SendGrid targets a scale most WordPress sites never reach. Its cheapest paid plan ($19.95/month for 50,000 emails) costs twice what Postmark or Mailgun charge for the same volume, and its feature set – marketing campaigns, subuser management, email validation, SSO – targets a scale and complexity most WordPress operators never reach. For a business site sending contact form notifications, WooCommerce transactional email, and password resets, most of SendGrid’s feature set goes unused.
Where SendGrid earns its price: sites sending 100,000+ emails/month that need transactional and marketing email on one platform, dedicated IPs, and enterprise-grade analytics. A large WooCommerce store running both order confirmations and marketing campaigns at volume has legitimate reasons to choose SendGrid’s Pro plan over running two separate providers. The combined transactional-and-marketing stack is SendGrid’s actual value proposition, not the transactional-only use case where cheaper providers match or beat it.
SendGrid was founded in 2009, acquired by Twilio in 2019 for $3 billion, and has since been absorbed into Twilio’s product suite. The sendgrid.com domain now redirects to twilio.com. The API and service continue operating under the SendGrid brand, but the product’s roadmap is Twilio’s to direct.
SMTP settings
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Host | smtp.sendgrid.net |
| Port | 587 (recommended) |
| Encryption | STARTTLS |
| Authentication | AUTH LOGIN |
| Username | apikey (literal string – not your account username) |
| Password | Your SendGrid API key |
The username is always the literal text apikey. The password is your SendGrid API key with "Mail Send" permissions. For raw SMTP sessions, the API key must be Base64-encoded; WordPress mailer plugins handle this automatically.
Alternative ports: 25, 2525. Port 587 is recommended – fewer hosting providers block it than 25, and it guarantees STARTTLS encryption.
DNS authentication
SendGrid calls this "domain authentication." With automated security enabled (the default), three CNAME records are generated:
| Record | Name | Value |
|---|---|---|
| SPF/Return-Path | em[XXXX].yourdomain.com |
u[XXXXXXX].wl[XXX].sendgrid.net |
| DKIM selector 1 | s1._domainkey.yourdomain.com |
s1.domainkey.u[XXXXXXX].wl[XXX].sendgrid.net |
| DKIM selector 2 | s2._domainkey.yourdomain.com |
s2.domainkey.u[XXXXXXX].wl[XXX].sendgrid.net |
The [XXXX] values are account-specific, generated in SendGrid’s dashboard under Settings > Sender Authentication. Two DKIM selectors provide key rotation capability without DNS changes.
Add a DMARC TXT record (_dmarc.yourdomain.com → v=DMARC1; p=none;) to complete authentication. After adding records, verify with swaks that messages pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Volume | Key inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free trial | $0 | 100 emails/day (60 days) | Basic analytics. 1 teammate. Trial only – expires. |
| Essentials | $19.95/mo | 50,000 emails/mo | Analytics, deliverability tools, 2 event webhooks. |
| Essentials | $34.95/mo | 100,000 emails/mo | Same features, higher volume. |
| Pro | $89.95/mo | 100,000 emails/mo | Dedicated IP, subuser management, SSO, 2,500 email validations, 5 webhooks. |
| Premier | Custom | 5,000,000+ emails/mo | Enterprise support, 5,000 validations. |
Overages: $0.0013/email on Essentials, declining to $0.0005/email on higher Pro tiers.
The pricing structure reveals SendGrid’s target market. The entry Essentials plan at $19.95/month buys 50,000 emails – five times the volume of SMTP2GO ($10/month for 10,000) or Postmark ($15/month for 10,000). If a WordPress site actually sends 50,000 emails/month, SendGrid’s per-message cost ($0.0004/email) is competitive. But most WordPress sites send hundreds or low thousands per month, making the entry plan far more capacity than needed at a price that reflects it.
The free trial is genuinely temporary: 100 emails/day for 60 days, then it expires. This is not a permanent free tier. SMTP2GO (1,000/month, no expiry) and Postmark (100/month, no expiry) both offer permanent free allocations for testing or low-volume production use.
WordPress integration
SendGrid’s official WordPress plugin was permanently closed on wordpress.org in July 2021 by author request. Do not use it – it is unavailable for download and incompatible with current WordPress.
Two actively-maintained alternatives:
WP Mail SMTP – WP Mail SMTP includes a native SendGrid integration via API. Select SendGrid as the mailer, paste your API key. This is the most common path for WordPress sites using SendGrid.
FluentSMTP – FluentSMTP supports SendGrid via API connection. Free, open-source. Handles the same API integration without WP Mail SMTP’s premium upselling.
Both plugins connect via SendGrid’s Web API v3, not SMTP relay. This bypasses hosting-level port blocking and is SendGrid’s recommended integration method. For SMTP-only configurations, use the SMTP settings above with any generic mailer plugin.
The verdict
For the typical WordPress site sending under 10,000 emails/month, SendGrid’s pricing buys more capacity than needed. At that volume, SMTP2GO ($10/month), Postmark ($15/month), or Mailgun ($15/month) deliver equivalent reliability at a fraction of the cost, with free tiers that cover testing and low-volume production.
SendGrid makes sense in two specific cases: sites sending 50,000+ emails/month where the per-message cost becomes competitive, and sites that need transactional and marketing email on a single platform with enterprise features (dedicated IPs, subuser management, SSO). A large WooCommerce operation running abandoned-cart campaigns alongside order confirmations has a genuine reason to consolidate on SendGrid Pro. A five-page business site sending contact form emails does not.
The Twilio acquisition adds a consideration: SendGrid’s roadmap is Twilio’s, and Twilio’s priorities are developer platforms and communications APIs at scale. WordPress-specific investment is unlikely. The official plugin’s permanent closure in 2021 is evidence of this direction.