Install the 
Elastic Email Sender plugin if the site already runs Elastic Email or wants the shortest install path with no SMTP credentials to remember. Install a generic mailer plugin like FluentSMTP or WP Mail SMTP in Other SMTP mode if the site wants provider-portable configuration or the surrounding plugin features (email logging, fallback connections, per-address routing). Elastic Email is one of the few providers that ships an officially-maintained WordPress plugin, and the plugin is the fastest install; the trade-off is the same as with every single-provider plugin: moving to another mailer later means reconfiguring from scratch.
For the case for or against Elastic Email as a sending service (its 3,000-a-month free tier with the 100-a-day cap, the $19-a-month Starter tier that scales down cheaply above 30,000 sends per month, and the marketing-plus-transactional dual-product split), start at the Elastic Email review. This page is the setup walk-through. It assumes the decision to use Elastic Email has already been made.
Which plugin to install
Three plugin paths reach Elastic Email from WordPress.
The fastest install is Elastic Email Sender, the vendor’s own plugin. It is currently at v1.2.22 (December 2025), tested against WordPress 6.9, with 10,000-plus active installs. It replaces wp_mail() with a call to Elastic Email’s HTTP API rather than connecting over SMTP, which sidesteps port-blocking on shared hosting where outbound 587 or 465 traffic is restricted. Pick it when Elastic Email is the final decision and the site does not need plugin-side logging, fallback, or routing.
The recommended path for a general-purpose mailer plugin is WP Mail SMTP with its native Elastic Email mailer. WP Mail SMTP ships a dedicated Elastic Email option in its mailer picker that calls the Elastic Email API directly rather than going over SMTP, so there is no SMTP username or port to configure; the setup is one API key and a from-address. The value against the vendor plugin is what WP Mail SMTP adds around the send: email logging on its free tier, a setup wizard, backup connections and smart routing on Pro. Pick it when the site might change providers later or wants the full mailer-plugin feature set.
For per-address routing without paying for WP Mail SMTP Pro, FluentSMTP has an API-based Elastic Email integration alongside its generic SMTP path, so the setup is the API key rather than the full SMTP credential set. Post SMTP reaches Elastic Email in generic-SMTP mode with the same account-email-plus-SMTP-API-key credentials; its differentiator is real-time failure notifications to Chrome, Slack, Teams, or SMS on the paid tier.
For the plugin-by-plugin comparison in the general case (not Elastic Email-specific), see best WordPress SMTP plugins.
Before touching WordPress
Elastic Email accepts sends from unverified domains during the initial signup window on the free tier, but production traffic requires a verified sending domain, and receivers require the DKIM signature that verification unlocks. Two things sit upstream of the WordPress install: an API key of the right type, and DNS records at the sending domain.
Generate the SMTP API key (or a regular API key)
Log in to the Elastic Email dashboard, then Settings > Manage API Keys > Create Additional API Key. Elastic Email supports two API key shapes, and the choice depends on the plugin path. For generic-SMTP plugins that authenticate over port 587 or 2525, generate a key of type SMTP; this is a credential that Elastic Email’s SMTP endpoint accepts as a password, with the account email address as the SMTP username. For the official Elastic Email Sender plugin or FluentSMTP’s Elastic Email connector, generate a Full Access or Restricted Access key of the standard HTTP-API type; the plugin passes it in the API request header rather than through SMTP auth.
Copy the generated key immediately. Elastic Email shows the key value once at creation and never again; a lost key has to be regenerated. The account email address stays visible in the account dashboard and is the SMTP username for the generic-SMTP path.
Verify the sending domain and publish DKIM and SPF
In the Elastic Email dashboard, Domains > Add Domain. Enter the domain the WordPress site sends From:, meaning example.com, not mail.example.com. Elastic Email returns three DNS records: an SPF include, a DKIM TXT record, and an optional tracking CNAME.
The SPF record adds include:_spf.elasticemail.com to the domain’s existing SPF record at the apex. If the domain already has an SPF record covering Google Workspace or another sender, edit it to add the include; do not create a second SPF record at the apex, because a domain with two SPF records at the same name is a permanent SPF error under RFC 7208 regardless of what the records say. If the domain has no SPF record, publish v=spf1 include:_spf.elasticemail.com -all. The SPF merger folds include:_spf.elasticemail.com into an existing string and counts the DNS lookups against RFC 7208’s ten-lookup ceiling before you publish.
The DKIM record is a TXT record at api._domainkey.<your-domain> with the RSA public key value from the Elastic Email dashboard. Copy the value verbatim; a mangled value fails DKIM verification silently, and receivers treat unsigned production sends as suspicious.
The tracking CNAME (tracking.<your-domain> pointing at api.elasticemail.com) is optional and only relevant to sites using Elastic Email’s click tracking with branded links. Skip it for transactional-only WordPress sites.
Return to the Elastic Email dashboard and click Verify on the domain. Verification is typically minutes when propagation is fast and up to an hour on slow DNS hosts. Both SPF and DKIM must show verified before Elastic Email signs sends from that domain with DKIM in production.
DMARC is not enforced by Elastic Email’s domain verification but is required for domains sending more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail or Yahoo under their 2024 bulk-sender rules. Publish _dmarc.example.com as TXT v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected] as a safe starting point; tighten to p=quarantine or p=reject once reports show no legitimate mail failing alignment. The bulk sender authentication checklist has the full order of operations.
Once SPF and DKIM verify in the Elastic Email dashboard, the DNS auth checker reads how api._domainkey, the apex SPF, and _dmarc look from a receiver’s perspective, which catches nameserver caches and mistyped selectors before real traffic does.
Installing and configuring the official Elastic Email Sender plugin
The plugin install is standard: Plugins > Add New > search Elastic Email Sender > Install > Activate. On activation, the plugin adds an Elastic Email Sender menu item to the WordPress admin sidebar.
In the plugin’s settings screen, paste the Full Access API key generated earlier into the API Key field, then set the From Name to the site or brand name and the From Email to an address at the domain verified with Elastic Email. Check Force From Email if the site runs plugins that hardcode their own sender (WooCommerce order emails, some form plugins). A From: address at an unverified domain is Elastic Email’s most common first-day rejection.
Save. The plugin validates the API key against Elastic Email’s API and reports success or a specific error. Under the plugin’s Send Test Email section, send a test message to an address you can read. A success message from the plugin means the API accepted the send; verify the message actually arrived at the destination before treating the setup as done, and open the message headers to confirm Authentication-Results shows dkim=pass for api._domainkey.<your-domain> and spf=pass for the sending IP.
For WP Mail SMTP’s native Elastic Email mailer, the setup is one API key (the standard HTTP-API type generated in Settings > Manage API Keys) pasted into the mailer’s API-key field. For generic-SMTP plugins (Post SMTP, WP Mail SMTP’s Other SMTP mode, or any other mailer), the settings are Host smtp.elasticemail.com, Port 2525 (or 587), Encryption STARTTLS, Auto TLS on, Authentication PLAIN or LOGIN, Username the account email address, Password an SMTP-type API key. The account email is the trap on the SMTP path: it is not an arbitrary username, and it is not the same as the From Email. It is the address the Elastic Email account was registered with. For FluentSMTP with the Elastic Email connector, the setup is one API key of the standard HTTP-API type.
Sending the first test and reading the failure
Three error patterns are worth naming, and each has a specific cause.
An Authentication failed response on port 2525 or 587 with a fresh SMTP API key means either the API key is not an SMTP-type key (it was generated as HTTP-API instead), or the username field holds something other than the account email address. The two API-key shapes are not interchangeable at Elastic Email’s SMTP endpoint; a Full Access HTTP-API key produces the same auth failure as a wrong password. Regenerate the key as SMTP type and confirm the username field is the exact account email.
A Sender not verified response, or a plugin API response that names the domain, means the from-address is at a domain Elastic Email has not verified, or the DKIM record has not propagated. Check the Elastic Email dashboard’s domain page shows both SPF and DKIM verified for the exact domain in the from-address. [email protected] is a different domain to [email protected] under DKIM alignment rules; verify the domain the site actually sends from, not the domain the site is hosted at.
A Sending limit reached response on a day when the monthly total looks fine means the Elastic Email free plan’s 100-messages-per-day cap has hit, in addition to the 3,000-per-month allowance. A busy day on a WooCommerce store or a bulk password reset can trigger the daily cap and see later sends rejected with the monthly headroom still available. Sites with any traffic spike pattern should size the plan against the peak day, not the monthly total; the paid Starter tier ($19/month for 50,000 messages) removes the daily cap.
The Elastic Email Reports > Activity page shows every send in near-real-time with its delivery status and any bounce reason. Point it at the last hour and the test sends appear near the top; a message that shows delivered in the activity log but has not arrived at the destination is a receiver-side delivery decision, not an Elastic Email problem, and the message headers (Authentication-Results, Received-SPF) are where the reason lives.
Elastic Email-specific things to know
The daily cap on the free tier is 100, tighter than the more common 200 or 300. Elastic Email’s 3,000-a-month free tier caps sends at 100 per day, below Brevo‘s 300/day and Mailjet‘s 200/day. The cap fits a small transactional site running contact forms and password resets but hits hard on any burst pattern. A WooCommerce sale that generates 50 order confirmations in an afternoon leaves only 50 sends for the rest of that day.
The paid tiers scale toward volume, not toward value at low volume. Starter ($19/month) includes 50,000 messages, which works out to roughly $0.00038 per send. That is cheap above 20,000 to 30,000 sends per month but expensive below 10,000, where the tier’s headroom sits unused. Sites with predictable low volume find SMTP2GO ($10/month for 10,000) or Postmark ($15/month for 10,000) closer-fitting to their pattern.
Inbound routing and webhooks are Pro-tier and up. Elastic Email’s Starter plan is send-only for hook-driven workflows, which means WordPress use cases that depend on parsed inbound (help-desk plugins, reply-to-post workflows) or on webhook-driven bounce processing (custom suppression lists, real-time deliverability dashboards) need the Pro plan ($49/month) or a separate service.
Marketing and transactional split at the product level, not the account level. The account can send both, and the SMTP endpoint and API endpoint are shared, but the Email API pricing (transactional, per-send) and Email Marketing pricing (campaigns, per-contact) are separate. Sites running only transactional traffic should ignore the Email Marketing pricing page; the Email API card at elasticemail.com/email-api-pricing is the relevant one.
Log retention is 30 days on all plans. Sites that need longer retention should mirror sends to a WordPress email log (Check & Log Email, Log Emails, or WP Mail SMTP’s own log tier) in parallel, because the WordPress log will still have the send after Elastic Email’s window closes.
When another provider fits better
If the WordPress site sends fewer than 1,000 messages per month, SMTP2GO‘s free tier (1,000 messages with a 200-a-day cap) is the closer fit. If the free tier’s daily cap is the blocker but the monthly headroom is not, Brevo (300/day, no branded footer) fits better than Elastic Email’s 100/day. Above 10,000 messages per month with transactional as the only job, Postmark at $15 for 10,000 messages beats Elastic Email’s Starter tier on price at that volume. The SMTP cost calculator runs the crossover math against a site’s actual monthly send volume.
Related
When you are ready to go further:
- Elastic Email review covers the case for and against Elastic Email as a sending service, its pricing tiers, and the free-tier constraints.
- WP Mail SMTP review is the recommended general-purpose mailer plugin when Elastic Email’s official plugin is not the pick.
- Best WordPress SMTP plugins is the general-purpose plugin comparison, not Elastic Email-specific.
- WordPress email setup guide places Elastic Email inside the wider WordPress email stack.