Smooth SMTP vs WP Mail SMTP by WPForms – The Most Popular SMTP and

Smooth SMTP gives you full control over how WordPress sends email. Configure SMTP as your primary sending method, set up a fallback for when things go wrong, get notified through your preferred channels, and keep a detailed log of every email your site sends. Primary Sending Method (SMTP) Configure any SMTP provider as your primary sending method. If you leave SMTP disabled, WordPress will continue using its default PHP mail — either way, all other features still work. Works with any SMTP provider: Gmail, SendGrid, Amazon SES, Mailgun, and more Configurable host, port, encryption (SSL/TLS), username, password, from email, and from name Secure credential storage using WordPress’s built-in options API Fallback Sending Method If the primary sending method fails, Smooth SMTP can automatically retry using a fallback. This works regardless of whether you’re using SMTP or WordPress’s default PHP mail as your primary. Fallback to WordPress Default (PHP mail) or a second SMTP server Full credential configuration for the fallback SMTP Logged separately so you can see exactly which method delivered each email Failure Alert Channels Get notified the moment an email fails — through the channels your team already uses. Slack, Discord Telegram (via Bot API — requires bot token and chat ID) WhatsApp (via CallMeBot webhook) SMS or any custom webhook endpoint Add multiple channels, enable/disable each independently Send Test Alert button per channel Alerts are throttled to at most one per 60 seconds to avoid flooding Email Summary Reports Receive a periodic HTML email summarising your site’s email activity. Hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly schedule Total sent and failed counts, breakdown by sending method, and recent failures Configurable recipient address Send Summary Now button for an instant preview Email Logging Every email your site sends is logged with full detail. Status (success / failed), sender, recipients, subject, message body Sent Via column showing which method delivered the email (Primary SMTP, Fallback SMTP, Fallback WordPress Default, etc.) Search, filter, and paginate logs from the admin dashboard View full email detail in a modal Bulk delete, bulk resend, and delete-all options Admin dashboard notice when the most recent email failed Dashboard A at-a-glance overview of your site’s email activity. Total sent, failed, and success rate stat cards Breakdown by sending method with progress bars Recent failures table Filter by day, week, month, or all time Test Email Send a test email at any time to verify your configuration. Choose which sending method to test — primary or fallback — independently Send plain text or HTML test emails Specify any recipient address Always available regardless of whether SMTP is configured Other One-click import of email logs from Post SMTP Option to keep logs and settings when the plugin is deleted Compatible with Post SMTP and WP Mail SMTP (Smooth SMTP acts as a fallback when another SMTP plugin is detected) Privacy Policy This plugin logs email metadata including sender address, recipient addresses, subject line, message body, and sending status. SMTP credentials are stored in your WordPress database. No data is transmitted to external services except through the alert channels and SMTP servers you explicitly configure.

WordPress Mail SMTP Plugin Is your WordPress site not sending emails? You’re not alone. 4+ million websites use WP Mail SMTP to send emails reliably. Our goal is to make email deliverability easy so that your emails always reach the inbox. WP Mail SMTP fixes your email deliverability issues by reconfiguring WordPress to use a proper SMTP provider when sending emails. Best of all, our easy-to-use Setup Wizard and detailed documentation guide you through the process. WP Mail SMTP is free and has everything you need to reliably send your WordPress emails! WP Mail SMTP Pro unlocks even more powerful features like email logging, advanced email reporting and stats, backup connections, email alerts, smart conditional routing, and much more. What is SMTP? SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is an industry-standard for sending emails. Proper SMTP configuration helps increase email deliverability by adding authentication to the emails sent from your site. Popular email clients like Gmail, Yahoo, Office 365, and Zoho are in a constant battle with email spammers, so they check whether emails are originating from a genuine sender. If the proper authentication isn’t there, emails either go in the SPAM folder or, worse, disappear. This is a problem for a lot of WordPress sites. By default, WordPress uses the PHP mail function to send emails generated by WordPress or any contact form plugin like WPForms. But most WordPress hosting companies don’t have their servers properly configured for sending PHP emails. This is why WordPress emails aren’t delivered. How does WP Mail SMTP work? WP Mail SMTP plugin easily resolves email delivery problems by changing the way your WordPress site sends email. We reconfigure the wp_mail() function to use proper SMTP host credentials or an SMTP mail provider. With our built-in SMTP mail provider integrations (recommended), emails are sent using the provider’s direct API. Even if your web host is blocking SMTP ports, your emails will still be sent successfully. This helps you fix all WordPress not sending email issues. WP Mail SMTP plugin includes many different SMTP mailers: SendLayer (#1 Recommended) SMTP.com (Recommended) Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) SMTP (Recommended) Gmail SMTP (Gmail, Google Workspace, G Suite) Elastic Email Mailgun SMTP Mailjet SMTP SendGrid SMTP Postmark SMTP SparkPost SMTP SMTP2GO Microsoft SMTP One-Click Setup (Outlook.com and Office 365) [Pro] Amazon SES SMTP [Pro] Zoho Mail SMTP [Pro] Other SMTP For most options, you can specify the “from name” and “email address” for outgoing emails too. All of these powerful features make WP Mail SMTP the best SMTP solution for WordPress. If you don’t know which mailer to choose, see our Complete Guide to WP Mail SMTP Mailers. SendLayer SendLayer is our #1 recommended transactional email service. Its affordable pricing and simple setup make it the perfect choice for sending emails from WordPress. It also has open and click tracking and email logs. SendLayer is reliable, fast, and easy to set up. You can send hundreds of emails for free when you sign up for a trial. Read our SendLayer documentation for more details. SMTP.COM SMTP.com is a recommended transactional email service. With over 22 years of email delivery expertise, SMTP.com has a reputation for being one of the most reliable senders on the internet. You can start sending emails in minutes and benefit from 50,000 free emails in your first 30 days. Read our SMTP.com documentation for more details. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) SMTP Brevo is a recommended transactional email service. It serves 80,000+ companies worldwide. Brevo is reliable, fast, and gives you 300 free emails per day. Read our Brevo documentation for more details. WP Mail SMTP PRO In addition to native Microsoft, Amazon SES, and Zoho Mail integrations, WP Mail SMTP Pro provides access to many other powerful features. Click here to purchase WP Mail SMTP Pro now! Email Log Email logging is a powerful feature that keeps a record of all sent emails in WordPress. Email logging helps you to archive, audit, resend, or test email delivery and formatting. Our WordPress email logs also include: Email Log Details Our email logs provide a complete history of all emails sent from WordPress. View the subject, sender, recipients, content, headers, open and click rates, delivery status, source plugin, and more! Resend Emails Resend emails individually or in bulk, whether they failed or were delivered successfully. You can also forward important emails to an alternative email address. And many more Email Log Features Store all email attachments, export email logs, print emails, see delivery status, and more. Email Reports Review weekly sent and failed emails in a dashboard chart. Email reports make it easy to track deliverability and engagement. Open rates and click-through rates are grouped by subject line, making it easy to see the performance of your campaigns or notifications. Weekly Email Summary Get statistics about WordPress emails, including how many emails are being sent and which ones are being opened and clicked. The Summary also shows you deliverability statistics without the need to log in to WordPress to check them. Track Email Opens and Clicks View open and click stats for WordPress emails, grouped by subject line in your Email Report. Email Alerts If your emails stop sending, get notified instantly via Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, SMS/ Twilio, webhooks, or email (via secure API). In combination with our email logging and resending features, Email Alerts ensure that no important email will ever be lost. Backup Connection Configure an extra connection that kicks in if your primary connection fails. WP Mail SMTP automatically detects connection issues and automatically switches to the backup mailer. It will also automatically retry emails that failed. Smart Conditional Routing Create criteria to send different types of emails using different mailers. Filter by the contents of the email Subject or Message, From or To addresses, the plugin that generated the email, and more. This allows you to mix transactional and marketing providers to improve deliverability. Rate Limiting Control the number of emails your WordPress site sends in a specific amount of time so you stay within your SMTP provider’s rate limits. WP Mail SMTP allows you to specify the maximum number of emails that will be sent every minute, hour, day, week, or month and automatically queues emails to stay within those limits. Optimized Email Sending Are emails slowing down your site? Let WP Mail SMTP queue your emails for better performance. With optimized sending, emails are queued in the background and sent when your server has sufficient resources, avoiding bottlenecks that can slow down your site. Manage WordPress Emails and Notifications Control the default notifications WordPress sends. Use a simple switch to disable specific types of notifications if you don’t want to receive them. WordPress Multisite WordPress Multisite Network Settings For users running a multisite network, save time with a centralized location to easily configure your SMTP settings for all sites. Manage Multisite Email Logs Easily Network Admins can view and manage email logs for subsites with easy switching and dashboard views. Expert Support We provide limited support on the WordPress.org forums. World-class one-on-one email support is available to WP Mail SMTP Pro users. White Glove Setup If you’re not sure how to fix your emails, sit back and relax. We’ll set up WP Mail SMTP for you! White Glove Setup includes installation, configuration in WordPress, DNS configuration, full mailer setup, and testing. White Glove Setup is available for our recommended mailers: SendLayer, Brevo, and SMTP.com. Credits WP Mail SMTP plugin was originally created by Callum Macdonald. It is now owned and maintained by the team behind WPForms – the best drag & drop form builder for WordPress. You can try the free version of WPForms plugin to see why it’s the best in the market.