How to Set Up the Sendinblue Mailer in WP Mail SMTP (2023)

Would you like to use Sendinblue to improve email deliverability on your WordPress site? Sendinblue is a solid mailer option for WP Mail SMTP, as it’s both super reliable and has a straightforward setup process.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use the Sendinblue mailer in WP Mail SMTP.

• What Is Sendinblue?
• Activating Your Sendinblue Account
• Authorizing Your Domain
  • Setting Up a Domain in Sendinblue
  • Adding DNS Records
  • Verifying Your DNS Records
• Setting Up WP Mail SMTP
• Sending a Test Email
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Sendinblue?

Sendinblue is an all-around digital marketing solution. While our focus here will be on its tools for improving email delivery, it also offers a popular email marketing service. Both services can be set up from the same account.

In order to use Sendinblue effectively, you’ll need to have an email address associated with a domain that you own. Email addresses such as @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc., are not recommended for use with this mailer.

• Cost: Both free and paid plans are available, depending on how many emails you need to send out. You can use the free plan can to send up to 300 emails per day, which is plenty for many small businesses and personal sites. Please see Sendinblue’s site for more details about available plans.
• From Email Requirements: While SendInBlue works with any From Email, we strongly recommend using a domain-specific email to improve reliability.
• Bottom Line: Sendinblue is a recommended mailer it is easy to set up, and features a robust free option without credit card requirements. Most notably, its services are rather reliable.

Activating Your Sendinblue Account

Note: This step is for users who do not already have a Sendinblue account. If you do have an active Sendinblue account, you can proceed to Step 2.

To get started, you’ll need to have a Sendinblue account. If you don’t have one yet, you can create a new Sendinblue account. It does not require a credit card for signup.

Once you enter your email address, you’ll need to check your inbox for a message from Sendinblue. In that email, click on theConfirm my email address button.

This will bring you back to your Sendinblue account, where you’ll need to provide some information about your business, starting with your name and phone number.

Sendinblue will then ask for your company name and address, followed by details such as how many team members you have, how many contacts you have on your mailing list, and whether you plan to sell products online.

After you fill out all the required fields, you’ll be able to choose a plan. We’ll be using the Free option, but the setup process will be the same regardless of which one you select.

Once your account is set up, you can proceed to the next step.

Authorizing Your Domain

To ensure that your emails deliver successfully, next you’ll need to authorize your domain in Sendinblue. This must be the same domain as used in your From Email.

For instance, if your From Email is [emailprotected], then the domain you’d need to verify in Sendinblue would be example.com.

Setting Up a Domain in Sendinblue

To start the domain verification process, go ahead and sign in to Sendinblue.

Once you’ve logged in, click on your company name in the top right corner of the screen, then select Senders & IP from the menu.

On this page, click on the Domains tab. Then click the blue + ADD A NEW DOMAIN button.

Next, you’ll need to enter your website’s domain name.

Be sure to check the box labeled I would like to use this domain name to digitally sign my emails (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).

Then click theSAVEbutton to proceed.

Adding DNS Records

After you click SAVE, an overlay will appear with several DNS records listed. As a way of both protecting site owners and their visitors, you’ll need to authorize your domain by adding records to your site’s DNS settings. Over time, domain authorization has become increasingly critical for reliable email delivery.

To proceed, you’ll need to open a new browser tab or window. Then log in to the service where you purchased your site’s domain (which is most often your site’s hosting provider) and locate your site’s DNS settings.

Once your DNS settings are open, you should see an option to add a new record.

To make it possible for Sendinblue to authorize your domain, you’ll need to add three TXT records to your site’s DNS. Be sure to copy them carefully, as you’ll need the exact values from your Sendinblue account for the verification to work.

We’ll go through more details on how to add each DNS record below. We’ll use example.com as our domain. Make sure to replace it with your own when adding your DNS records to your settings.

TXT (DKIM) Record

• Host/Name: mail._domainkey.example.com
• Record Type: TXT
• TTL: 24 hours (or 1 day/86400 seconds, depending on which units your DNS uses)
• Text/Data: Copy from Sendinblue (this will be unique for each domain)

Note: If your DNS is managed by GoDaddy, then be sure to set the TTL (Time To Live) to 1 hour. You’ll need to use this 1 hour TTL for all three of these records.

TXT (SPF) Record

• Host/Name: example.com (remember to check if this includes your subdomain)
• Record Type: TXT
• TTL: 24 hours (or 1 day/86400 seconds, depending on which units your DNS uses)
• Text/Data: v=spf1 include:spf.sendinblue.com mx ~all

TXT Record (Sendinblue code)

• Host/Name: example.com
• Record Type: TXT
• TTL: 24 hours (or 1 day/86400 seconds, depending on which units your DNS uses)
• Text/Data: Copy from Sendinblue (this will be unique for each domain)

TXT (DMARC) Record (Optional)

Note: Adding a DMARC record is an optional step that we don’t recommend unless you are a developer and have experience with DMARC configurations. If you’d like to learn more about DMARC, be sure to check out our post on how to create a DMARC record.

• Host/Name: _dmarc.example.com
• Record Type: TXT
• TTL: Auto (If there isn’t an Auto option available for the TTL, set the TTL to 4 hours/14400 seconds
• Text/Data: Copy from Sendinblue

Verifying Your DNS Records

After you’ve added these records, it can take up to 24–48 hours for them to propagate so that Sendinblue can verify them. However, in some cases, these records can be verified much more quickly. You can go ahead and try clicking the RECORD ADDED. PLEASE VERIFY IT. button as a quick test.

Once Sendinblue verifies your record, it will add a green Configured status to the right of the record in the list.

However, there’s no need to wait on this right now! You can move ahead to the next step while you wait for this verification to complete. Just be sure to keep this tab or window open, as you’ll need it a little later.

Note: If you’re using a subdomain when verifying your DNS records, be sure to use the same subdomain in the From Email setting in the WP Mail SMTP plugin (e.g., [emailprotected]).

Setting Up WP Mail SMTP

In this next step, we’ll switch over to setting up WP Mail SMTP.

Before you get started on this section, be sure to install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin.

Once WP Mail SMTP is installed, you’ll need to click on WP Mail SMTP» Settings in the menu on the left side of your WordPress admin area to open the plugin settings page. We’ll discuss each of these settings in detail below.

From Email

The From Email is the email address that all of your site’s emails will be sent from. This email address must contain the same domain you authorized in Sendinblue.

For example, if you authorized example.com, the From Email address must contain example.com (e.g. [emailprotected]).

You can also choose to check the box labeled Force From Email. If you’d like the From Email to be the same site-wide, this option will save you the trouble of editing the email settings throughout your site, such as in other plugin settings.

Note: If you’d like to receive emails in Sendinblue at the same email address as your From Email, you’ll need to connect your account to SendInBlue via IMAP. For this address to receive emails, a working inbox is required.

From Name

The From Name will, by default, be set to your site name. However, you can change this to any text you’d like.

You can also choose to enable the Force From Name option to apply this setting to emails site-wide.

Mailer

In the Mailer field, select the Sendinblue option.

API Key

Selecting your mailer will reveal additional settings specific to Sendinblue. First, you’ll need to locate and enter your API key.

Go back to the browser tab or window where your Sendinblue account is open. Expand the menu in the top right corner again and selectSMTP & API.

This will open a page where you can create a v3 API key. To create your v3 API key, click on the word here in the text that reads “Please click here to create your first API key.”

Note: If you need to generate a new API key in the future, click the + CREATE A NEW API KEY button in the top right corner.

Now, in the modal window, you’ll need to name your API key. You can use whatever name you’d like, but we recommend using something that corresponds with your domain.

Once you’ve named your API key, click the GENERATE button.

Next, another modal window will appear with your new API key.

To copy the key, click the icon located to the right of the key.

After copying the v3 API key, return to your WP Mail SMTP settings and paste it into the API Key field.

Sending Domain

The Sending Domain setting is an optional setting that will allow WP Mail SMTP to check for any domain-side errors in your Sendinblue setup (e.g., incorrectly configured or missing SPF records). This domain check will run each time you send a test email, and will only show an error if a misconfiguration is detected.

The sending domain for your site is the same domain that you’ve already authorized in Sendinblue, so you can copy and paste this value here.

Once you’ve configured your mailer, be sure to click the Save Settings button.

Sending a Test Email

Note: Before proceeding with this step, you’ll need Sendinblue to verify your DNS records. If the changes to your DNS settings have not been propagated yet, then you’ll need to complete this step later.

Now that your Sendinblue setup is complete, it’s important to send a test email to ensure that everything is working properly. To do so, go to WP Mail SMTP » Tools and open the Email Test tab.

Here, you can enter any email address that you have access to (the default will be the site’s admin email). Unless you’re sure you’ll only be sending plain text emails from your site, we recommend leaving the HTML setting ON.

Then, click the Send Email button.

After sending the email, you should see a success message.

If you check the inbox for the email address you entered, you should have received the email for this test.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here, we’ve answered some of the most common questions we receive about setting up the Sendinblue mailer.

I just tried to send a test email. Why do I see the following error?

[permission_denied]: Unable to send email. Your SMTP account is not yet activated.

If you see this error message, your Sendinblue account may need to be activated manually. Please contact Sendinblue’s support team for further assistance.

That’s it! Now you know how to set up your site to send WordPress emails with the Sendinblue mailer in WP Mail SMTP.

Next, would you like to keep records of every email that’s sent out from your WordPress site? Check out our tutorial on setting up email logging for details on how to do so.