FluentSMTP Review: Fix WordPress Email Deliverability

Why Your WordPress Emails Are Landing in Spam

If you're running a WordPress site with WooCommerce, online courses, or even just basic user registration, your site is sending transactional emails constantly. Password resets, order receipts, account confirmations — these are the emails your customers absolutely need to receive. When they land in spam, people can't access their purchases, can't see what they were charged, and your business starts looking unreliable.

The problem gets worse when you start sending marketing emails from the same WordPress installation. If your marketing campaigns develop a poor sending reputation, that reputation drags your transactional emails down with it. Suddenly, even your WooCommerce receipts are hitting the spam folder.

The traditional fix is to separate your sending infrastructure: one provider handles transactional emails, another handles marketing. Each maintains its own domain reputation, so a rough marketing campaign won't torpedo your order confirmations. That's exactly the problem FluentSMTP solves, and it does it for free.

Installing and Configuring FluentSMTP

Getting started is straightforward. Head to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress dashboard, search for FluentSMTP, and install it. The plugin is completely free — no pro version, no upsells, no add-ons. It's maintained by WP Managed Ninja (the team behind FluentCRM and Fluent Forms) and they've essentially donated this tool to the WordPress community.

Once activated, navigate to Settings > FluentSMTP. You'll see a list of supported email service providers that continues to grow, including Amazon SES, Mailgun, SendGrid, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Office 365. The key concept here is that FluentSMTP routes emails based on the "from" address, so you'll want to figure out which email addresses your various plugins are sending from before you start configuring.

Setting Up Your Email Sending Addresses

Before diving into provider configuration, take a moment to audit your sending addresses. Check your marketing tool (like FluentCRM) to see what "from" address it uses. Then check WooCommerce under Settings > Emails to see its sender address. Don't forget that WordPress itself sends emails for password resets and account creation, typically from your admin email address.

You could end up with three different sending addresses: one for marketing, one for WooCommerce orders, and one for WordPress system emails. FluentSMTP can handle all of these, routing each through a different provider based on the from address. This granular control is what makes the plugin so powerful compared to simpler SMTP solutions that only support a single connection.

Connecting Amazon SES for Marketing Emails

Amazon SES is one of the most reliable and cost-effective email sending services available. Setting it up requires an AWS account, which might sound intimidating, but the process for SES is actually quite simple. Log into AWS, search for SES, and start by verifying your domain. Click on Domains, choose "Verify a New Domain," and make sure you check the box to generate DKIM settings.

You'll need to add several DNS records to your domain — a TXT record for verification plus three CNAME records for DKIM authentication. These go into your domain registrar's DNS settings (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.). Watch out for the DKIM records: there are three of them, and one is hidden behind a scroll bar in the AWS console.

Once your domain is verified, you'll need to request removal from "sandbox mode." This is Amazon's anti-spam measure that initially restricts you to only emailing addresses on your own domain. Submit a sending limit increase request, be specific in your answers about what you're sending and why, and be patient — approval can take a day or two. Don't try to set this up the night before a big campaign launch.

Creating API Keys for Amazon SES

FluentSMTP connects to Amazon SES via API rather than standard SMTP, which is a significant advantage. If there's a temporary server issue, the API connection allows FluentSMTP to retry later so no emails are lost. To set this up, search for "IAM" in the AWS console — this is Amazon's identity and access management service.

Create a new user with programmatic access, then attach the "AmazonSESFullAccess" policy directly. Skip the tags section and create the user. You'll be shown your access key ID and secret access key exactly once, so copy them immediately. Back in FluentSMTP, paste both keys into the appropriate fields and select the correct AWS region (check the top-right corner of your AWS console to confirm which region you're using).

For better security, FluentSMTP supports storing these keys in your wp-config.php file instead of the database. If you're comfortable accessing your wp-config via FTP, SSH, or your hosting file manager, this is the recommended approach. It keeps your API credentials out of the database where they could potentially be exposed.

Adding Mailgun as a Second Connection

With Amazon SES handling marketing emails, it's time to add a second provider for transactional messages. Mailgun is an excellent choice — reliable, well-documented, and easy to set up. In FluentSMTP, click "Add Another Connection" and select Mailgun from the provider list.

Set the from address to whatever your transactional emails use (like orders@yourdomain.com). Over in Mailgun, you'll need to add and verify a domain. Using a subdomain like notify.yourdomain.com is a smart move — it keeps your transactional sending reputation completely separate from your root domain. The DNS verification process is similar to Amazon SES: add the records Mailgun provides, wait for verification, and you're ready to send. One major advantage of Mailgun over SES is that there's no sandbox mode to deal with.

Grab your API key from Mailgun's Settings > API section, paste it into FluentSMTP along with your domain name, and save. FluentSMTP will now automatically route emails based on the from address — marketing emails through SES, transactional emails through Mailgun.

FluentSMTP Settings, Logging, and Testing

Once your connections are configured, set your default connection wisely. If most of your emails are transactional (which they typically are), make Mailgun your default. You can also configure a fallback connection so that if one provider experiences downtime, your emails still go out through the backup service. There's no limit to how many connections you can add.

FluentSMTP includes built-in email logging that shows you every message your site has sent, along with delivery status. If a customer says they never received their receipt, you can find it in the logs and hit resend with one click. The plugin also offers email notification summaries on a schedule you define, giving you a regular health check on your email delivery.

Before going live, send test emails from each of your configured addresses. Verify they arrive in the inbox (not spam), and cross-check with both SES and Mailgun dashboards to confirm the emails were routed through the correct provider. This two-minute sanity check can save you hours of troubleshooting later.

Final Verdict: Should You Switch to FluentSMTP?

FluentSMTP is genuinely hard to argue against. It's completely free with no premium tier, supports a wide range of email providers, offers multi-connection routing that most paid SMTP plugins charge for, and includes useful extras like email logging and notification summaries. The ability to route different types of emails through different providers based on the from address is a feature that used to require paid plugins or custom code.

If you're currently using WP Mail SMTP or a similar plugin, FluentSMTP even includes a one-click migration tool that imports all your existing settings. There's really no friction involved in making the switch. For any WordPress site that sends email — and that's virtually every WordPress site — FluentSMTP should be your go-to SMTP plugin.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.