AI Summary
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 kind of site you run, the right WordPress newsletter plugin can make or break your email marketing.
The challenge is that there are dozens of newsletter plugins, and finding one that combines ease of use, reliable delivery, and the features you need can feel overwhelming. Some limit your subscriber count, others charge hefty monthly fees, and many struggle with deliverability that lands your emails in spam.
So I’ve tested and compared the top WordPress newsletter plugins to help you choose the right one for your business, from free tools for startups to enterprise platforms with advanced automation.
What you’ll find below:
- Real pricing comparisons to fit any budget
- The best free and premium WordPress newsletter plugins
- How to make sure your emails reach subscribers with proper SMTP setup
- Which plugins offer the best value for growing businesses
- The features that matter most in an email marketing tool
Best WordPress Newsletter Plugins [Free + Pro]
Here are the eight newsletter plugins I rate most highly for 2026, covering everything from sending and list-building to deliverability.
Quick Comparison: Best WordPress Newsletter Plugins
Here’s how the eight compare at a glance. Click any name to jump to its review.
| Plugin | Best For | Free Version | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP Mail SMTP | Newsletter deliverability + tracking | ✅ | Pro $49/yr |
| WPForms | Newsletter signup forms | ✅ | from $99.50/yr |
| OptinMonster | Growing your list with popups | ❌ | from $9/mo |
| The Newsletter Plugin | Free unlimited sending | ✅ | from $69/yr |
| Icegram Express | Free newsletters + post notifications | ✅ | from $129/yr |
| Mailster | All-in-one self-hosted sending | ❌ | from $79/yr |
| Newsletter Glue | Publishers writing in the block editor | ❌ | from $99/mo |
| MailPoet | Sending inside WordPress + WooCommerce | ✅ | from $10/mo |
1. WP Mail SMTP
WP Mail SMTP is the best SMTP plugin for WordPress. It sends your WordPress emails through a transactional email provider so they don’t get filed away as spam.
It’s an essential companion to any newsletter plugin: it makes sure your newsletters are actually delivered, and it unlocks tools to monitor each email after it’s sent. It’s easy to set up, and there’s White Glove setup for non-technical users.
Open and Click Tracking for Newsletters
WP Mail SMTP lets you track open rates and link clicks across all the emails you send.
That adds to the insight you get on your newsletters. Say you want to measure how a particular subject line performed. WP Mail SMTP shows open and click data for any newsletter in a list or a chart.
Some newsletter plugins offer basic open and click tracking, but often it isn’t broken out by subject line, so you get a more detailed view here. You can even see whether each individual newsletter was opened and clicked.
Resend WordPress Newsletters
If a subscriber doesn’t receive a newsletter, you could manually forward a copy, but that doesn’t look very professional.
Instead, WP Mail SMTP lets you resend a newsletter to a specific recipient on demand, to the same address or an edited one.
That’s a clean way to recover individual emails that failed, and if several failed, you can tick and resend them all at once.
Behind the scenes, WP Mail SMTP queues emails so they send in batches, which reduces the load on your server. Pro also adds backup connections and smart routing, so your emails go through an alternate service if your primary mailer fails, and you can separate marketing newsletters from transactional emails for better delivery.
Pricing: WP Mail SMTP Lite is free on WordPress.org and sends through a range of API-based mailers or an external SMTP server. For full tracking and resending, the Pro version is $49/year, and the Elite license ($99/year) adds White Glove Setup. See our guide on WordPress SMTP settings for setup details.
2. WPForms
WPForms is the best plugin for newsletter signup forms. You can build custom forms and connect them to your email marketing service.
It comes with hundreds of form templates, including pre-made newsletter subscription forms. For example, here’s how to create a Mailchimp subscribe form in WordPress. It’s also easy to use hCaptcha on your forms to stop spam.
Once you’ve connected your email provider, you can publish the form and start collecting signups, and you can even let visitors pick which segment or group to join.
To collect signups from your contact form, it’s just as simple to add a Mailchimp signup checkbox to an existing contact form. The same approach works for any email service WPForms supports, including Constant Contact, AWeber, Mailchimp, GetResponse, MailerLite, Campaign Monitor, ActiveCampaign, Drip, and Brevo.
Pricing: WPForms Lite is free on WordPress.org and includes Constant Contact integration. Upgrade to WPForms from $99.50/year to unlock all the other email marketing addons.
3. OptinMonster
OptinMonster is the best WordPress popup plugin on the market. It lets you create marketing popups that win more newsletter subscribers and send automated, targeted campaigns.
It’s easy to use even for beginners. You design a popup from one of the provided templates, add an optin form, and style it to match your site.
From there, you connect your email marketing account so subscribers are added to your list directly. OptinMonster supports a long list of tools, including Mailchimp, AWeber, MailPoet, ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, ConvertKit, EmailOctopus, MailerLite, GetResponse, and Brevo.
You can even set up Slack notifications whenever a new lead is captured. There’s also a built-in subscriber management tool, Monster Leads, which is handy as a backup of your subscribers.
Pricing: OptinMonster plans start at $9/month (billed annually) and include one free Done-For-You campaign.
4. The Newsletter Plugin
The Newsletter Plugin lets you create and send email marketing content right inside the WordPress dashboard.
It has a visual composer that opens inside WordPress, where you drag and drop components to build the email you want. Of the plugins I looked at, it has one of the most user-friendly composers.
You can also track opens and clicks to see which newsletters got the most engagement.
A big advantage over MailPoet is that The Newsletter Plugin works perfectly with WP Mail SMTP. That means you can layer the email tracking, reporting, and logging in WP Mail SMTP on top of the plugin’s own tracking, and open and click tracking works fine in both at once.
Want to use SMTP with it? Here’s how to fix The Newsletter Plugin not sending emails with WP Mail SMTP.
Pricing: The Newsletter Plugin is free to download and sends unlimited newsletters from WordPress. You can buy bundles of extensions from $69/year.
5. Icegram Express
Icegram Express (formerly Email Subscribers and Newsletters) is another free WordPress newsletter plugin with similar features to The Newsletter Plugin. It sends email marketing newsletters and blog post notifications.
It supports unlimited subscribers and unlimited newsletters, and it’s GDPR compliant. The composer doesn’t have the drag-and-drop tools I’d have liked to see.
On the plus side, you can use it with WP Mail SMTP to fix any issues with WordPress not sending email, which also gives you the best email logging and tracking tools for WordPress.
Pricing: Icegram Express is free to download. The Pro version starts from $129/year and adds autoresponders and digests.
6. Mailster
Mailster is a comprehensive WordPress newsletter plugin that lets you create, send, and track campaigns directly from your dashboard. It’s an all-in-one email marketing solution that keeps everything inside your WordPress site.
It has a drag-and-drop visual composer that makes building newsletters easy for beginners, with over 400 free and premium templates. Subscriber data is stored in your own database and isn’t shared with third parties, which keeps it GDPR compliant.
Key features of Mailster:
- Automated campaigns including welcome emails, birthday campaigns, and drip sequences
- RSS-to-email for automatic blog post notifications
- Time zone-based delivery for global audiences
- Advanced segmentation and targeting
- Detailed analytics including open rates, click tracking, and subscriber insights
- Integration with email service providers and SMTP support
- Merge tags for personalized content
Mailster works with any email provider and supports professional email services for better deliverability, and it integrates well with WooCommerce for ecommerce email marketing.
Pricing: Mailster is a premium plugin priced from $79/year, with no free version but a 14-day money-back guarantee. The license includes unlimited subscribers, forms, and lists, which makes it economical for large subscriber bases.
7. Newsletter Glue
Newsletter Glue is a premium WordPress newsletter plugin built for editorial teams and publishers who want to simplify their workflow. Instead of a separate email builder, it lets you create newsletters directly in the WordPress block editor, which is ideal for content-heavy newsletters and teams publishing several per week.
It integrates tightly with your existing email service provider without requiring migration, so you keep your current ESP, lists, and automation. It works with Mailchimp, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, Sendy, and others.
It also publishes newsletters directly on your WordPress site, creating a searchable newsletter archive that gives your content a second life and helps with SEO.
Key features of Newsletter Glue:
- Create newsletters with the native block editor and specialized newsletter blocks
- Auto-generate newsletter content from blog posts with embedded links and images
- Email template builder with no coding
- Custom CSS support for advanced styling
- Lightweight, heavily tested emails that won’t get clipped in Outlook
- Built-in newsletter archive for website publishing
It doesn’t include its own sending service, so you’ll need an external email provider for delivery, which gives you more control over deliverability.
Pricing: Newsletter Glue is premium only, starting from $99/month (about $948/year on the annual plan). It’s priced for publishers and editorial teams rather than hobby sites.
8. MailPoet
MailPoet lets you build email newsletters inside the WordPress dashboard, and it’s also a great WooCommerce email customizer.
It’s ideal if you want to keep all your marketing in one dashboard, with a drag-and-drop composer to build newsletters quickly.
It also integrates with tools I recommend, including Formidable Forms, OptinMonster, and membership plugins like MemberPress.
Pricing: MailPoet is free to send up to 1,000 emails a month through its Sending Service. For higher limits, paid plans start from about $10/month based on your subscriber count.
Next, Find More Top WordPress Email Plugins
Want to customize your WordPress notifications or send blog posts by email? There are even more options in our guide to 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.
