Picture this: You’ve just launched your new website or mobile app. Sleek design, top-notch content, and you’re ready to see the registrations pour in.
You’ve thought of everything – or so you thought. After a while, you start noticing that your customers are not getting your transactional emails. Signup confirmations, order receipts, password resets – all of these emails seem to be going into a digital black hole.
But what’s going on?
If you’re a WordPress user, you might be relying on PHP mail to send your emails (the standard method for WordPress). The problem with this is that it’s a less than reliable method. After all, spammers are known to abuse PHP mail, leading major email providers like Gmail and Outlook to often block it.
This issue might have brought you here: you need a reliable, Free Mail Server – and no, it’s probably not the one provided by your web hosting company. It may work better than PHP mail, but it could still get blocked if you’re sending more than a handful of emails each day.
The 11 Best Free Mail Servers for Transactional Emails
To get your transactional emails successfully delivered, we’ve put together a list of free SMTP servers (also called SMTP relay service or free mail server) that have gone through our rigorous deliverability tests. And here’s the best part – they are not just reliable, they’re also completely free to use with certain limitations – which is much better than just a free trial. So, you can keep your credit card tucked away—you won’t need it.
Setting up one of these email servers is straightforward – you don’t need to be a developer or know programming languages, as all the necessary information for setup is provided in an easy-to-understand manner. These servers include secure connections using SSL/TLS encryption, ensuring your emails are sent safely.
Let’s see if you like the little TikTok video I created. Everybody around me told me that SMTP servers aren’t good content for TikTok 🙈
But judge for yourself:
@tooltester Free email marketing? Top 3 totally free SMTP servers you need to know!
So, without further ado, here is our comprehensive list of the best free mail servers, ranked on a variety of quality factors:
Deliverability Scores of Free Mail Servers
In order to find out which free mail services get your emails delivered effectively, we’ve conducted four rounds of deliverability tests for nine different transactional email service providers.
Similar to our regular deliverability tests we run for a range of different email marketing providers, I used Glockapps for our testing. This tool allows us to send test emails to a seed list of over 20 international mailbox providers such as Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo. Glockapps then automatically analyzes where the emails arrived correctly, where they didn’t arrive at all and which email clients moved them into the spam folder. It also looks at the server reputation, authentication (DMARC, DKIM and SPF) and whether it appears on any blacklists.
Please keep one thing in mind: email deliverability is mainly influenced by your domain’s sender reputation. The more people actually want to receive your emails, the higher this reputation will be. Although the selected SMTP service does play a role (we estimate it’s around 30%), the more emails you send, the more your deliverability will depend on your sender reputation.
These are the results for our free mail server providers:
| Rank | Provider | Test 1 | Test 2 | Test 3 | Test 4 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SMTP2GO | 95% | 94% | 97% | 96% | 96% |
| 2 | Postmark | 97% | 95% | 96% | 87% | 94% |
| 3 | Mailersend | 92% | 75% | 86% | 94% | 87% |
| 4 | Mailjet | 84% | 92% | 72% | 92% | 85% |
| 5 | SendGrid | 82% | 86% | 87% | 73% | 82% |
| 6 | Brevo (Sendinblue) | 84% | 72% | 78% | 85% | 80% |
| 7 | Mailtrap | 66% | 91% | 64% | 87% | 77% |
| 8 | SendPulse | 56% | 84% | 80% | 74% | 74% |
| 9 | Elastic Email | 60% | 41% | 79% | 58% | 60% |
While deliverability is indeed the most critical factor in choosing a free mail server, it isn’t the sole deciding factor. Therefore, let’s delve deeper into the unique features and advantages that each of these services offers:
1. MailerSend – Best Value Free Mail Server
mailersend
If you’re seeking a generous amount of free emails without a daily limit, MailerSend might just be your ideal free mail server provider. As a branch of MailerLite, an established email service provider from Lithuania, MailerSend specializes in delivering your transactional emails for free, or for a nominal fee if you’re sending in bulk.
While there are other SMTP relay servers allowing a similar monthly email count, what sets MailerSend apart from many other email service providers is what it doesn’t impose: a daily cap. With a fully approved account, you have the flexibility to send all 3,000 emails in a single day.
And if you have even more to send? The cost of additional emails is attractively low, at just $1.00 per 1,000 emails. MailerSend can even be scaled up to millions of emails if needed, making it a robust free mail server option as you grow.
Benefits of Using MailerSend as your Free Mail Server
- Generous free package: Offers a monthly quota of 3,000 emails at zero cost! Ideal for larger contact lists.
- Excellent deliverability: MailerSend came out third-best in our deliverability tests, ensuring your emails reach the inbox.
- Quality at a low cost: Their pricing plans rank among the most competitive in the market if you need to upgrade.
- Fast approval: The speed of their account approval process outpaced many of the other transactional email services.
Drawbacks of using MailerSend
- Data retention: In the free plan, your activity and statistics data will only be retained for 7 days.
Try MailerSend’s free plan
2. SMTP2GO – Top Deliverability Free Mail Server
smtp2go homepage
Hailing from New Zealand, this company offers the ability to send up to 1,000 emails for free per month via their SMTP server infrastructure. Despite the company’s website and web dashboard having a somewhat old-school appearance, it would be a mistake to underestimate their service due to this facade. Indeed, they provide top-notch deliverability, making them a leading free mail server in terms of reliability!
Another standout feature of the free plan is the ability to invite other team members to your account. Something most other free SMTP service providers require a paid plan for. Let’s now check out the details:
Benefits of Using SMTP2GO as your Free Mail Server
- Outstanding deliverability: They accomplished a fantastic deliverability rate of 96% on average, topping our charts.
- Generous free plan: The free mail server allows sending up to 1,000 emails per month at no charge and with no daily cap. Even the paid plans are very affordable compared to other providers.
- Effective customer service: I experienced fast and efficient live chat assistance, ready to help with any setup questions.
- Availability of hosting in the EU: An essential feature if compliance with GDPR standards is mandatory, ensuring data privacy for European users.
Drawbacks of Using SMTP2GO
- Rate limits: The free plan permits sending only 25 emails each hour, though I was able to get this limit removed after talking to support. On top of that, you are limited to a maximum of 200 emails per day.
- Reporting: Unless you pay, you only get statistics for the last 5 days, making it harder to monitor your long-term email performance.
Try SMTP2GO’s free plan
3. SendPulse: Free Plan Par Excellence for High Volume
sendpulse transactional For those seeking an email software that offers the largest quantity of free emails, your search ends here. SendPulse, a Ukrainian company with a global presence, provides you with the liberty to send up to 12,000 transactional emails every month for free via SMTP or API. This makes it a very generous free mail server option for businesses with larger email needs.
Additionally, they offer a comprehensive newsletter editor complete with email templates, also free for up to 500 subscribers (and 15k emails). That means classic email campaigns are also covered, making it great for email marketers. If you have an affinity for the latest technology, you’ll be delighted to know that SendPulse supports AMP for Email, which enables you to add interactive elements and forms to your mailing.
Benefits of Using SendPulse as your Free Mail Server
- Highly generous free plan: Includes 12k emails every month, ideal for businesses with large customer bases.
- Complete marketing platform: Comes with a newsletter editor, CRM, email automation, chatbots, SMS, landing page editor, and more, offering a wide range of marketing tools.
- Affordable paid plans: Even when you outgrow the free plan, the transition to a paid one won’t hurt your pocket too much, with scalable options available.
- Reporting: You can access the last 30 days of your analytics data, giving you a good overview of your email performance.
Drawbacks of Using SendPulse
- Deliverability concerns: Average deliverability stands at only 74%, leading to many emails landing in spam or not being delivered at all. Notably, issues primarily arose with AOL and Yahoo, which are still significant email providers.
Try SendPulse’s free plan
4. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) – Free Mail Server with Marketing Suite
brevo homepage
If securing a high volume of free emails and a comprehensive marketing suite is your primary concern, French-based Brevo may well be the match for you. With an allocation of up to 9,000 free emails, it offers more than most other free mail server providers. However, there is a catch: a daily limit is set at 300 emails.
Brevo brings more to the table than just high volume; it’s a comprehensive email marketing suite that includes a CRM, newsletter templates for all kinds of email campaigns, and even functionalities like landing pages and live chat, all of which you can also use for free. If you’re a marketer with a large mailing list searching for an all-encompassing marketing suite and a free mail server, Brevo might be just what you need.
Benefits of Using Brevo as your Free Mail Server
- All-in-one marketing suite: Comes with a featured email marketing service with a drag and drop editor, templates, SMS marketing campaigns and even a CRM.
- Generous free plan: Send up to 9,000 emails per month at no cost, making it suitable for businesses of various sizes. Paid plans are very affordable too as you scale.
- Unlimited contacts: Upload as many contacts to Brevo as you like, without limitations on list size.
- Wide range of Plugins: Integrates with WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify and all the major CRMs, ensuring compatibility with your existing tools.
Drawbacks of Using Brevo
- Deliverability rate: The main downside is their weaker deliverability results compared to top providers. Their scores aren’t the most consistent, which can lead to lost transactional messages.
- Rigid pricing: While the email allowances are very generous, other services allow you to purchase emails in increments of 1,000. With Brevo, you need to upgrade to the next-higher pricing tier, which might not be ideal for all users.
Try Brevo’s free plan
5. Mailjet – Versatile Free Mail Server with Newsletter Tools
Much like Brevo, Mailjet is a great choice if you require not only a free mail server but also a comprehensive newsletter service for bulk emails. It’s part of the Sinch company, who also owns Mailgun, another transaction email solution (targeting large-scale senders). This includes templates, basic email automations, A/B testing, and a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor for crafting engaging newsletters.
Although their free quota of 6,000 emails appears generous, it’s important to note that the number of emails you can send daily is capped at 200. This makes it suitable for businesses with consistent but not extremely high daily volumes.
Benefits of Using Mailjet as your Free Mail Server
- Free plan: An allowance of up to 6,000 emails monthly with a cap of 200 daily, balancing volume and daily sending.
- Good deliverability: The mean score across our four rounds of testing was a commendable 85%, indicating reliable email delivery.
- Newsletter editor included: Access their template editor for creating newsletters without any extra charges! This adds value for businesses needing both transactional and marketing emails.
Drawbacks of using Mailjet
- Configuration slightly more complicated: Relative to other services I evaluated, the setup process for Mailjet was more complex, potentially requiring more technical know-how.
- Limited support: I found that for certain issues, support won’t help on the free plan (I asked them about their poor deliverability performance to Yahoo). You’ll have to rely on their documentation instead for troubleshooting.
6. Aha Send – Simple and Fast Free Mail Server
aha send
Aha Send is a transactional email service that stands out with its claim of faster email delivery compared to the competition. They offer both SMTP and a transactional email API, just like many others. With our small-scale test (around 100 email addresses), we couldn’t confirm their speed claim, though it’s worth noting for users prioritizing speed.
The great thing about Aha Send is that you get 1,000 emails for free every month. Even if you need to send more, it’s still super affordable at $5 per month for up to 10,000 emails, and just $0.50 per 1,000 extra emails, making it a budget-friendly free mail server option.
Benefits of Using Aha Send as your Free Mail Server
- Free plan: Send up to 1,000 emails monthly for free, suitable for startups and smaller businesses.
- Easy-to-use interface: Setup is quick and simple, and you can add team members to your account at no extra cost, facilitating collaboration.
Drawbacks of using Aha Send
- New kid on the block: There’s not a lot of info available about Aha Send besides it being from Austria. LinkedIn shows the founder as the only employee, raising questions about long-term support and scalability.
- Deliverability rate: In our limited tests, Aha Send had a similar deliverability rate to Brevo, which puts them in the middle of our deliverability rating table, suggesting room for improvement.
Try Aha Send for free
7. Mailtrap – Expert Free Mail Server for Email Testing
mailtrap homepage
Primarily, Mailtrap operates in the field of email testing, offering, for example, a sandbox environment for inspecting and debugging emails across staging, development, and QA environments – services targeted to developers. Complementing this, they also have a service for marketers: a free mail server that permits the sending of up to 1,000 emails per month. It’s a unique offering for developers who also need transactional email sending capabilities.
Given their somewhat inconsistent deliverability rate, Mailtrap may not be our first choice for a primary free mail server. However, it might be a compelling option if you also wish to leverage their email testing functionality, offering a dual-purpose solution.
Please note: After publication of this article, Mailtrap got in touch with us and told us that in early 2024 they “have expanded our efforts to enhance deliverability by focusing on various aspects, including improving stability, ensuring client compliance, and increasing system reliability”. This suggests potential future improvements in their deliverability.
Benefits of Using Mailtrap as your Free Mail Server
- Decent free plan: 1,000 emails per month at no cost, sufficient for testing and light transactional email needs.
- Unique testing features: They offer a fake SMTP server that doesn’t send any actual emails, ideal for development and testing environments.
Drawbacks of Using Mailtrap
- Deliverability seems inconsistent: Our results were highly volatile (round 1 and 3 very good, round 2 and 4 quite the opposite), indicating potential reliability issues.
8. Postmark – High-Quality Free Mail Server, But Limited Free Volume
Postmark is part of the ActiveCampaign company, an email marketing service we rate highly here on EmailTooltester. This association lends credibility and suggests a focus on quality.
If a good deliverability rate is your main concern, Postmark might be the one for you. But their free mail server only allows up to 100 emails per month, so it’s not the best service if your budget is $0 and you have significant email volume. It’s more of a trial plan than a truly free mail server for regular use.
Paid plans are also more pricey than with other transactional email providers, starting at $15 for up to 10,000 emails per month. There are even different pricing tiers for greater scalability and control, catering to larger businesses with demanding email needs.
Benefits of Using Postmark as your Free Mail Server
- Excellent deliverability rate: Averaging 94%, they rank among the top in our comparison, ensuring your emails reach the inbox reliably.
- Integrations with ActiveCampaign: Connect Postmark to your ActiveCampaign automations for seamless marketing workflows.
Drawbacks of Using Postmark
- Only 100 emails for free: Not the most generous free plan, limiting its usability for regular transactional emails.
- Expensive: Quality comes at a price. Postmark charges top Dollar for their paid plans, making it less accessible for budget-conscious users.
- Not ideal for use in the EU: If you need to comply with the GDPR, you need to know that Postmark doesn’t offer data hosting options inside the European Union. All their data is hosted in the United States, raising potential compliance concerns for EU-based businesses.
Try Postmark’s free plan
9. SendGrid – Free Mail Server for Potential High-Volume Senders
sendgrid
Like Postmark, SendGrid also lets you send 100 emails per month for free. Where they differentiate themselves from other free mail server providers is in their interpretation of ‘bulk email’ – with them, it truly means high volume. SendGrid is geared towards large-scale email operations.
Their paid plans start at 50,000 emails per month for only $19.95. So, while their free plan may not be particularly noteworthy, SendGrid could emerge as an interesting choice if your operation involves sending bulk emails in very large quantities. It’s a free mail server option with a focus on future scalability for large enterprises.
Benefits of Using SendGrid as your Free Mail Server
- Low prices for high-volume email: Especially useful if you have a large contact list and anticipate significant email sending needs.
Drawbacks of Using SendGrid
- Very limited free plan: Many other Sendgrid alternatives offer much more for free (e.g. Brevo – learn more about how Brevo vs SendGrid compare to one other), making SendGrid’s free offering less competitive.
- High threshold for paid plans: The lowest paid plan requires you to sign up for 50k emails per month, which is a significant commitment and may not be suitable for smaller businesses or those with fluctuating email volumes.
10. Gmail – Utilizing Google’s Free Mail Servers
google workspace smtp
With a commanding market share of around 35%, there’s a chance that you’re already a Gmail user. So, why not consider their email server infrastructure? Their offer is quite compelling: the ability to send up to 500 emails per day for free through their robust mail servers.
However, there is a catch: with a standard Gmail account, you’re restricted to using your @gmail.com email address as the sender. In a business context, you’d likely prefer to send emails from your own domain name for branding and professionalism.
To accommodate this need, there’s Google Workspace, which provides a generous 2,000 SMTP emails per day. Sounds significantly better, doesn’t it? There’s just one caveat: you have to be a paying Google Workspace customer to use it. While not strictly a free mail server in the purest sense for custom domains, it leverages Google’s infrastructure.
Benefits of Using Google’s Mail Servers
- Relatively high allowance: Send up to 2,000 emails daily as a paid Google Workspace customer, suitable for moderate daily transactional email needs.
- Use Google’s trusted servers: While I wasn’t able to include them in my deliverability testing, I assume Google’s deliverability is very high due to their strong sender reputation and infrastructure.
Drawbacks of Using Google’s Mail Servers
- Must use your @gmail email address: It’s only completely free if you use your Gmail address, which is limiting for business use.
- Hard limits: Once you hit the sending limit, you won’t be able to send any further email for 24 hours. Also important: the number of recipients per message can’t be higher than 100 – this in particular might be a dealbreaker for many businesses needing to send to larger groups.
- Complicated to set up: While the regular Gmail setup is straightforward, using it via Google Workspace (which is required if you want to use your company domain) is a lot more complicated, requiring more technical expertise.
11. Elastic Email – Free Mail Server with Deliverability Issues
elastic email
Operating from Poland, this email service provider offers two primary services: their Email API and Email Marketing tools. If you’re in the market for a transactional email provider, their Email API product, which includes a free mail server, might pique your interest due to its low cost entry point.
However, with a limit of 100 emails per day, the free plan is very restrictive. This limitation becomes more significant given the fact that their email deliverability rate was the poorest among all providers I tested. According to their support, this is due to the shared IP addresses utilized in their free accounts. It’s essential to bear this in mind if you’re considering their free plan as a viable free mail server option.
Benefits of Using Elastic Email as your Free Mail Server
- Cheap prices: Yes, their prices are low, making it a budget option if deliverability is not a primary concern for your use case.
- Live chat support: Thankfully, I had a very patient support staff who helped with the setup, which can be beneficial for new users.
Drawbacks of Using Elastic Email
- Poor deliverability: They had the lowest scores of all the providers – Outlook, Yahoo and AOL sent our messages to the spam folder. When I talked to support about it, they explained to me that free users only get a shared IP address, which seems to be responsible for the poor results due to its sender reputation. But as we see with other services like SMTP2GO, even free plans can achieve top email deliverability rates, highlighting the issue is not inherent to free plans, but rather their implementation.
Try Elastic Emails free plan
How Does a Free Mail Server Work?
smtp protocol infographic
The SMTP protocol and how a free mail server works
A free mail server, just like any SMTP server, uses the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol to handle the sending of emails. When you want to send an email, your email client first connects to the SMTP server on a specific port, typically port 25, 465, or 587, using your credentials for authentication. After successful authentication, your outgoing email message is sent to this server.
Then the server queries the DNS (visualized by the Internet cloud) to find out which SMTP server is responsible for the recipient’s domain and forwards the email there. In this context, the server acts as an SMTP relay server, taking on the role of relaying the email to the recipient’s mail server. That mail server will then verify the recipient’s email address and either place the email in their inbox or handle errors, like bouncing back the message if it can’t be delivered.
In cases where immediate delivery isn’t possible, the free mail server queues the email for later attempts. The server’s configuration is crucial in this regard, as it determines the specific protocols and security measures, such as encryption, that are employed. Additionally, it may use verification methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to combat spam and ensure email integrity. These can be configured via your domain’s DNS records to improve your email authentication and deliverability when using a free mail server.
SMTP servers work in tandem with other types of servers, like POP3 or IMAP, which handle incoming emails, creating a seamless email experience for both sending and receiving.
Conclusion: Choosing the Best Free Mail Server for Your Needs
By now, you should have a much clearer idea of which free mail service might be the best fit to deliver your transactional emails to your customers. There’s a plethora of solutions available, but we’ve done our best to separate the wheat from the chaff, and highlight the best free mail server options.
Our comparison revolved around two primary considerations:
- The free email allowance offered by the mail server
- The deliverability rate, ensuring your emails reach the inbox
Best Overall Free Mail Server: SMTP2GO. They provide a strong deliverability rate along with an appealing free plan that allows up to 1,000 emails per month, striking a great balance between reliability and cost.
Best Free Mail Server by Quantity: SendPulse gives you 12,000 emails for free – however, their email deliverability is not ideal. Alternative: MailerSend enables you to send up to 3,000 emails per month while maintaining an above-average delivery rate, offering a better balance for higher volume needs with good deliverability.
Best Free All-in-One Newsletter Service with Mail Server: Brevo. With Brevo, you can send up to 300 emails per day and also take advantage of features such as a drag-and-drop editor and email marketing automation, making it ideal if you need both transactional and marketing email capabilities in one free platform.
If you’re still uncertain about which free mail server is right for you, don’t hesitate to leave your questions in the comments below!
FAQ: Free Mail Server Providers
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It’s a protocol used to send email messages between servers. Most email systems that send mail over the Internet use SMTP for sending messages from one server to another. Understanding SMTP is key to understanding how a free mail server operates.
SMTP isn’t the only way of sending emails. Pretty much all the free mail server services we discuss also allow you to send email via an Application Programming Interface (API). APIs are generally faster and more flexible than SMTP, but may require a developer for their implementation due to their complexity. For simpler setups, SMTP is often sufficient and easier to configure.
If you want to switch your SMTP server in WordPress, you need to install a plugin. On EmailTooltester, we use WP Mail SMTP, which is free and works quite well. The only disadvantage is that it comes bundled with the WPForms plugin, so you will have two new plugins to update. However, it simplifies the process of connecting your WordPress site to a free mail server.
The Authors
Learn more about us
Robert Brandl
Robert Brandl
Founder and CEO
Hello! I’m Robert, an email marketing expert with over 15 years of experience. After honing my skills at an agency by serving major corporations, I founded EmailTooltester as a passion project to help small and medium-sized businesses. Connect with me on LinkedIn where I regularly share my best email marketing knowledge. And feel free to ask me which ESP I’d recommend for your specific needs – I have plenty of experience with tools like ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, Mailchimp, and Brevo.
Cai Ellis
SEO Manager
Hi! My name is Cai, and I’ve worked in digital marketing for many years. More recently, I’ve been concentrating on email marketing, through testing tools and writing guides. I have hands-on experience with WordPress email plugins like MailPoet. And I’ve also picked up a bit of SEO know-how along the way! If you’ve got questions about these or any related subjects, I’ll be happy to help!
Learn more about us We keep our content up to date
31 Jul 2024 – Aha Send added 22 Jul 2024 – Comment from Mailtrap added 24 Jan 2024 – TikTok video added 21 Sep 2023 – Technical explanation of SMTP added 24 Jul 2023 – Small update for Postmark 04 Jul 2023 – Smaller updates and corrections 30 Jun 2023 – SendPulse added
Our Methodology
This article has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.
Our Methodology
