Designers shouldn’t need to debug SMTP. SecureSMTP routes every Elementor Pro Forms wp_mail() call through DKIM-signed infrastructure — upstream of Elementor’s own SMTP panel, with zero credential management. Multi-step forms, file uploads, PDF add-ons, popups: all preserved.
Free tier: 100 routed emails / month · works with Elementor Pro 3.18+ on PHP 7.4+ · no Elementor settings to change.
Last 10 routed Elementor emails
LiveDemo request · Hero CTA form
to hello@bramble-digital.com
Multi-step proposal — Step 5 complete
to lila@studiosixagency.com
Popup form submission · Newsletter
to sales@orchidlabs.io
Contact form · PDF quote attached
to admin@gardenroomco.com
Booking request · Saturday brunch
to team@ferncreekcoffee.co
Portfolio inquiry · 3D rendering
to jaden@northfront.studio
The problem
Elementor Pro Forms generate wp_mail() calls like every other WP form plugin. And like every other WP form plugin, they break the same way on shared hosts. The difference: Elementor users are usually designers shipping client sites — not the people who’ll notice when emails silently fail.
You spent two hours fine-tuning padding and hover transitions on a hero contact form. You hit publish. Conversion drops to zero — not because the form is broken, but because every notification email silently fails at the SMTP layer. The client thinks the redesign tanked their pipeline. It didn't. The email did.
Elementor Pro's "SMTP Email" panel (Elementor → Settings → Integrations → SMTP) lets you paste SMTP host + port + username + password. That works — IF you have working SMTP credentials. Most designers don't. And app-password setup for Gmail/Google Workspace is its own multi-screen ordeal.
The Elementor form widget has a 'Send Test Email' button that uses wp_mail(). It returns 'sent' as long as wp_mail() returns true — which it does even when the message dies in a downstream relay. You see green. The inbox sees nothing. By the time the client mentions missing leads, weeks have passed.
One plugin. One toggle. Every Elementor Pro Forms notification — and every other email your site sends — now goes through SPF-authenticated, DKIM-signed, DMARC-aligned infrastructure.
Free WordPress plugin v1.21.0, under 200 KB. Upload the zip from /downloads/securessmtp.zip?v=1.21.0 or search "QCS Forms" in the WP plugin directory. No conflict with Elementor or Elementor Pro — SecureSMTP sits at the WordPress mail layer, downstream of every Elementor action.
In the SecureSMTP dashboard, copy your site API key. Paste it into Settings → QCS Forms in WP-admin. Toggle "Route wp_mail() through SecureSMTP" to ON. You don't need to open Elementor Settings or change anything in your existing forms.
From this moment, every Elementor Pro Forms email action — primary email, Email 2 (the second-recipient action), conditional emails, multi-step final-submission emails — leaves through SPF-authenticated, DKIM-signed infrastructure. Elementor's MailChimp / HubSpot / ActiveCampaign integration actions are orthogonal (they POST to those APIs directly).
End-to-end Elementor Pro Forms email path
Visitor
Submits Elementor form
Elementor Forms
Form actions fire
wp_mail()
Native WP API
SecureSMTP plugin
Intercept + sign
Mail Router
Edge — securessmtp.com
SecureSMTP Platform
Quota + audit + log
Resend
IP-warmed, SPF + DKIM
Inbox
Delivered, on time
Fail-safe by design — Elementor won’t throw an error.
If the SecureSMTP platform is ever unavailable, WordPress falls back to its native mailer automatically. Elementor’s form action still reports "success" because wp_mail() did succeed — the message just took the fallback path. No email is silently dropped.
We hook at pre_wp_mail and phpmailer_init — downstream of every Elementor form action and form integration. Below is what changes (nothing) and what doesn’t (also nothing).
Elementor Pro's "Email" form action fires wp_mail() for the primary admin notification. Routes through SecureSMTP automatically. Conditional logic on the action ("only send if Budget > $5k") is evaluated by Elementor BEFORE we see the message — so we just route what fires.
The "Email 2" action — typically used for an auto-reply to the visitor — also fires wp_mail() and routes through SecureSMTP. It runs as its own send, so it gets its own routing-log entry. Both recipients receive their respective messages.
These actions POST submission data directly to MailChimp/HubSpot/AC APIs — they don't use wp_mail() at all. They keep working unchanged whether SecureSMTP is on or off. SecureSMTP handles transactional email; these handle list signups. Both run independently per form submit.
Webhook actions POST submission JSON to your custom endpoint over HTTP. No wp_mail() involved. Webhooks run alongside Email actions — both fire on submit, neither blocks the other. If your Make / Zapier / n8n flow sends a downstream email, that email is not via wp_mail() and falls outside SecureSMTP's scope.
Common PDF-generation add-ons (e.g. Plus Addons for Elementor PDF action, Crocoblock JetEngine PDF) attach the generated PDF to a notification email via wp_mail(). The attachment is forwarded intact — up to 30 MB per message — and recipients see the PDF in their inbox.
Elementor Pro's multi-step form widget submits on the final step — that's when Email actions fire. The flow is a UX feature, not a delivery concern: SecureSMTP sees the final wp_mail() and routes it. Step-by-step state is preserved by Elementor on the client side.
Elementor Pro's File Upload field can attach files to the notification email (under the field's Advanced tab → "Attach File"). Attachments up to 30 MB per message route through SecureSMTP intact. Multiple files per submission are concatenated as separate attachments, preserving original filenames.
Same Form widget = same code path. Whether the form lives in a section, a popup, or a sticky footer template, the Email action fires the same wp_mail() call. SecureSMTP routes it identically.
Themes only render markup — they don't send email. Hello, Hello+ Cloud, Astra, GeneratePress — whichever theme you use, the form widget fires wp_mail() the same way. SecureSMTP routes the message regardless of the active theme.
If Elementor calls wp_mail(), SecureSMTP routes it. That covers the Email action, Email 2 action, multi-step finals, popup forms, and all file/PDF attachments. Integration actions (MailChimp / HubSpot / Webhook) keep working independently — they don’t use wp_mail().
Elementor Pro ships an SMTP panel at Elementor → Settings → Integrations → SMTP Email. You paste an SMTP host, port, username, and password — and Elementor routes its form emails through that server. It works.
The catch is the same as every "BYO SMTP credentials" panel: you have to source working SMTP credentials, keep them rotated, and debug them when they break. For most designers and agency builders, that’s the part nobody wants to own.
SecureSMTP is hosted relay. No credentials to manage. And SecureSMTP works alongside Elementor’s built-in SMTP — they don’t fight. If Elementor’s SMTP is configured, we hook upstream via pre_wp_mail and the message routes through SecureSMTP before Elementor’s mailer would touch it. If Elementor’s SMTP isn’t configured, we catch the message at phpmailer_init instead. Either way, no conflict.
Real differences
Zero SMTP credentials
Paste a SecureSMTP API key — that’s it. No SMTP host, no port, no Gmail app password, no SendGrid API key.
Cross-site dashboard
One SecureSMTP account manages email + spam quarantine across every Elementor client site you build. Elementor’s SMTP panel lives per-site.
AI abuse scan
Each Elementor form submission can be auto-classified by Claude before email goes out — catches subtle spam keyword filters miss.
Other plugins included
SecureSMTP catches WooCommerce receipts, password resets, comment notifications too. Elementor’s SMTP only handles Elementor form emails.
Delivering an email is harder than it looks. Each layer below catches a different failure mode — together they’re why SecureSMTP-routed Elementor mail lands in the inbox, not the spam folder.
Every email passes the SPF check at the recipient. Your sender domain is listed as authorized in our SPF record, so Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and Apple Mail see the same answer: this server is allowed to send for SecureSMTP.
Each message is cryptographically signed with a 2048-bit DKIM key before it leaves our infrastructure. Recipients verify the signature against our published DNS record — proving the email wasn't tampered with in transit.
Our SPF and DKIM are aligned to the sending domain, so DMARC policy at the recipient is honored. Bring your own domain via DKIM and you can publish a strict DMARC policy — Elementor form emails still pass.
If SecureSMTP is ever unavailable, WordPress's native mailer takes over automatically. Elementor's form action still reports success — and your customer still receives the email via the host's normal path. No silent drops.
Each customer's site has its own quota window. If a bot brute-forces a popup form and tries to send 10,000 notifications in 5 minutes, we throttle it before reputation damage spreads to other customers on the platform.
All five layers ship on every plan — including the free one. Reliability isn’t a paywalled feature.
Elementor Pro ships its own SMTP panel. WP Mail SMTP is the popular generic plugin. SecureSMTP is the hosted-relay option. All three work — but they trade off differently. Pick whichever matches how you want to spend your debugging hours.
| Feature | Elementor + SecureSMTP | Elementor + built-in SMTP | Elementor + WP Mail SMTP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup time | 30 sec | 15–30 min | 30–60 min |
| Requires your own SMTP credentials | — | ||
| Requires DNS verification | Optional (DKIM) | — | |
| Authenticated delivery (SPF + DKIM) | Depends on host | ||
| Email log dashboard | — | Pro only ($49+/yr) | |
| AI bot/abuse scan on submissions | — | — | |
| Covers WooCommerce + WP core emails too | — | ||
| Cross-site dashboard | — | — | |
| Free tier | 100/mo, all features | Free | Limited |
| Cost (paid) | $7+/mo | Included in Elementor Pro $59+/yr | $49+/yr + mailer cost |
Comparison reflects each vendor’s default behaviour as of 2026-06. Elementor and Elementor Pro are independent products of Elementor Ltd.
Email-relay quotas below come straight from our plan-limits source-of-truth file — they apply to Elementor, WooCommerce, password resets, every wp_mail() call. One SecureSMTP account works across every Elementor client site you build.
Free
$0 /mo
For solo users and side projects.
Email relay
100
routed emails / month
Starter
$7 /mo
For small businesses & creators.
Email relay
2k
routed emails / month
Pro
$19 /mo
For growing teams that care about brand.
Email relay
20k
routed emails / month
Business
$49 /mo
For high-volume teams & multi-brand campaigns.
Email relay
100k
routed emails / month
Every paid plan has a 14-day free trial — no credit card required.
Scenarios that reflect the most common pain points described to us during onboarding.
I build agency sites in Elementor — about 30 a year. Email was always the part the client complained about three weeks after launch. Now I install SecureSMTP on every build and it just works.
Our popup form was supposed to send a brochure PDF on subscribe. Elementor reported success; the PDF never arrived. Switched to SecureSMTP, configured DKIM, the brochures started landing.
Multi-step booking form on a yoga studio site. The final-step confirmation kept going to spam in Gmail. With SecureSMTP routing it, the same email lands in the inbox.
These are composite scenarios reflecting common customer pain points described during onboarding, not direct verbatim quotes. Real, attributed testimonials will replace these as customers opt into public attribution after launch.
The eight questions we hear most from Elementor Pro users before flipping Email Delivery on.
SecureSMTP email-delivery pages for other form plugins and the WordPress core.
SecureSMTP SMTP overview
The main email-delivery page
3-min setup guide
Step-by-step install walkthrough
Contact Form 7 SMTP
CF7 + SecureSMTP email delivery
Forminator SMTP
Forminator + SecureSMTP email delivery
Gravity Forms SMTP
Gravity Forms + SecureSMTP email delivery
WPForms SMTP
WPForms + SecureSMTP email delivery
Fluent Forms SMTP
Fluent Forms + SecureSMTP email delivery
WooCommerce SMTP
Order receipts + Woo email
WordPress SMTP
WP core + every plugin
AI SMTP / spam-aware mail
Claude-classified outbound mail
SecureSMTP vs WP Mail SMTP
Apples-to-apples comparison
Install SecureSMTP, flip Email Delivery on, get back to designing. 30 seconds, no credit card, no SMTP credentials to manage.
Free tier · 100 routed emails / month · all 5 reliability layers · works on Elementor Pro 3.18+ on PHP 7.4+.