures your sensitive SMTP details from WordPress itself for maximum security.
Wrapping Up
That wraps up our ultimate guide on fully understanding SMTP, choosing providers, and installing WP Mail SMTP to reliably send WordPress emails using any host or third party mailing service.
Key takeaways in summary:
- Default WordPress mail methods have notoriously spotty deliverability.
- WP Mail SMTP resolves this by adding proper SMTP functionality.
- For most sites host SMTP works reasonably well under message limits.
- Third party services excel for marketing and transactional email delivery at scale.
- Always secure your SMTP password outside public settings for safety.
We hope you found this guide useful. Don‘t hesitate to comment any questions below and we‘re happy to assist further!
