Email forwarding maps a custom domain address ([email protected]) to an existing inbox ([email protected]). Inbound mail arrives at the custom address and lands in your real mailbox. No hosting, no mailbox management, no second login.
For WordPress operators, forwarding solves a common problem: the site needs a domain-matched address for transactional email reply-to headers, contact form notifications, and WooCommerce order emails. Forwarding handles the inbound half: receiving replies and bounces at your domain. The outbound half, actually sending mail as your domain, requires either a forwarding service with SMTP capability or a separate transactional email provider.
That distinction, forwarding-only versus forwarding-with-sending, is the decision axis that matters most.
At a glance
| Service | Free tier | SMTP sending | Starting price | SRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Email Routing | Yes (unlimited) | No | Free | Yes |
| ImprovMX | Yes (1 domain) | Paid tiers | $50/yr | Yes |
| Forward Email | Yes (unlimited domains) | $3/mo+ | Free | – |
| ForwardMX | No | All tiers | $30/yr | Yes |
| Mailwip | No | $6/mo+ | $10/yr | – |
| EmailForwardMX | No | No | ~$21/yr | – |
The sending problem
A forwarding service that only handles inbound mail is useful but incomplete for WordPress. WordPress sends email: password resets, form notifications, order confirmations. Those outgoing messages need to come from your domain and authenticate correctly (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), which means routing through an SMTP relay.
Some forwarding services include SMTP sending. Others do not. If yours does not, you need a separate transactional provider (Postmark, SMTP2GO, Brevo, Amazon SES) and a mailer plugin to handle the outbound path.
The two can coexist on the same domain without conflict. Your MX records point to the forwarding service (handling inbound), while your SPF and DKIM records authorise the transactional sender (handling outbound). Different DNS record types, different directions of traffic. A domain can have one set of MX records for receiving and authorise multiple senders via SPF. This is standard and expected.
For the full architecture of how WordPress email works, see How Email Works: A WordPress Operator’s Reference.
Why SRS matters for forwarded mail
When a forwarding service receives mail at your domain and relays it to your real inbox (say, Gmail), the forwarded message originates from the forwarding service’s servers, not from the original sender’s. If the original sender published an SPF record (most do), Gmail checks the forwarding server’s IP against that SPF record and it fails, because the forwarding service is not an authorised sender for the original domain.
Sender Rewriting Scheme (SRS) solves this by rewriting the envelope sender address during forwarding, so the SPF check at the destination evaluates the forwarding service’s domain instead of the original sender’s. Without SRS, forwarded mail that passes DKIM may still fail SPF, and if the original sender’s DMARC policy is reject, the message can be dropped entirely.
In practice: Cloudflare, ImprovMX, and ForwardMX all document SRS support explicitly. When evaluating a forwarding service, check for SRS; its absence produces intermittent authentication failures that are hard to diagnose because they depend on the sending domain’s DMARC policy.
The services
Cloudflare Email Routing
Free on all Cloudflare plans, including the free tier. The requirement: your domain must use Cloudflare as its authoritative nameserver.
Cloudflare Email Routing handles inbound forwarding only. Create aliases (or a catch-all), point them at your real inbox. No alias limits or daily volume caps are documented. The service implements SRS for envelope sender rewriting and adds its own DKIM signatures to forwarded messages: one for Cloudflare’s rewriting domain (email.cloudflare.net) and one for the customer’s domain. It also attaches ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) headers so downstream servers can verify the forwarding chain.
Setup requires MX records pointing to Cloudflare’s mail servers and routing rules configured in the dashboard. If your domain is already on Cloudflare (and given Cloudflare’s CDN and DNS market share, a significant portion of WordPress sites qualify), this is the path of least resistance.
No SMTP sending is included. For WordPress sites, pair Cloudflare Email Routing with a transactional provider and a mailer plugin like WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP for outbound mail. The forwarding handles replies and bounces arriving at your domain; the transactional provider handles everything WordPress sends. Cloudflare’s newer Email Service includes a sending API via Workers, but that is a developer-oriented tool, not an SMTP relay a WordPress mailer plugin can connect to.
Pricing: Free. Sending: No (forwarding only). WordPress fit: Excellent for inbound. Pair with a transactional provider for outbound.
The default recommendation for anyone already on Cloudflare. Free, reliable, and the DNS integration removes friction from what is otherwise the fiddliest part of setting up forwarding.
ImprovMX
The best-known dedicated forwarding service. The free tier covers one domain with 25 aliases and 500 forwards per day, enough for most single-site WordPress operators who only need inbound. SRS is implemented across all tiers via a custom implementation that rewrites the envelope sender and tracks bounces back to the original sender.
The paid tiers add SMTP sending, which makes ImprovMX a plausible all-in-one solution for low-volume WordPress sites. Premium ($9/month) includes 6,000 SMTP sends per month across up to 30 domains. For a WordPress site sending a few hundred transactional emails per month, this eliminates the need for a separate provider.
SMTP configuration in WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP, or FluentSMTP uses ImprovMX’s standard relay settings, the same host/port/authentication pattern as any external SMTP service. Outbound messages sent through ImprovMX’s SMTP relay are DKIM-signed; setup requires adding two DKIM CNAME records and a DMARC TXT record to your domain’s DNS before sending is enabled.
Pricing: Free (1 domain, 25 aliases, no sending). Light $50/yr (5 domains, 25 SMTP sends/day). Premium $9/mo (30 domains, 6,000 SMTP sends/mo). Pro $24/mo (100 domains, 30,000 SMTP sends/mo). Sending: Yes, on paid tiers. DKIM signing via CNAME delegation. WordPress fit: Good. SMTP credentials work with standard mailer plugins.
The right pick for WordPress operators who want forwarding and sending from one service. The free tier is useful for inbound-only on a single domain. At $9/month for Premium, it is more expensive than Forward Email’s equivalent tier but has a longer track record.
Forward Email
Open source: frontend and backend code are both on GitHub, which is unusual in this category. The free tier handles forwarding with unlimited aliases and unlimited domains. The Enhanced plan ($3/month) adds SMTP sending, 10GB encrypted storage per alias, and API access.
The open-source angle matters if you care about auditability or if you want to self-host the forwarding infrastructure. For most WordPress operators, the practical differentiator is pricing and the unlimited-domains policy on the free tier. An agency managing forwarding for twenty client domains pays nothing for inbound and $3/month if any of those domains also needs SMTP sending. Forward Email supports SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for authentication.
SMTP relay credentials work with WordPress mailer plugins the same way any external relay does.
Pricing: Free (forwarding only, unlimited aliases and domains). Enhanced $3/mo (SMTP sending, 10GB encrypted storage). Team $9/mo (collaborative features, shared organisational access). Sending: Yes, on Enhanced and Team plans. WordPress fit: Good. Standard SMTP relay credentials.
The cheapest forwarding-with-sending option, and it works. Open source is a real differentiator, not a marketing claim; the code is auditable. The unlimited-domains free tier is the most generous policy in the category for agency operators.
ForwardMX
No free tier. The Personal plan covers a single domain at $30/year. The Starter plan is $6/month ($72/year billed annually) with up to 30 domains and unlimited aliases. Pro ($18/month) scales to 125 domains, Business ($30/month) to 250. All plans include SMTP sending, DKIM, SPF, SRS, and catch-all forwarding. Mailboxes can be added for $2/month each.
ForwardMX differentiates on support (7-day availability, 30-day money-back guarantee) and the unlimited-aliases policy across all tiers.
Pricing: Personal $30/yr (1 domain). Starter $6/mo (30 domains). Pro $18/mo (125 domains). Business $30/mo (250 domains). All include SMTP and unlimited aliases. Mailbox add-on $2/mo. Sending: Yes, all tiers. WordPress fit: Works. Standard SMTP credentials.
A solid multi-domain option at the Starter tier. For single-domain use, the $30/year Personal plan is reasonable but faces stiff competition from ImprovMX’s free tier (forwarding only) and Forward Email Enhanced at $36/year (forwarding plus sending). The no-free-tier policy means no low-risk way to evaluate before committing, though the 30-day guarantee mitigates this.
Mailwip (formerly Hanami)
A small independent service (three-person team) rebranded from Hanami. Five tiers from Lite ($10/year, 1 domain) to Business ($100/month, 1,000+ domains). SMTP sending is available on Professional ($6/month) and above, with a 300 sends/day cap, lower than ImprovMX or Forward Email’s limits.
The distinctive features are developer-oriented: email webhooks, an incoming mail API, and Rails Action Mailbox integration. Worth considering if you need webhook-driven inbound email processing alongside forwarding, a niche Cloudflare and ImprovMX do not serve.
Pricing: Lite $10/yr (1 domain, no sending). Individual $2/mo (4 domains, no sending). Professional $6/mo (50 domains, 300 SMTP sends/day). Team $30/mo (300 domains). Business $100/mo (1,000+ domains). Sending: Yes, on Professional tier and above (300-5,000 sends/day depending on plan). WordPress fit: Functional. Standard forwarding works; webhook features are a bonus for custom development.
For standard forwarding-and-sending, the larger services offer better documentation and more familiar configuration paths.
EmailForwardMX
Budget-priced forwarding starting at approximately $21/year for a single domain. Unlimited forwarding volume, catch-all support, two-factor authentication, API access. A "Blackhole" filter allows rejecting specific aliases without forwarding, useful for shutting down addresses that attract spam.
SMTP sending is not a documented feature. This is a forwarding-only service.
Pricing: From ~$21/yr (single domain). 30-day money-back guarantee. Sending: No. WordPress fit: Basic inbound forwarding works. Pair with a transactional provider for outbound.
The cheapest paid forwarding-only option for a single domain. Useful if your domain is not on Cloudflare and you want paid-service reliability without ImprovMX’s alias limits on the free tier. For most WordPress operators, Cloudflare Email Routing (free) or ImprovMX’s free tier cover the same ground at no cost.
Registrar forwarding
Domain registrars often include basic email forwarding with registration. Namecheap offers free forwarding. Squarespace Domains, which absorbed Google Domains’ customer base when Google shut down the registrar in September 2023, provides email forwarding with up to 100 addresses per domain. Existing Google Domains forwarding rules migrated automatically, though users on custom nameservers may need to update DNS records to restore forwarding.
Registrar forwarding is receive-only: mail routes to your inbox, but no SMTP credentials are provided for sending. For WordPress sites, this means a separate transactional email provider is still required for outbound mail. Registrar forwarding is a reasonable choice when inbound is the only need and the domain is already registered with a provider that includes it.
Which to pick
"I just need to receive email at my domain." Cloudflare Email Routing if your domain is on Cloudflare (free, reliable, SRS included). ImprovMX free tier if it is not (one domain, 25 aliases). Forward Email free tier for multiple domains.
"I need to send and receive from my domain, low volume." Forward Email Enhanced ($3/month) is the cheapest option with both forwarding and SMTP sending. ImprovMX Premium ($9/month) if you prefer a more established service or need up to 30 domains with sending.
"I manage multiple client domains." Forward Email’s free tier (unlimited domains for forwarding) plus a shared transactional provider for outbound. Or ImprovMX Pro ($24/month, 100 domains) if you want sending bundled per-domain.
"I want the simplest possible setup." Cloudflare Email Routing for inbound, plus any transactional provider (SMTP2GO, Postmark, Brevo) for outbound via a mailer plugin. Two services, each doing one job well.
Pricing verified June 2026. Services update plans without notice; check provider pricing pages before committing.