Getting Started: Connect Your Email Provider

Q: Which provider should I pick?

Resend — easiest to start with: one key and you're sending in five minutes. Postmark — best inbox placement, made for stores; it only carries transactional mail, so its sending reputation stays clean. Brevo (was Sendinblue) — all-in-one platform with 300 free emails a day, plenty for a small site. Amazon SES — about $0.10 per 1,000 emails; nothing beats it at volume. Custom SMTP — any SMTP server or relay, Gmail app passwords included. Default PHP mail — your host's server. No setup, but don't count on it. Already have an account somewhere? Just use that — Mailyard doesn't care which one you choose. Gmail or Microsoft 365: personal Gmail works through Custom SMTP with an app password. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 have switched off basic SMTP auth, so use Resend or Postmark for those.

Mailyard’s setup is deliberately short: pick a provider, paste your API key, set the address you send from. That’s the whole thing — no code, no config files.

Install and connect

Search for “Mailyard” in Plugins → Add New, or download it free from WordPress.org and upload the zip — then activate.
Open the Mailyard menu in your admin sidebar.
Pick a provider, enter your API key, and set your sender address.
Hit Send test on the Dashboard to confirm mail is flowing.

If the test lands in your inbox, your password resets and order emails will too.

Which provider should I pick?

Resend — easiest to start with: one key and you’re sending in five minutes.
Postmark — best inbox placement, made for stores; it only carries transactional mail, so its sending reputation stays clean.
Brevo (was Sendinblue) — all-in-one platform with 300 free emails a day, plenty for a small site.
Amazon SES — about $0.10 per 1,000 emails; nothing beats it at volume.
Custom SMTP — any SMTP server or relay, Gmail app passwords included.
Default PHP mail — your host’s server. No setup, but don’t count on it.

Already have an account somewhere? Just use that — Mailyard doesn’t care which one you choose.

Gmail or Microsoft 365: personal Gmail works through Custom SMTP with an app password. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 have switched off basic SMTP auth, so use Resend or Postmark for those.

Add a backup provider

In the Connections tab, click Add, set up a second provider, enable it, and drag it below your main one. If the main provider fails, the backup takes over automatically — on the same send. See Email Failover and Smart Sender Routing for how this works.

Coming from another SMTP plugin?

Deactivate your current mail plugin (WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, Post SMTP, whichever) before activating Mailyard. Two mailers running at once cause conflicts — Mailyard will warn you if it spots one.

Where are my API keys stored?

In your WordPress database, like any SMTP plugin’s settings. They’re only ever sent to the provider they belong to — never to us, never anywhere else. Mailyard doesn’t phone home and doesn’t track you.

Next steps

Once mail is flowing, run the deliverability checker on your sending domain — a missing SPF or DKIM record is usually the reason email lands in spam, and Mailyard tells you the exact DNS line to add.