MailerSend is the transactional sibling to 
MailerLite, built by the same team but operated as a separate product for wp_mail()-shaped traffic: password resets, order confirmations, form notifications, receipts. It is not a marketing platform – no campaign builder, no contact-list manager – which puts it in the same product category as Postmark, SMTP2GO, and SparkPost.
The free tier covers 500 emails per month with a MailerSend footer on the outgoing messages, one-day log retention, and one verified domain. That plan opens only after MailerSend approves the account and a card is on file; until then a new account runs in Sandbox mode or on a 14-day trial. The branding removes at Starter ($35/month for 50,000 emails). The Hobby tier in between ($7/month for 5,000 emails) is priced for a hobby site or a small WordPress install that outgrows the 500/month free ceiling but does not need Starter’s volume or its removed footer.
SMTP settings
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Host | smtp.mailersend.net |
| Port | 587 |
| Encryption | STARTTLS (TLS 1.2 or 1.3) |
| Authentication | Login (username and password) |
| Username | SMTP username generated in the dashboard |
| Password | SMTP password generated with the username |
MailerSend publishes only one SMTP port, 587, with STARTTLS. A host that blocks outbound 587 will not reach the relay – the swaks SMTP test guide has the outbound-port test for that case. SMTP credentials are separate from API tokens and are generated per-account (not per-domain) under Domains > Manage > SMTP > Generate new user; the resulting username and password work for any verified domain on the same MailerSend account.
If the domain already carries a Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 include in its SPF record, the SPF merger folds MailerSend’s include into the existing string and counts the DNS lookups against RFC 7208’s ten-lookup ceiling before you publish. Once the DKIM CNAMEs at ms1._domainkey and ms2._domainkey are live, the DNS auth checker reads MailerSend’s records the way receivers resolve them, so a stale nameserver or a mistyped selector shows up before real traffic does. After that, verify with swaks that messages authenticate correctly.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Volume | Log retention | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sandbox | $0 | 100 emails/mo | 1 day | Testing tier, no payment method. 2 recipients until the account is approved. 1 domain plus a trial domain. |
| Free | $0 | 500 emails/mo | 1 day | MailerSend footer on messages. 1 domain, 1 seat, 100 API requests/day. Overage $1.50/1K. |
| Hobby | $7/mo | 5,000 emails/mo | 1 day | 1 domain, 5 seats, 10 templates. Overage $1.50/1K. |
| Starter | $35/mo | 50,000 emails/mo | 7 days | Branding removed. 10 domains, 250 templates, 50 webhooks. Overage $1.30/1K to 100K, tapering to $1.00/1K at 1M. |
| Professional | $110/mo | 50,000 emails/mo | 30 days | Dedicated IP add-on. Unlimited domains and templates. Overage $1.30/1K to 100K, tapering to $0.60/1K at 1M. |
Starter and Professional scale on the same slider: $35 covers Starter up to 50,000; $68 at 100,000; $162.50 at 250,000; $325 at 500,000; $600 at 1,000,000. Professional starts at $110 for 50,000 and reaches $1,000 at 1,000,000 with the lower per-message overage. Annual billing is offered at a discount on Hobby, Starter, and Professional.
For a like-for-like comparison, SMTP2GO offers 1,000 emails/month free with no branding, and Starter at $10/month for 10,000. MailerSend is priced above SMTP2GO at every tier, with a tighter free ceiling (500 vs 1,000) and vendor branding on the free tier that SMTP2GO does not stamp. The SMTP cost calculator compares MailerSend’s Starter and Professional tiers against SMTP2GO, Postmark, Mailgun, and Amazon SES at whatever monthly volume the site actually sends.
Sandbox, trial and approval
A new account does not start on the Free plan. 
Signup offers two routes. The 14-day Professional trial needs a payment method, which MailerSend verifies and does not charge. It has nearly all Professional features and allows 500 emails a month, 100 API requests a day and one seat. Sandbox mode needs no payment method and has no time limit, but it is built for testing: 100 emails a month, sent to 2 recipients until the account is approved.
The account holder requests approval from the dashboard banner, giving details of the company and how it will use MailerSend. MailerSend says the process is usually very quick but can take up to 48 hours. Approval lifts Sandbox’s recipient limit and leaves its 100-a-month allowance in place. The 500-a-month Free plan needs an approved account and a card on file. MailerSend says it asks for the card to prevent abuse and does not charge it. A trial that ends without a subscription also moves to Free, with no charge. MailerSend lists approval, the 14-day trial and direct subscription as ways past Sandbox’s 2-recipient cap. The test domain every new account gets stays limited to 2 recipients in Sandbox and on the trial; reaching anyone else requires a verified sending domain.
Free tier
500 emails a month, one-day log retention, one verified domain, one user seat, 100 API requests per day. The plan needs an approved account and a card on file, and it has no expiry. The MailerSend footer stays on the outgoing messages – useful for a developer test account, less useful for anything a site’s real customers will see. Every paid tier from Hobby up includes SMTP and API access on the same connection paths, so the integration path a paying customer would use is the same path a free-tier site uses; only the volume, branding, and log window change.
The tier fits a low-traffic contact form on a personal site, an evaluation account for testing a mailer plugin’s MailerSend integration, or a WordPress dev environment. It does not fit a small business site that runs a WooCommerce checkout at any real frequency – 500/month works out to roughly 16 messages per day averaged, and the MailerSend footer on outgoing order confirmations reads as unprofessional in that context. Sites in that range belong on Hobby or Starter from the start.
Hobby tier
$7/month, 5,000 emails, one-day log retention, one domain, five seats, ten templates. The footer stays on the messages at Hobby too – it clears at Starter. Hobby’s positioning is narrow: a site that has outgrown the free 500 but does not yet need Starter’s 50,000, its removed branding, or its seven-day logs. That is a real slice of small WordPress installs, and the price is competitive at the low end of the mid-tier category.
WordPress integration
For the step-by-step install order (verify the sending domain, generate SMTP credentials or an API token, wire the mailer plugin, first test send), see MailerSend plugin for WordPress. The section below is the plugin-path comparison; the how-to is the setup walk-through.
Three paths: the vendor’s plugin over SMTP, a native mailer over the API, or generic SMTP through a plugin with no MailerSend mailer.
MailerSend official plugin – The 
MailerSend SMTP plugin connects via SMTP with the credentials from Domains > Manage > SMTP. Roughly 2,000 active installs at the last count, tested against WordPress 6.9. Pick it when MailerSend is the settled choice and the site does not need the surrounding features other mailer plugins ship.
Native MailerSend mailer – WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP, Easy WP SMTP, Meow Mailer and SureMail each ship one in the free plugin. All five send to api.mailersend.com over HTTPS with an API token instead of SMTP credentials, so a host that blocks outbound 587 does not stop them. Every send uses one request from MailerSend’s daily quota of 100 on Free, 1,000 on Hobby and 100,000 on Starter, which covers SMTP relay messages too. A free-tier site using a native mailer is capped at 100 messages a day; SMTP relay also uses the 100-request daily quota, but MailerSend says the number of requests can vary with the SMTP client’s sending method. Pick WP Mail SMTP or Easy WP SMTP for the setup wizard, with logging, a backup connection and routing on their Pro tiers. Pick Post SMTP for a free email log, or when a bounced send needs to page an operator through Chrome, Slack, Teams, or SMS. Meow Mailer suits a site that wants a free log and fallback from a plugin with no Pro tier. SureMail suits a site that wants failed mail retried automatically or more than one backup connection, though each backup needs the same From address as the connection it protects.
Generic SMTP – FluentSMTP has no MailerSend provider as of version 2.4.5, so its SMTP connection reaches smtp.mailersend.net:587 with the same generated credentials. It is the pick for a site that wants a free, open-source mailer that routes by from-address, which WP Mail SMTP keeps for Pro. WP Mail SMTP’s Other SMTP option works the same way for a site that prefers SMTP credentials to an API token. See the WordPress mailer plugin list for the full comparison.
Assessment
MailerSend is a well-built transactional platform priced at the middle of the category. The rationale for reaching for it: the dashboard is genuinely nicer than most competitors’, the SMTP and API paths are stable, the free tier exists as a real evaluation option (rather than a 30-day trial), and the MailerLite team’s operational track record on the marketing side transfers to reliability on the transactional side. Sites that place a value on the operator experience – the analytics view, the domain-verification flow, the email-log detail – tend to land on MailerSend and stay there.
The cases where MailerSend is not the right fit are also predictable. If the priority is the cheapest usable free tier for a small WordPress site, SMTP2GO at 1,000 free messages a month with no branding fits better than MailerSend’s 500-with-branding. If the priority is deliverability at high volume and the site can absorb the price step, Postmark is purpose-built for that. If the site is on AWS and cost is the primary consideration, Amazon SES at $0.10 per 1,000 messages on opt-in à la carte pricing is cheaper than MailerSend at every tier.
If the site has an EU-resident data policy, MailerSend stores its data in the EU by default, so there is no region to pick. The company itself is MailerSend, Inc. of New York, and its privacy policy documents transfers to the US under the Data Privacy Framework. A policy that only asks where the data sits is met; one that rules out a US company is not.
For everything else – the typical WordPress site that wants a well-built transactional platform, is comfortable at $7 or $35 a month, and does not need the very lowest price – MailerSend is a reasonable pick.
For the broader setup that places MailerSend inside the WordPress email stack, see the WordPress email setup guide.
Pricing verified September 2026 against mailersend.com/pricing. Sandbox, trial and approval terms verified November 2026 against MailerSend’s help centre and pricing FAQ. SMTP settings and DNS records verified against MailerSend’s help documentation. Mailer plugin paths verified November 2026 against the source of WP Mail SMTP 4.10.3, Post SMTP 4.0.2, Easy WP SMTP 2.15.1, Meow Mailer 0.3.4, SureMail 2.0.3 and FluentSMTP 2.4.5.
Corrections
- 2026-11-05: an earlier version said the 500-a-month free tier needs no credit card. That plan needs an approved account and a card on file, which MailerSend does not charge; the no-card route is Sandbox mode at 100 emails a month.
- 2026-11-05: an earlier version said the WP mail config generator took a MailerSend SMTP credential pair or API token and returned a block for the plugin. The generator does not cover MailerSend.
- 2026-11-05: an earlier version said WP Mail SMTP has no MailerSend mailer, listed Post SMTP as a generic-SMTP path, and did not say that WP Mail SMTP’s logging, fallback and routing are paid features. WP Mail SMTP and Post SMTP both ship a native MailerSend mailer, as do Easy WP SMTP and Meow Mailer.
- 2026-10-21: an earlier version said MailerSend publishes no EU-region option, which ruled it out for EU-resident data policies. MailerSend stores its data in the EU by default.