Building a thriving email list is one of the most effective ways to grow your business online – but only if your newsletters actually reach your subscribers’ inboxes. Whatever type of online business you run, choosing the right WordPress newsletter plugin can make or break your email marketing success.
The challenge? With dozens of newsletter plugins available, finding one that combines ease of use, reliable delivery, and powerful features can feel overwhelming. Some plugins limit your subscriber count, others charge hefty monthly fees, and many struggle with deliverability issues that land your carefully crafted emails in spam folders.
That’s why we’ve tested and analyzed the top WordPress newsletter plugins to help you make the right choice for your business. From free solutions perfect for startups to enterprise-level tools with advanced automation, this guide covers everything you need to build, grow, and monetize your email list directly from your WordPress dashboard.
What you’ll discover:
- Real pricing comparisons to fit any budget
- The best free and premium WordPress newsletter plugins
- How to ensure your emails reach subscribers worldwide with proper SMTP setup
- Which plugins offer the best value for growing businesses
- Essential features to look for in email marketing tools
Best WordPress Newsletter Plugins [Free + Pro]
1. WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP is the best SMTP plugin for WordPress. It lets you send WordPress emails through a transactional email provider so that they don’t get filed away as spam.
WP Mail SMTP is an essential companion to your WordPress newsletter plugin. It’ll make sure that all of your newsletters are delivered successfully, and also unlock valuable extra tools that help you monitor each email after it’s sent. It’s easy to set up and even provides White Glove setup for non-technical users.
WP Mail SMTP is one of the few SMTP plugins that has been checked to ensure list-unsubscribe headers are preserved. This is important to ensure that any newsletters you send from WordPress are compliant with Google’s new sender requirements.
If your current SMTP plugin doesn’t add these headers, your newsletters may not be delivered. Learn more about list-unsubscribe headers and how to check them.
Open and Click Tracking for Newsletters
WP Mail SMTP lets you track email open rates and link clicks in all of the emails you send.
This will boost the insights you get on your WordPress newsletters as well.
For example, let’s say you want to measure the success of a particular subject line in a newsletter. WP Mail SMTP lets you see open and click data for any newsletter in a list or a chart.
Some newsletter plugins offer basic open and click tracking. But often, this isn’t separated out by subject line. So WP Mail SMTP gives you much more detailed insight into the subject lines that work best.
And you can even see if every individual newsletter was opened and clicked.
Resend WordPress Newsletters
If one of your subscribers doesn’t receive a newsletter, what do you do? You could manually forward a copy, but it might not look too professional.
So WP Mail SMTP lets you resend a newsletter to a specific recipient on demand. You can send the newsletter to the same email address or edit the address first.
This is a great way to resend individual newsletter emails that failed. And if you have a bunch of failed emails, it’s easy to tick and resend them all at once.
Behind the scenes, WP Mail SMTP queues emails so they’re sent in batches. That reduces the load on your web server for smooth sending without any performance impact. And WP Mail SMTP Pro includes backup connections and smart routing. These automated features send your emails through an alternate email service if your primary mailer failed and enable you to separate your marketing newsletters from your transactional emails for optimal delivery.
Pricing: WP Mail SMTP Lite is free to download from WordPress.org. It lets you send WordPress newsletters through a selection of API-based mailers or an external SMTP server.
For full email tracking and resending functionality, you’ll want to get the Pro version ($49/ yr). The Elite license ($99/ yr) includes White Glove Setup. See our guide on WordPress SMTP settings for setup details.
2. WPForms
WPForms is the best plugin for newsletter subscription forms. You can use WPForms to make custom forms and connect them to your email marketing service.
WPForms comes with hundreds of WordPress form templates including pre-made newsletter subscription forms. For example, here’s how to create a Mailchimp subscribe form in WordPress.
It’s also really easy to use hCaptcha on your WordPress forms to stop spam.
Once you’ve connected your email marketing provider to WPForms, it’s easy to publish the form and start getting signups. You can even let your visitors pick which segment or group they want to join.
If you want to collect signups from your contact form, that’s simple as well. WPForms makes it easy to add a Mailchimp signup checkbox to an existing contact form. You can use the same tutorial for any email marketing service that WPForms supports, including:
- Constant Contact
- AWeber
- Mailchimp
- GetResponse
- MailerLite
- Campaign Monitor
- ActiveCampaign
- Drip
- Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)
Pricing: WPForms Lite is free to download from WordPress.org and includes Constant Contact integration. Upgrade to WPForms Pro from $99.50 to unlock all of the other email marketing addons.
3. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is the best WordPress popup plugin on the market. It lets you create marketing popups that will help you get more newsletter subscribers and send automated, targeted marketing campaigns.
OptinMonster is easy to use, even if you’re a beginner. You can design any kind of popup using one of the templates provided when you sign up. Just add an optin form to your popup and style it to match your site.
After that, it’s easy to connect your email marketing account to OptinMonster so that your subscribers are directly added to your list. OptinMonster supports lots of different tools, including:
- Mailchimp
- AWeber
- MailPoet
- ActiveCampaign
- HubSpot
- ConvertKit
- EmailOctopus
- MailerLite
- Mad Mimi
- GetResponse
- Brevo
- + more.
You can even set up Slack notifications every time a new lead is captured via an OptinMonster campaign.
The platform also has its own subscriber management tool called Monster Leads. This is especially handy if you want to keep a backup of your subscribers.
Want more help? Learn where to add your signup forms for higher conversions.
Pricing: You can start making email newsletter popups for free. Paid plans start at $14/ mo and include 1 free ‘Done-For-You’ campaign.
4. The Newsletter Plugin
The Newsletter Plugin is a great WordPress newsletter plugin. It lets you create and send email marketing content inside the WordPress dashboard.
The Newsletter Plugin has a visual composer that opens inside WordPress. You can drag and drop components onto your layout to build any kind of email you want to send.
Compared to the other plugins we looked at, Newsletter probably has the most user-friendly composer.
You can also track newsletter performance by tracking opens and clicks.
This data can help you to see which newsletters got the most engagement.
The main advantage of The Newsletter Plugin vs MailPoet is that The Newsletter Plugin works perfectly WP Mail SMTP!
That means you can use all of the email tracking, reporting, and logging features in WP Mail SMTP to send and measure your newsletters. These will work in addition to the tracking features in The Newsletter Plugin.
And the great news is that open and click tracking works fine in both plugins when you use them together.
Want to use SMTP with The Newsletter Plugin? Learn how to fix The Newsletter Plugin not sending emails with WP Mail SMTP.
Pricing: The Newsletter Plugin is free to download and lets you send unlimited newsletters from WordPress. You can buy bundles of extensions from $69/yr.
5. Icegram Express (Formerly Email Subscribers and Newsletters)
Icegram Express is another free WordPress newsletter plugin with similar features to The Newsletter Plugin. It lets you send email marketing newsletters and blog post notifications.
The plugin supports unlimited subscribers and unlimited newsletters. It’s also GDPR compliant. The composer doesn’t have the drag-and-drop tools we were hoping to see.
On the plus side, you can use it with WP Mail SMTP to fix any issues with WordPress not sending email. This also gives you all of the additional benefits of WP Mail SMTP, including the best email logging and tracking tools for WordPress.
Pricing: Email Subscribers and Newsletters is free to download. The Pro version is priced from $129 a year and lets you also create autoresponders and digests.
6. Mailster
Mailster is a comprehensive WordPress newsletter plugin that lets you create, send, and track beautiful email campaigns directly from your WordPress dashboard. It’s designed to be an all-in-one email marketing solution that keeps everything within your WordPress site.
Mailster features a drag-and-drop visual composer that makes creating newsletters easy, even for beginners. You can choose from over 400 free and premium email templates to create professional-looking campaigns that match your brand.
The plugin offers unlimited subscribers for a one-time fee, making it cost-effective for growing businesses. All subscriber data is stored in your own database and isn’t shared with third parties, ensuring GDPR compliance.
Key Features of Mailster:
- Automated email campaigns including welcome emails, birthday campaigns, and drip sequences
- RSS-to-email functionality for automatic blog post notifications
- Time zone-based email delivery for global audiences
- Advanced segmentation and targeting options
- Detailed campaign analytics including open rates, click tracking, and subscriber insights
- Integration with popular email service providers and SMTP support
- Merge tags for personalized email content
Mailster works with any email provider and supports professional email services for better deliverability. The plugin also includes automation features like autoresponders, follow-up campaigns, and triggered emails based on subscriber behavior.
One advantage of Mailster is that it integrates well with WooCommerce for e-commerce email marketing and supports custom post types for specialized content campaigns.
Pricing: Mailster is available as a premium plugin with a one-time purchase fee starting at $79. There’s no free version, but the plugin includes a 14-day money-back guarantee. The one-time fee includes unlimited subscribers, forms, and lists, making it economical for large subscriber bases.
7. Newsletter Glue
Newsletter Glue is a premium WordPress newsletter plugin designed specifically for editorial teams and publishers who want to streamline their newsletter workflow. Rather than using a separate email builder, Newsletter Glue lets you create newsletters directly in the familiar WordPress editor, making it ideal for content-heavy newsletters and teams publishing multiple newsletters per week.
Newsletter Glue integrates tightly with your existing email service provider without requiring migration. You keep your current ESP, subscriber lists, and automation exactly where they are. The plugin works with popular services including Mailchimp, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Sendy, and many others.
The plugin’s unique approach allows you to publish newsletters directly on your WordPress site, creating a newsletter archive that’s searchable and discoverable. This means your newsletter content gets a second life on your website, helping with SEO and subscriber growth.
Key Features of Newsletter Glue:
- Create newsletters using the native WordPress block editor with specialized newsletter blocks
- Auto-generate newsletter content from blog posts with embedded links and images
- Email template builder that requires no coding
- Custom CSS support for advanced newsletter styling
- Lightweight, heavily tested emails that won’t get clipped in Outlook
- Email size checker to prevent delivery issues
- Built-in newsletter archive functionality for website publishing
Newsletter Glue is particularly valuable for newsrooms, media companies, and content creators who want to maintain consistency between their website and email content. The plugin meets WordPress VIP coding standards and is trusted by major publications.
The plugin doesn’t include its own email sending service, which means you’ll need an external email service provider for actual delivery. However, this approach gives you more control and better deliverability rates.
Pricing: Newsletter Glue is now a premium plugin only and licenses start from $79 a month.
8. MailPoet
MailPoet is a WordPress newsletter plugin that lets you build email newsletters inside the dashboard. It’s also a great WooCommerce email customizer.
MailPoet is ideal for WordPress users who want to keep all of their marketing activity in the same dashboard. The plugin has a drag and drop visual composer to help you build newsletters quickly.
And MailPoet also integrates well with other tools that we recommend, including:
- Formidable Forms
- OptinMonster
- Membership plugins, including MemberPress
MailPoet uses its own system for sending emails, so it won’t work with WP Mail SMTP, but its still a great tool otherwise to send newsletters.
Pricing: MailPoet is free to send up to 1,000 emails each month via its Sending Service. If you have more subscribers, you’ll want to pay monthly to unlock higher sending limits, starting from $10 a month.
Next, Find More Top WordPress Email Plugins
Want to customize your WordPress notifications or send blog posts by email?
We’ve got even more ideas in this list of the best email plugins for WordPress.
Ready to fix your emails? Get started today with the best WordPress SMTP plugin. If you don’t have the time to fix your emails, you can get full White Glove Setup assistance as an extra purchase, and there’s a 14-day money-back guarantee for all paid plans.
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