SMTP2GO is nanoPost’s default recommendation for WordPress sites that need a dedicated transactional email relay. Unlike Brevo or Mailjet, SMTP2GO is not a marketing platform: no campaign builder, no contact list management, no automation workflows. It sends email and confirms that it arrived. For WordPress sites that need email to work reliably and nothing else, this simplicity is the feature.
The free tier covers 1,000 emails per month (200/day cap) with no credit card, no branding, and no time limit. That is enough for a small WordPress site running contact forms and core notifications. The Starter plan at $10/month scales to 10,000 emails for sites that outgrow it.
SMTP settings
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Host | mail.smtp2go.com |
| Port | 2525 (recommended) |
| Encryption | TLS |
| Authentication | Login |
| Username | SMTP username (from dashboard: Sending > SMTP Users) |
| Password | SMTP password |
Alternative ports: 587, 25, 80, 8025. For SSL: 465, 8465, 443. Port 2525 is SMTP2GO’s recommended default because fewer hosting providers block it than 587 or 25.
SMTP2GO uses dedicated SMTP credentials separate from API keys. Create them in the dashboard under Sending > SMTP Users. Add SMTP2GO’s SPF and DKIM records to your domain’s DNS before sending production email – the free tier’s 25-emails-per-hour limit is lifted once you verify your sending domain. After configuring DNS, verify with swaks that messages authenticate correctly.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Volume | Key inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1,000 emails/mo (200/day) | 5-day reporting. Ticket support. No branding. |
| Starter | $10/mo ($100/yr) | 10,000 emails/mo | 30-day reporting. Chat/phone support. Subaccounts. Overage $1/1K. |
| Professional | $75/mo ($750/yr) | 100,000 emails/mo | Dedicated IP. Email testing tools. Overage $0.85/1K. |
| Premier | Custom | 3,000,000+ emails/mo | Enterprise support. Personalised setup. |
Annual billing includes two months free.
The free tier’s 1,000/month with no branding and no credit card is the cleanest entry point for a WordPress site that needs SMTP relay. The 200/day cap is the practical constraint, but most small WordPress sites send well under that. The Starter plan at $10/month is competitively priced for 10,000 emails – cheaper than Postmark ($15/month for 10,000) and Mailgun ($15/month for 10,000 on Basic).
Free tier
The free tier is permanent. 1,000 emails per month with a 200/day cap, no credit card, no vendor footer stamped onto the messages, and no expiry. SMTP and API access are both live at the free tier, so the integration path a paying customer would use is the same path a free-tier site uses. Log retention is 5 days rather than the 30 days that starts at Starter, and reporting depth is reduced accordingly.
Exclusions worth stating: no dedicated IP (Professional plan and up), no email-testing tools (Professional), no subaccounts (Starter), and support is ticket-only rather than chat or phone. Free-tier sending shares the same IP reputation pool as other free-tier and lower-paid customers – fine for typical WordPress transactional volume but not a lever for building a private sender reputation.
The tier fits a small WordPress site running contact form notifications, password resets, and low-volume WooCommerce orders that stay comfortably under 200/day and 1,000/month. It fits dev and staging work at any scale a mailer-plugin test loop can produce. It does not fit high-volume WooCommerce stores or membership sites that will bump the 200/day cap during peak periods; those belong on Starter or Professional from the start.
WordPress integration
Three paths:
SMTP2GO plugin – The 
SMTP2GO WordPress plugin connects via API. For more detail, see our SMTP2GO plugin review.
WP Mail SMTP – WP Mail SMTP includes a native SMTP2GO integration. Select “SMTP2GO” as the mailer, enter your API key. This is the better choice if you want WP Mail SMTP’s email logging and fallback features.
Generic SMTP – Any mailer plugin (Post SMTP, FluentSMTP, or WP Mail SMTP in “Other SMTP” mode) can connect to mail.smtp2go.com using the SMTP credentials above. This is the universal path that works with every mailer plugin on the market. See our compatible plugin list.
Assessment
The rationale: free tier with no branding and no expiry, competitive paid pricing, a single-purpose tool that does not bundle marketing features you do not need, and configuration that takes five minutes with any WordPress mailer plugin. The service has operated since 2006 without a major rebrand or acquisition – a small signal of stability in a category where providers change names, owners, and pricing models regularly.
The cases where SMTP2GO is not the right fit are predictable. If a site already runs email campaigns through Brevo or Mailjet, routing transactional email through the same platform is simpler than adding a second service. If deliverability at high volume is the primary concern and the budget supports it, Postmark is purpose-built for that with a stricter sending policy and consistently strong inbox placement. If the site is on AWS and cost is the priority, Amazon SES at $0.10/1,000 is cheaper.
For everything else – the typical WordPress site that needs password resets, form notifications, and WooCommerce emails to arrive in inboxes – SMTP2GO is the right default.
For the broader setup that places SMTP2GO inside the WordPress email stack, see the WordPress email setup guide.
Pricing verified June 2026 against smtp2go.com/pricing. SMTP settings verified against SMTP2GO support documentation.