WordPress SMTP & email plugin complaints: what 22 bad reviews say
22 one- and two-star WordPress.org reviews (19 one-star) of the 12 most-installed plugins in the Email & SMTP category, posted 26 Oct 2025 – 25 Oct 2026. Combined: 10,000,000+ active installs.
What users complain about in WordPress SMTP & email plugins
| Complaint | Share | Reviews | All plugins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bugs & errors | 22.7% | 5 | 32.5% |
| Called it a scam or misleading | 22.7% | 5 | 8% |
| Upsell, paywall & pushy Pro version | 22.7% | 5 | 14.9% |
| Slow or no support | 18.2% | 4 | 18% |
| AI features or AI support | 9.1% | 2 | 6.1% |
| Hard to use or set up | 9.1% | 2 | 9.3% |
| Slows the site or heavy | 9.1% | 2 | 8.8% |
| Charges, renewals & refunds | 4.5% | 1 | 11.1% |
| Locked out or blocked | 4.5% | 1 | 0.2% |
| Missing features & limits | 4.5% | 1 | 5.9% |
| Ads, nags & admin clutter | 4.5% | 1 | 4.5% |
| Broke after an update | 4.5% | 1 | 8.5% |
A review can match several themes; 27.3% match none. “All plugins” = 578 low-star reviews of 138 plugins in 12 categories.
What is different about this category
Compared with all 138 plugins in the study, SMTP & email plugin reviews mention called it a scam or misleading 2.8× as often (22.7% vs 8%); upsell, paywall & pushy pro version 1.5× as often (22.7% vs 14.9%). They mention crashed or took down the site (0% vs 5.4%) and charges, renewals & refunds (4.5% vs 11.1%) less often than average.
WordPress SMTP & email plugins by number of bad reviews
| Plugin | 1–2★ | Top complaint (5+ reviews) | Replied | Installs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WP Mail SMTP by WPForms | 6 | Slow or no support 33.3% | 100% | 4,000,000+ |
| Post SMTP | 6 | Called it a scam or misleading 33.3% | 83.3% | 300,000+ |
| Easy WP SMTP | 3 | – | 100% | 500,000+ |
| MailPoet | 3 | – | 100% | 500,000+ |
| FluentSMTP | 2 | – | 0% | 700,000+ |
| Newsletter | 2 | – | 100% | 200,000+ |
| Hostinger Reach | 0 | – | – | 1,000,000+ |
| MC4WP | 0 | – | – | 1,000,000+ |
| Flamingo | 0 | – | – | 800,000+ |
| GoSMTP | 0 | – | – | 500,000+ |
| WP Mail Logging | 0 | – | – | 300,000+ |
| Activity Log | 0 | – | – | 200,000+ |
In users’ words
“Overcharging for 365 support. It’s not worth $100 a year for them to have done a little extra coding to make 365 work.”
WordPress.org review, May 2026
“… If you send an email to customer support, you get an AI response, not a human response.”
WordPress.org review, Dec 2025
“… It’s not reliable and difficult to connect. It randomly just disconnects and you can’t re-enable tokens after they expire etc.”
WordPress.org review, Feb 2026
Do WordPress SMTP & email developers reply to bad reviews?
86.4% of these low-star reviews got a reply from the author or support team, median 1 day after the review (all plugins: 70.2%, median 1 day).
What to fix first (our reading of the data)
- Bugs & errors (22.7% of reviews): Reply to each bug review with the version that fixes it, and test against the most popular themes and PHP versions.
- Upsell, paywall & pushy Pro version (22.7% of reviews): Keep the free version useful on its own; move Pro prompts out of every admin screen.
- Slow or no support (18.2% of reviews): Answer forum threads within a day or two; plugins in this study that replied fast had fewer repeat complaints.
This breakdown for your plugin
Your plugin’s low-star reviews by theme, with quotes and reply rate. Revunda has no self-serve WordPress.org report yet: send the plugin URL and we reply with what we can do.
Other categories: Page builders & blocks · Backup & migration · WooCommerce & payments · SEO · Cookies & privacy · Images, galleries & sliders · Security & anti-spam · Caching & speed · Forms · Translation · Analytics
Data and method: WordPress review study (138 plugins, CC BY 4.0 CSV) · WordPress plugin 1-star reviews: what to fix first · All categories
FAQ
What do users complain about most in WordPress SMTP & email plugins?
In 22 one- and two-star WordPress.org reviews of 12 WordPress SMTP & email plugins (Oct 2025 – Oct 2026), the top complaints were bugs & errors (22.7%), called it a scam or misleading (22.7%), upsell, paywall & pushy pro version (22.7%).
Do WordPress SMTP & email plugin developers reply to bad reviews?
86.4% of these low-star reviews got a reply from the author or support team, median 1 day after the review (all plugins: 70.2%, median 1 day).
Which WordPress SMTP & email plugin had the most bad reviews?
WP Mail SMTP by WPForms, with 6 one- and two-star reviews in the 12 months to Oct 2026.
How many bad reviews do SMTP & email plugins get per million installs?
2.2 low-star reviews per million active installs over 12 months, against 3.5 across all 138 plugins in the study.