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Which Email Add-on Should I Use?

Cloudways offers many add-ons related to email. This KB explains the available options so you can better understand and use them.

Usama Zafar avatar
Written by Usama Zafar
Updated over 6 months ago

Table of Contents

Cloudways offers many add-ons related to email. We will explain the available options, so you can better understand which one works best for you.

Transactional Email

Transactional emails are the type of automated emails triggered by user actions, including shipping confirmation, password reset links, notifications, and updates. These are emails leaving in bulk from your server/application to a destination such as a third party (your customers, users, and subscribers, etc.).

We advise using a third-party service for safe email delivery (as directly sending email from cloud servers is not reliable). For this, we recommend our inexpensive Elastic Email Add-on. If you already use any such services (Sendgrid, Mailgun, Mandrill), then you can configure it to be used with your server(s) via our free SMTP Add-on (note that you are responsible for taking care of charges occurring from third-party services)

Mailboxes

If what you need are mailboxes for your domain (e.g., [email protected]) to send and receive emails, we have partnered with Rackspace to offer you a hugely discounted rate and extremely reliable mailboxes. Simply sign-up for our Rackspace Email Add-on and let us know how many you require.

That’s it! We hope this article was helpful. If you need any help, then feel free to search your query on Cloudways Support Center or contact us via chat (Need a Hand > Send us a Message). Alternatively, you can also create a support ticket.

FAQs

Q: Can I use both SMTP Add-on (free) and Elastic Email add-on on the same server?

A: No. You can only use one of the transactional email add-ons on your server. You can either choose the SMTP Add-on (third-party service) or choose to activate the Elastic Email Add-on.

Q: Can I use a different sender email address for various applications using the same transactional email service?

A: Yes, you can use a different sender email address for various applications, and you need to configure it at your application level. Any sender email address you define for your application must be verified by adding an SPF and DKIM TXT record at your domain registrar’s DNS management panel.

Q: Can I use Rackspace with the SMTP Add-on?

A: Rackspace is for mailboxes (e.g., [email protected]) for sending and receiving emails, while transactional email services are used for outgoing emails from your server. Rackspace service is configured with a rate limit of outgoing emails, so it is not suitable for automated, mass volume transactional emails. For more queries related to the Rackspace add-on, please click here to read more.

Q: Why are emails sent from my application landing into the spam folder of recipients?

A: You need to ensure that the sender address being used for your domain and the FROM header are set accordingly. If they are already set accordingly, then make sure that correct SPF and DKIM DNS records (depending on the transactional email service used) are configured on your domain registrar.

Q: Can I use different transactional email providers for various applications on the same server?

A: The free SMTP Add-on sets the default transactional email provider at the server level, so all applications in that specific server will use the same provider. If you want to use different transactional email providers for various applications (via using plugins like WP Mail SMTP for WordPress, Mageplaza SMTP for Magento 2.x, etc.), you can do so by using specific plugins/extensions on your application.

Q: I do not want to pay for any transactional email service. Can I use Gmail for outgoing server email?

A: Yes, you can use it for low-volume outgoing email. Check this guide to configure it. Note that there is an approximate limit of 500 emails per day if you use a free Gmail account and 2000 emails per day if you use a paid Google Workspace account. Any third-party service (Sendgrid, Mailgun, Mandrill) or our ElasticEmail add-on will be much more reliable for mass volume.

Q: Can I use SMTP port 25 for outgoing emails?

A: Cloud hosting providers like Vultr and Google block outgoing SMTP port 25 by default for security purposes. We suggest using port 587 or 2525.

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