Email deliverability is critical for transactional emails like password resets, order confirmations, and user notifications.
The Custom SMTP Add-on on Cloudways allows you to configure your own external SMTP provider—such as Gmail SMTP, SendGrid, Mailgun, or any third-party service—for reliable and authenticated email sending directly from your applications.
In this article, you’ll learn how to activate and configure the Custom SMTP Add-on in just a few simple steps.
Whether you're looking to improve inbox placement, comply with sender authentication protocols, or use your preferred email service, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know.
Table of Contents:
Overview of Custom SMTP Add-on on Cloudways
At Cloudways, you can configure Elastic Email SMTP Add-on to send transactional emails (or outgoing emails) in bulk from your server, starting from as low as 0.10$ per month. Else, you can also configure an external or Custom SMTP service such as SendGrid, Mailgun, Gmail, etc.
In this article, you will learn about the procedure of activating the Custom SMTP add-on on your Cloudways server effortlessly using the Cloudways Platform. These external SMTP add-ons maximize the deliverability of emails and are considered more reliable than the emails dispatching from your cloud server.
Does Cloudways provide servers for email hosting?
No, Cloudways does not provide servers for email hosting; however, Cloudways offers different email solutions, so Click Here to read about different email add-ons Cloudways offers and which one you should pick.
How to Activate the Custom SMTP Add-on
Before you follow the steps to navigate this process, we recommend that you watch this quick video tutorial for a visual walkthrough on how to activate the Custom SMTP Add-on.
Now that you've seen the video, follow the detailed steps below to complete the setup.
Step #1:
Log in to the Cloudways Platform, click on the Servers tab from the top menu bar and choose your target server.
Next, click on the SMTP option from the left menu bar.
Step #2:
Now, click on this drop-down box, which prompts you to Select SMTP, so choose an option called Your Own SMTP.
Now, you will see a few more fields down after choosing Your Own SMTP option.
Select your email gateway providers from the drop-down list. If your provider is not listed, feel free to select the Other.
Now, enter your Host. In this example, we are configuring Gmail SMTP on Cloudways, so we are inputting smtp.gmail.com.
Input port. In this example, it is 587.
Enter your username.
Enter your password.
Please note that the email service provider gives the host and port information. Also, email service providers instruct what to use as a username and password while setting up the SMTP service.
Finally, click on the Save button.
How to Verify SMTP Configuration
Cloudways offers you the on-site functionality of testing your SMTP settings immediately after configuring the SMTP service on the server. You can verify if emails are properly dispatching from the server by sending a test email to yourself.
First, click Send Test Email.
2. Next, enter the Sender’s email address (From address).
3. Enter your email address as the recipient (To address).
4. Finally, click Send Test Email.
Tip:
The sender’s email address (From address) should be that verified email for which DNS records are properly pointed. Sender’s email with no DNS authentication will mostly land in spam.
You will also get notified there once the test email is successfully sent.
All your outgoing emails from this server will be delivered through the SMTP gateway provider of your choice.
That’s it! We hope this article was helpful.
Need Help?
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