Which Email Add-on Should I Use?

Choosing the right email add-on on Cloudways depends on your specific needs—whether you're sending transactional emails like order confirmations or setting up professional mailboxes for your domain.

Cloudways offers multiple email solutions, including Elastic Email, SMTP integration, and Rackspace mailboxes.

This article explains each option, helping you decide the best fit for your application or business communication needs.

Table of Contents:

Cloudways offers two types of email add-ons: Transactional Email and Mailboxes. The right add-on depends on your use case:

In the sections below, we’ll explain both options in detail and answer common questions to help you pick the right solution.

Transactional emails are automated messages triggered by user actions—such as order confirmations, password reset links, and notifications. These emails are typically sent in bulk from your application to your users or customers.

Since sending emails directly from cloud servers can be unreliable, we recommend using a trusted third-party service for better deliverability. You have two main options:

Elastic Email Add-on is a cost-effective, built-in solution on Cloudways for sending transactional emails easily and reliably.

SMTP Add-on lets you connect your own email service provider—like SendGrid, Mailgun, or Mandrill—by entering SMTP details. Keep in mind that any charges from the third-party provider will be your responsibility.

You can only use one transactional email add-on per server—either Elastic Email or SMTP.

If you need a custom email address like [email protected] to send and receive emails, the Rackspace Email Add-on is the right choice. Cloudways partners with Rackspace to offer reliable mailboxes at a discounted rate.

Just activate the add-on and let us know how many mailboxes you need—it's that simple.

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.

That’s it! We hope this article was helpful.

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