---
title: "What Is Mailyard?"
url: "https://plugpress.co/docs/what-is-mailyard.md"
canonical: "https://plugpress.co/docs/what-is-mailyard/"
published: "2026-07-28"
modified: "2026-07-28"
author: "Fahim"
tags:
  - "Mailyard"
---

# What Is Mailyard?

**Mailyard is a WordPress SMTP plugin with a backup plan.** Connect Amazon SES, Postmark, Resend, Brevo, or any SMTP server, and every email your site sends — password resets, WooCommerce receipts, form notifications — goes through a real email service instead of your host's mail server. And if that service fails, Mailyard switches to your backup **on the same send**, so the email still goes out.

Mailyard is free — [download it from WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mailyard/).

## Why does WordPress need an SMTP plugin?

Out of the box, WordPress hands `wp_mail()` to your web host, and most hosts are bad at email: no proper SPF/DKIM authentication, shared IPs with bad reputations, silent failures. Messages get blocked, land in spam, or vanish without a trace — which is why "WordPress not sending emails" is one of the most common problems on any support forum. Mailyard fixes it by routing email through a provider that's actually built for it, and keeps it fixed when that provider has a bad day.

## What you get — all free

- **Automatic email failover** — a backup provider takes over the moment the first one fails, on the same send, not in a retry queue.
- **Six ways to send** — Amazon SES, Postmark, Resend, Brevo, custom SMTP, or PHP mail.
- **Smart sender routing** — the right provider for each kind of mail, automatically, based on the from address or purpose.
- **Full email log** — every send and every failure, with the exact provider error.
- **Deliverability checker** — grades your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records A–F and hands you the exact DNS fix.
- **Bounce & complaint tracking** — four provider webhooks, tidied into one clean `mailyard_bounce` hook.
- **AI agent tools (MCP)** — let Claude, Cursor, or Codex diagnose your email problems, with per-tool permissions.
- **60-second setup** — pick a provider, paste a key, send a test.

Everything you see is free. No locked buttons, no crippled features, no upgrade nags.

## Is Mailyard an alternative to WP Mail SMTP, FluentSMTP, or Post SMTP?

Yes. Mailyard does the same core job — routing `wp_mail()` through a real email service — and adds the things most of them don't have for free: automatic failover on the same send, sender routing across multiple providers, bounce and complaint tracking, and a built-in deliverability checker. Anything that sends mail the normal WordPress way — WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms — goes through Mailyard automatically, with no per-plugin setup.

## What about sending campaigns?

Mailyard itself is a delivery engine. If you also want to *send broadcast email* — campaigns, contacts, open and click tracking — that's [Mailyard Pro](/docs/what-is-mailyard-pro/), a separate paid plugin that uses Mailyard as its delivery engine. Mailyard never nags you about it, and nothing in the free plugin is held back for it.

## Next steps

[Get Mailyard free on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/mailyard/), then start with [Getting Started: Connect Your Email Provider](/docs/mailyard-getting-started/) — you'll be sending authenticated email in about a minute.