Send a newsletter from WordPress
Three ways to send it.
Your web host’s
mail isn’t one.
To send a newsletter from WordPress you need a signup form, a list and a service that delivers the email. You can keep all three inside WordPress with a newsletter plugin such as MailPoet, free up to 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month; connect a form plugin such as MC4WP to Mailchimp, free up to 250 contacts; or collect signups with a popup and send campaigns from your own domain with a tool like Builderify. Whichever you pick, don’t send through your web host’s mail server: hosts cap mail per hour, and Gmail and Yahoo require SPF, DKIM, DMARC and one-click unsubscribe from bulk senders. Below: the three ways side by side, what each free plan really covers, a receipt that prices a year at your list size, and Builderify’s email campaigns, gaps included.
By the Builderify team
How do you send a newsletter from WordPress?
Three ways, one question.
WordPress has no newsletter built in, so something has to collect the addresses and something has to deliver the email. The question that decides between the three ways is who does the delivering: a sending service, your own domain, or, by default and by accident, your web host.
A newsletter plugin
MailPoet, The Newsletter Plugin, Jetpack Newsletter
- Lives in
- WordPress
- Sends with
- Its service, an SMTP service or your host
- Free up to
- 500 subscribers (MailPoet)
- New posts by email
- On their own
Best for a blog that wants each post emailed without lifting a finger, managed from wp-admin.
A form plugin and an email service
MC4WP with Mailchimp; Kit; MailerLite
- Lives in
- The service’s own app
- Sends with
- The service
- Free up to
- 250 contacts (Mailchimp)
- New posts by email
- Depends on the plan
Best when the list already lives at Mailchimp or similar, or more than your website feeds it.
Builderify
A popup or bar, a lead list, Broadcast
- Lives in
- Builderify’s dashboard
- Sends with
- Your own verified domain
- Free up to
- 250 credits a month
- New posts by email
- One campaign per post
Best when signups come from popups, every one is confirmed and welcomed, and you’d rather pay per email than per month.
Every one of them adds a plugin or a script to your site, so it is worth counting what else is already there: how many WordPress plugins is too many measures what each one loads.
The WordPress newsletter plugins,
and what each one does for free.
All three can email a new post to your subscribers the moment you publish it. They differ in who delivers that email and where the limits sit: subscribers, emails a month, or a share of what readers pay you.
| MailPoet | The Newsletter Plugin | Jetpack Newsletter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active installs | 500,000+ | 200,000+ | 3+ million (all of Jetpack) |
| Free plan | Starter: 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month | Unlimited subscribers | No list-size limit; a fair usage policy applies |
| Who delivers the email | MailPoet’s Sending Service on Starter; or your host, Amazon SES, SendGrid and other SMTP services | Your host, an SMTP plugin, or a delivery service such as Amazon SES, Postmark or Brevo | WordPress.com, which Jetpack needs an account with |
| New posts by email | Included, Starter too | Automated addon, in the Professional licence | Included: instantly, or as a daily or weekly digest |
| Welcome emails | Included, Starter too | Autoresponder addon, in the Professional licence | Not stated |
| On the free version | MailPoet’s branding in your emails | Open and click tracking, one-click unsubscribe | A 10% fee if you sell paid subscriptions, plus Stripe’s |
| Paid | Business from $108 a year at 500 subscribers, $204 at 1,500 | Professional $99 (listed $140), up to 3 sites, a year of updates | Lower fees on Jetpack’s paid plans, down to 2% |
Installs from WordPress.org. MailPoet’s prices are billed yearly in US dollars; billed monthly, Business is $10 a month at 500 subscribers. The Newsletter Plugin’s licence is one payment with a year of updates and support; its addons keep working after that, without updates. Jetpack’s page does not list a welcome-email feature, so the cell is left empty.
MailPoet’s free limit, exactly
MailPoet’s own pages give two free limits. Its Starter plan is 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month, sent through MailPoet’s Sending Service. Its WordPress.org page describes the free download as up to 1,000 subscribers when you send with your own method, such as your host, SendGrid or Amazon SES. Starter is the one most people mean, and the one that keeps you off your host’s mail server.
Subscribers who are subscribed, unconfirmed or inactive, and your WordPress users and WooCommerce customers too. Unsubscribed and bounced addresses do not count. A shop with 400 customer accounts has room for 100 newsletter subscribers on Starter.
MailPoet emails you at 95% and 99%. Past it, visitors can still sign up but get no confirmation email, and if you neither upgrade nor remove subscribers, sending is switched off.
On the Sending Service, going over the month’s emails blocks sending until the month ends or you upgrade. 500 subscribers and a weekly newsletter is about 2,000 emails, so there is room.
Can WordPress send a newsletter through your host?
It can. It shouldn’t.
WordPress sends email with wp_mail(), which by default hands it to your web server’s own mail program. That is fine for a password reset. For a newsletter it is the route MailPoet itself lists as “default, but not recommended”, and its plugin page puts it plainly: “Sending emails and newsletters with your host is not a good idea.”
If your site’s own forms already go missing, that is the same problem at a smaller size: why WordPress contact forms stop sending email.
-
01
Hourly caps
SiteGround allows 400 emails an hour on StartUp, GrowBig and Ecommerce, 800 on GoGeek and Cloud, and counts every recipient. MailPoet keeps a list of other hosts’ limits; most sit between 100 and 500 an hour.
-
02
A shared reputation
On shared hosting your mail leaves from the same server as other customers’ sites, so it carries their sending history as well as yours.
-
03
Your domain, unsigned
Unless your domain’s SPF names the host’s server and the server signs as your domain with DKIM, mail “from” your domain fails DMARC. The SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide checks yours.
-
04
Not what it’s for
SiteGround’s own email rules send bulk mail elsewhere: “For bulk mailing needs like email marketing we recommend our Email Marketing service.”
What Gmail and Yahoo require from newsletter senders
Since February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have held bulk senders to five rules. Gmail counts you as one once you send close to 5,000 messages to personal Gmail addresses in a day, totalled across your domain and its subdomains, and says the status is permanent. A weekly newsletter to a few hundred people is under that, but the rules are what the inbox providers measure everyone against.
Every sender, bulk or not, needs SPF or DKIM, valid reverse DNS, TLS and a spam rate below 0.3%.
| Rule | What Gmail and Yahoo ask | In Builderify |
|---|---|---|
| SPF and DKIM | Both, for your sending domain. | Both are required before you can send: an SPF include and a DKIM record for your domain. |
| DMARC | A DMARC record, p=none at least, with your From domain aligned to SPF or DKIM. |
The DMARC record is listed for you; mail is signed and bounced as your own domain, so it aligns. |
| One-click unsubscribe | A List-Unsubscribe header with an HTTPS link (Yahoo recommends the RFC 8058 one-click POST) and a visible link in the email. |
Every email carries both headers, mailto and HTTPS, the one-click POST, and an unsubscribe footer you can’t remove. |
| Unsubscribe quickly | Within 48 hours for Gmail, 2 days for Yahoo. | At once: the contact is marked unsubscribed and skipped from then on. |
| Spam rate | Below 0.3% of delivered mail; Gmail asks you to aim under 0.1%. | Not reported in Builderify. Read yours in Google Postmaster Tools. |
From Google’s email sender guidelines and FAQ and Yahoo’s sender best practices, read on 16 October 2026.
Mailchimp for WordPress:
the form is free, the list isn’t.
MC4WP, with over a million active installs, puts a Mailchimp signup form on your site and can add a subscribe checkbox to Contact Form 7, WooCommerce checkout, comments and registration. It does not send anything. Mailchimp keeps the list and sends the newsletter, so Mailchimp’s plan is what you pay for.
That plan shrank this year. Since 17 February 2026 Mailchimp Free is 250 contacts, unsubscribes included, and 500 sends a month, no more than 250 a day, with no automation flows, so no welcome email. MC4WP’s own plugin page still says Mailchimp is free up to 500. What changed in Mailchimp’s free plan, step by step.
One signup form, form integrations, double opt-in on by default.
Unlimited forms, the styles builder, WooCommerce e-commerce, logging. One site.
At 500 contacts. Scheduling, no badge, automation flows of up to 4 steps.
| Service | Free list | Free sends | Welcome emails |
|---|---|---|---|
| MailchimpMC4WP, 1+ million installs | 250 contacts | 500 a month | Essentials, from $13 a month |
| KitIts own plugin, 40,000+ | Up to 10,000 | Unlimited broadcasts | Creator, $33 a month at 1,000 |
| MailerLiteIts own plugin, 100,000+ | 250 subscribers | 2,500 a month | Free: up to 3 automations |
From each service’s pricing page on 16 October 2026, and Mailchimp’s paid tiers as verified for the Mailchimp guide. Kit’s free plan keeps Kit’s branding; RSS campaigns, which email new posts automatically, start on its Creator plan. Installs are the services’ WordPress.org plugins.
What does a WordPress newsletter cost?
A year of yours, three receipts.
MailPoet and Mailchimp charge for the size of your list. Builderify charges for each email, each new signup and the page loads of the widget that shows your form. Put in your numbers; the receipts find the plan that fits, and say which to pick.
Everyone on the list today.
Each one goes to the whole list.
Sent on their own after someone joins.
People who join in a typical month.
Only Builderify’s widget is metered by them.
Business at up to 1,500 subscribers, billed yearly; billed monthly it is $240 a year. Creator, which sends through your own SMTP service instead, is $168 a year plus that service. The free plugin with your own sending method allows up to 1,000 subscribers.
Your 1,000 contacts are over Free’s 250. Essentials, at up to 1,500 contacts. Essentials flows are capped at 4 steps; a longer welcome series may need Standard, from $20 a month.
2 Pro packs for 30,000 credits: a year at these numbers. Bought once; purchased credits never expire. Without a pack, the 250 free credits last about 3 days a month. Then the widget, your signup form included, pauses until you top up; the cookie banner keeps running.
Each newsletter takes about 10 hours to go out, at 100 emails an hour.
- MailPoet
- $204
- Mailchimp + MC4WP
- $318
- Builderify
- $138
Builderify costs least at these numbers, if you are happy to send each post as a campaign and let it go out at about 100 emails an hour.
Kit’s free plan sends unlimited broadcasts to up to 10,000 subscribers, but welcome sequences start on Creator, $33 a month at 1,000 subscribers.
US-dollar prices before tax. MailPoet is Starter while it fits, then Business billed yearly at the tier that holds your list. Mailchimp is Free while it fits, then Essentials at your contact tier; for 501 to 1,500 contacts only Essentials’ price is confirmed by more than one source. Builderify uses its published rate card: 0.5 credits per email sent, 1 per new lead, 10 per 1,000 page loads of the widget that carries your signup form, and 250 free credits a month. Packs are one-time, from $9 for 1,000 credits.
A WordPress newsletter from your own domain,
gaps listed.
Builderify collects signups with a popup, such as its New Posts by Email template, a slim bar at the bottom of the page. Each signup lands in a lead list and is asked to confirm by email. Confirmed subscribers start the list’s welcome sequence, and every newsletter is a Broadcast campaign sent from your own verified domain.
What it doesn’t do is watch your blog. There is no RSS or new-post automation: when you publish, you send the post as a campaign yourself. If posts must go out on their own, MailPoet, The Newsletter Plugin or Jetpack does that today.
Add it to WordPress
- 01 Start free and add your website. Under Connect › WordPress, download builderify.zip.
- 02 In WordPress, go to Plugins › Add New Plugin › Upload Plugin, choose the file, then Install Now and Activate.
- 03 Open Settings › Builderify, paste your site key and save. The widget, and with it your signup popup, is on every public page.
- 04 Connect your sending domain, build a popup from a template, and point it at a lead list.
The plugin needs WordPress 6.2 and PHP 7.4 or newer, works on classic and block themes, and is not on WordPress.org yet. Prefer no plugin? Add the snippet with WPCode or Code Snippets, set to load in the site header.
From a signup to a newsletter
-
Popup or bar
New Posts by Email, or any of the popup templates, with an email field.
-
Lead list
Saved to the list you chose, as pending.
-
Confirmation
A double opt-in email from your own domain. You can edit its words.
-
Welcome sequence
Starts when they confirm, timed in days and hours from then.
-
Broadcast
Your newsletter, to everyone confirmed on the list.
Five welcome emails to start from are in the welcome sequence template; the sequence builder has a three-email Welcome series of its own. Ways to put the signup form in front of readers without covering the post: free signup popups for WordPress.
What Broadcast does
- A drag-and-drop designer with five starting templates, Newsletter and Plain letter among them, or a rich-text editor
- First name, last name, email and unsubscribe merge tags, with an inbox preview filled in with sample data
- Send now or schedule; pause and resume without emailing anyone twice; duplicate a campaign as a draft
- A count of who will receive it before you send, with pending, unsubscribed and bounced left out
- Per-recipient logs you can search and export as CSV, and an open count per campaign
- Bounces mark the contact bounced, and replies land in your Builderify Inbox
Not yet
- Emailing new posts on their own: no RSS-to-email
- Test sends to yourself before the real one
- Click tracking in the report. A Builderify short link in the email counts its clicks
- Importing a list from a CSV file; segments and tags: a campaign goes to one whole list
Sending is paced at 100 emails an hour by default, shared with sequences, so 1,000 subscribers take about ten hours. You need your own domain, not a Gmail address, and a person reviews each new sender, usually within one business day; until then signups wait as pending. When credits run out, the widget pauses until you top up; the cookie banner keeps running.
Your domain
Ownership, MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, listed for you. What each one does, and why a subdomain like news.yourblog.com is often the better sender.
If a send bounces
The contact is marked bounced and skipped from then on. The bounce codes decoder explains what 550 5.7.26 and the rest mean.
About open rates
Opens are counted with a tracking pixel, and Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads it for every Apple Mail reader who has it on. Why your open rate runs high.
Which way should your
WordPress newsletter go out?
Your list is under 500, and every new post should be emailed without you doing anything.
MailPoet’s free Starter plan. Post notifications and welcome emails are included, delivered by MailPoet’s Sending Service. Remember your WordPress users count towards the 500.
You want no limits on subscribers and are happy to bring your own delivery service.
The Newsletter Plugin, free, with Amazon SES, Postmark or another delivery service rather than your host. Add the Professional licence, $99, when new posts should go out on their own.
You write a blog, want posts emailed free, and may charge for some of them one day.
Jetpack Newsletter. No list-size limit, posts go out as you publish, and paid subscriptions cost a 10% fee on the free plan.
Your list already lives at Mailchimp, or it is under 250 and needs no welcome email.
MC4WP with Mailchimp. Free at that size; Essentials from $13 a month when you pass 250 contacts or want automations.
You send broadcasts to a large list and need $0 more than anything.
Kit’s free plan. Up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited broadcasts, with Kit’s branding. Sequences start on Creator.
Signups come from popups, you want each one confirmed and welcomed, mail sent as your own domain, and chat or a cookie banner from the same plugin.
Builderify. 0.5 credits an email and 1 per new lead, from 250 free credits a month, no subscription. If you need new posts sent automatically, test sends or click tracking today, pick one of the tools above.
Whichever you pick, it is one more thing on your site. The WordPress plugin audit shows which of the others one script can stand in for.
WordPress newsletters, before you ask.
You need a signup form, a list and a service that delivers the email. A newsletter plugin such as MailPoet does all three inside WordPress; a form plugin such as MC4WP connects your site to an email service such as Mailchimp; or a tool like Builderify collects signups with a popup and sends campaigns from your own domain. Whichever you pick, avoid sending through your web host's mail server.
It works, but it is the riskiest route. Hosts cap outgoing mail per hour (SiteGround allows 400 an hour on its entry plans), a shared server shares its sending reputation, and unless your domain's SPF and DKIM cover the server, mail from your domain fails DMARC. MailPoet itself says sending newsletters with your host is not a good idea.
MailPoet's free Starter plan allows 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month, sent through MailPoet's Sending Service, with MailPoet's branding in the emails. Unconfirmed and inactive subscribers count, and so do your WordPress users and WooCommerce customers. Its WordPress.org page also describes the free download as up to 1,000 subscribers if you send with your own method.
MailPoet emails new posts on its own, even on the free Starter plan. Jetpack Newsletter sends them as you publish, free, through WordPress.com. The Newsletter Plugin does it with its Automated addon, part of the $99 Professional licence. Builderify does not: you send each post as a campaign.
There is no plan or subscription. Each email sent is 0.5 credits and each new signup 1 credit, the widget that shows your signup form uses 10 credits per 1,000 page loads, and every account gets 250 free credits a month. Packs are one-time and never expire. Sending is paced at 100 emails an hour by default.
Sources
Read on 16 October 2026.
- MailPoet Pricing: Starter, Business and Creator by subscriber count
- MailPoet Help Plans and limits explained
- MailPoet Help The free plan’s 500-subscriber limit
- MailPoet Help Lists of hosts and their email sending limits
- WordPress.org MailPoet plugin: free download, sending methods, 500,000+ installs
- WordPress.org Newsletter plugin: features, addons, 200,000+ installs
- The Newsletter Plugin Premium licences and renewal terms
- Jetpack Jetpack Newsletter: free plan and fees
- WordPress.org Jetpack plugin: WordPress.com account required
- WordPress.org MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress, 1+ million installs
- MC4WP Premium pricing
- MC4WP Premium features
- Mailchimp Marketing plans: Free plan limits and send allowances
- Kit Pricing: Free and Creator
- MailerLite Pricing: Free and Comfort
- WordPress.org Kit and MailerLite signup form plugins
- SiteGround Acceptable use of the email service: hourly limits
- Google Email sender guidelines
- Google Email sender guidelines FAQ
- Yahoo Sender best practices for bulk senders
Stop losing the visitors
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