A re you looking for the best SMTP service providers? In this article, we’ll share our picks for the best SMTP services to ensure that your WordPress emails reach users.
When you start a WordPress blog, you need to rely on WordPress to send emails to users for a variety of reasons.
With an SMTP service, you can make sure that the emails you send from WordPress are delivered successfully. An SMTP service will also help your emails reach the inboxes of recipients, instead of the spam or junk folders.
There are a lot of SMTP service providers on the market. To help you choose the right one for your needs, we’ll list the best SMTP services available.
In This Guide:
But, first, let’s explain what SMTP is…
What is SMTP and Why Do You Need It?
You need to use WordPress to send emails for many common tasks like:
- Registering a new user
- Recovering a lost password
- Notifications for password changes
- New article or comment notifications
For online stores, you’d also need to send order confirmations, shipping notifications, delivery confirmations, and more.
The problem is, many users find that WordPress doesn’t send these emails properly.
And that’s because WordPress relies on the PHP mail() function to send emails. There are a few problems with this. Mainly, many hosting providers don’t have this function configured properly or disable it completely to protect their servers from abuse.
Even if the function is configured properly, your emails can still end up in the spam folder. That’s because most spam filters verify emails by the sender’s email address, location, and domain name so it could flag your site’s email as suspicious.
But, SMTP service providers are an easy solution to this problem.
SMTP, which stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is the industry standard to send emails on the internet. It uses proper authentication to make it more likely that your emails are delivered successfully to users in their inbox, rather than in the spam folder.
Now that you know why you need an SMTP service provider, let’s take a look at the best options.
Best SMTP Service Providers
There are many SMTP service plugins and providers available. Each provider offers different features and pricing plans.
You might also want to consider ease of use, how many emails you can send with a free plan, and more.
So, let’s dive into our top picks for the best SMTP service providers and plugins to find one that’s right for you.
1. WP Mail SMTP
First, to connect an SMTP service to your WordPress site, you need an SMTP plugin.
WP Mail SMTP is the best SMTP plugin for WordPress. It lets you reliably send WordPress emails using any SMTP service provider. It seamlessly integrates with providers like SendLayer, SMTP.com, Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), Amazon SES, Mailgun, and more.
This plugin works by bypassing the WordPress PHP mail() function and forcing it to use your SMTP settings.
WP Mail SMTP is super easy to set up. And you can set it up to use whatever email you want, simply by entering your SMTP options in the plugin dashboard.
Plus, it’s available as a free plugin that comes with everything you need to improve your email deliverability.
You can also upgrade to a paid plan to get access to more powerful features. They even offer a White Glove Setup (Elite plan), which allows you to get the plugin installed and configured by a team of experts.
Over 3,000,000+ websites are using WP Mail SMTP to fix their email deliverability issues and it’s backed by the team at WPForms.
- Works with all popular SMTP service providers
- Automatically keeps track of all emails sent from your WordPress site
- Control which email notifications your site sends
- Full translation and localization support
- Outstanding customer support
- And more…
Pricing:
There’s a free plugin available to download from the official WordPress repository. You can also upgrade to the pro version starting at $49 per year.
2. SendLayer
SendLayer is the best SMTP email delivery service on the market. It lets you easily connect and send your website emails with API and STMP relay for maximum deliverability.
You can reliably send transactional emails, confirmation emails, shipping notifications, password resets, WordPress emails, API-based emails, and more.
SendLayer is super easy to use and you can set up your domain in a matter of minutes. Then, it will walk you step-by-step through the process of setting up your DNS to stop your emails from being sent to the junk mail folder.
From the user-friendly dashboard, you can create and manage mailing lists and email groups. You can also protect your deliverability reputation by suppressing email addresses that you don’t want to send to.
It also includes detailed email logs to track emails sent and bounce rate. Plus, you can view open rates and click analytics on individual emails to check engagement.
SendLayer seamlessly integrates with over 1,000+ platforms, including WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Drupal, Joomla, BigCommerce, Help Scout, and more.
- Easy to set up
- Awesome email deliverability
- Detailed email logs
- Open and click analytics
- Integrates with 1,000+ platforms
- 5 star customer support
- And more…
Pricing:
SendLayer offers a free trial that lets you try out the service and send 200 emails. After that, paid plans start at $5 per month for 1,000 emails per month.
3. SMTP.com
SMTP.com is a popular SMTP service provider trusted by over 100,000 companies like Best Buy, T-Mobile, Virgin Atlantic, and more.
SMTP.com is able to handle high email volumes with super fast delivery. You can use this service to send notifications, registration emails, authentication emails, order confirmations, and much more reliably.
And you can set up and integrate SMTP.com in minutes to start sending emails quickly. It also seamlessly integrates with WordPress and popular SMTP WordPress plugins like WP Mail SMTP.
Another cool feature that SMTP.com offers is its SMTP Reputation Defender. This tool uses big data to proactively monitor the health of your email list and protect your domain and IP reputation.
You can also use the detailed analytics report to keep track of your email deliverability and engagement.
- Supports shared and dedicated IPs
- 99% system uptime
- Proactively checks and blocks spam
- Easy migration from other services
- Flexible and scalable plans
- 24/7 customer support
- And more…
Pricing:
SMTP.com pricing starts at $25 per month to send 50,000 emails per month and it comes with all features.
If you need to send more emails, you’ll have to upgrade your plan.
4. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is one of the best SMTP providers and it offers some of the best email marketing services in the world.
At Brevo, user-triggered transactional emails, like order confirmation emails, recovery password emails, and so on, are sent through an SMTP relay called Brevo SMTP.
You can also do bulk email marketing reliably with Brevo’s dedicated SMTP server.
Brevo also offers other powerful features like live chat, SMS marketing, marketing automation, segmentation, and much more.
- Excellent deliverability rates
- Email template library and drag and drop builder
- Real-time statistics and reports
- Shared inbox to manage customer email history
- Integrates with WordPress and marketing tools like OptinMonster
- And more…
Pricing:
Brevo offers a forever-free plan that lets you send up to 300 emails per day to unlimited contacts.
For no daily sending limit and access to more features, you can upgrade your plan starting at $25 per month.
5. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is one of the most well-known email marketing and SMTP services on the market. It comes with an easy drag and drop editor to help you create and design beautiful email newsletters.
It also comes with marketing automation, list segmentation, tools to help you grow your email list, and much more.
Constant Contact also boasts a high delivery rate of 97% so you can be sure that your emails will land in inboxes successfully.
Plus, with Constant Contact’s email authentication, you can build a good reputation with ISPs (internet service providers) and improve your email deliverability.
- Email templates and template builder
- Real-time reporting and analytics
- Send triggered emails based on user behavior
- Subject line A/B testing
- Integrates with WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, etc.
- And more…
Pricing:
Constant Contact starts at $12 per month depending on how many contacts you have. They also offer a free 60-day trial.
6. Mailgun
Mailgun is another powerful SMTP service provider that uses APIs to send transactional emails and bulk emails at a higher delivery rate.
It offers fast and accurate email verification, advanced email analytics, responsive email templates, and more.
Mailgun also seamlessly integrates with WP Mail SMTP to reliably send all of your WordPress emails.
Mailgun is designed for developers though. So, beginner-level users might have a difficult time using it compared to some of the other beginner-friendly STMP providers on this list.
- Email APIs, SMTP relay, and webhooks
- 99.9% guaranteed uptime
- Highly scalable
- Supports testing mode
- API reference with code samples for Python, PHP, Java, and others
- And more…
Pricing:
Mailgun has a trial plan that lets you send 5,000 free emails for 1 month. After that, paid plans start at $35 per month for up to 50,000 emails and a dedicated IP.
7. SendGrid
SendGrid is a cloud-based SMTP email service provider that’s used by over 80,000 customers like Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, Yelp, and many others.
With SendGrid, you can send and receive bulk emails without managing an SMTP server. It also comes with many other useful features to improve email deliverability like dedicated IP addresses, domain name authentication, and more.
And you can easily create email marketing campaigns using the email templates and drag and drop editor.
You can quickly connect SendGrid with WordPress using the free WP Mail SMTP plugin.
- APIs, SMTP relay, and webhooks
- Delivery optimization tools
- Detailed analytics
- Easy template editor
- Helpful customer support
- And more…
Pricing:
SendGrid offers a free plan which lets you send 100 emails per day. To send more emails and get more features, you can upgrade your plan starting at $19.95 per month.
8. Amazon SES
Amazon SES, which stands for Amazon Simple Email Service, is a highly scalable cloud-based SMTP service. You can use it to reliably send transactional emails, marketing emails, and bulk email communications.
It offers flexible deployment options including shared IP addresses, dedicated IP addresses, and owned IP addresses.
Amazon SES also comes with features like sender identity management and security, sending statistics, reputation dashboard, mailbox simulator, and more.
But, it’s not as easy to use as other SMTP service providers on this list because its features are mainly aimed at advanced users and developers.
- Dedicated IP addresses
- Content filtering
- Reputation dashboard
- Detailed statistics and insights
- Integrates with WordPress
- Pay-as-you-go service
- And more…
Pricing:
Amazon SES is a pay-as-you-go service based on the number of emails you send and receive. There’s a free tier for up to 3,000 outbound/inbound emails per month for the first 12 months.
However, there are fees for outgoing mail data, incoming mail chunks, dedicated IP addresses, and so on.
9. Postmark
Postmark is another popular SMTP provider used by companies like Asana, LiveChat, Moz, and many more.
With Postmark, you get reliable and lightning-fast email delivery for your transactional emails.
It offers simple pricing and easy integration. Plus, it comes with features like email templates, 45 days of full content history and stats, detailed analytics, and more.
- Multiple server locations (US, Singapore, Amsterdam)
- Open, click, and link tracking
- Detailed email logs
- Email templates
- Helpful documentation and customer support
- And more…
Pricing:
Postmark has a free plan that allows you to send 100 emails per month. Paid plans start at $15 per month for 10,000 emails. After that, it costs an additional $1.80 per 1,000 emails.
Bonus: Google Workspace
Google Workspace, formerly known as G Suite, is a collection of productivity and collaboration tools that includes professional email, calendar, online storage, Google Docs, and more.
With Google Workspace, you can use Google SMTP servers to reliably send emails and improve deliverability. It’s super easy to integrate with WordPress using the free WP Mail SMTP plugin. That means you can use the familiar Gmail interface to send WordPress emails.
This option is best for small businesses and blogs because it only lets you send up to 2,000 emails per day.
- User-friendly interface
- Reliable email delivery
- Custom business email
- Phishing and spam protection
- And more…
Pricing:
Plans start at $6 per month per user.
What is the Best SMTP Service Provider?
The SMTP service provider you choose depends on your specific needs and the size of your business.
For small businesses, our pick for the best SMTP service provider is SendLayer. It’s scalable, has affordable pricing, and offers reliable customer support.
For larger businesses, our pick for the best SMTP service provider is Amazon SES because it’s super cost-efficient if you’re sending out a large number of emails. But, their customer support is lacking.
And of course, we recommend WP Mail SMTP for connecting your SMTP service provider to WordPress.
That’s a wrap!
We hope that you found this list of the best SMTP service providers helpful.
If you liked this article, then you might want to check out our email marketing checklist to help you get big results.
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I really like the way you present your blog. Your writing skills streamline your work. But I have a question that why everyone writes only about big email marketing companies like sendinblue, sendgrid, mailchimp, hubspot, while there is some other company available which provides email marketing service with all these same features. As in earlier I was taking email marketing service from Mailgun, then someone suggested the name of Mailcot to me, I took email marketing service from Mailcot as soon as Mailgun’s one month plan ended, which was giving the same facility as Mailgun at a lower cost.