AWeber SMTP Settings and Configuration (2026)

Below: what AWeber exposes, the right tool for each job behind this query, and the DKIM and DMARC setup Gmail and Yahoo now require. Peers sit in the same position-Constant Contact, GetResponse, MailerLite-while Mailchimp is the exception, selling a relay as a paid add-on.

Quick reference

Why AWeber has no SMTP relay

AWeber has been a permission-based list-marketing company since 1998, and the architecture follows from that. Mail leaves only as a broadcast or campaign follow-up to subscribers already on a list in your account, with confirmed opt-in, unsubscribe handling and complaint routing enforced at that layer. An open relay would let a customer inject mail to addresses that never opted in, bypassing every control AWeber’s shared IP pools depend on. The absence of SMTP is not an unshipped feature; it is the constraint the product rests on.

That constraint extends to the API. The OAuth 2.0 REST interface is capable, subscribers, segments, scheduled broadcasts, webhooks, but no endpoint accepts a recipient address and a body and delivers it. Developers who accept there is no SMTP often assume the API will carry transactional traffic instead; it will not. AWeber names no official transactional partner either, so that half of your stack must be sourced independently, unlike Mailchimp, which kept a relay alive as a paid add-on.

What you actually need instead

Four distinct jobs bring people to this query. Find yours.

Sending transactional email

Password resets, receipts and shipping notices need a relay with per-message logs and delivery independent of your marketing reputation. Postmark is the strongest pairing: a real relay on the standard submission ports plus a REST API, with transactional and broadcast streams on separate infrastructure, so a campaign problem can never delay a password reset. If cost dominates, Brevo and SMTP2GO are free-to-cheap; on AWS, Amazon SES is cheapest per thousand.

Connecting a CMS or app

If WordPress contact-form mail is going to spam, AWeber is not the fix and will never appear in the mailer list of WP Mail SMTP or FluentSMTP. Point one of those plugins at a relay account and send a test from its diagnostics screen before trusting a live form. AWeber’s own WordPress plugin and web-form integrations are subscriber-capture tools, they write to your list and never touch wp_mail(). Same split in any framework: AWeber API for list writes, relay credentials for outbound mail.

Routing notifications and alerts

Server alerts, cron output and monitoring mail belong on a relay, sent from a dedicated subdomain such as notify.example.com. Volume is low and bursty, the profile free relay tiers cover, and keeping it off your primary domain means an alert storm never contaminates the domain AWeber signs.

Making AWeber’s campaigns authenticate

By a wide margin the largest real group: people whose host called the equivalent screen “SMTP settings” and who need broadcasts to pass Gmail and Yahoo bulk-sender checks. No relay involved, the work is entirely DNS.

Sending domain authentication

Gmail and Yahoo require bulk senders to use a custom-domain From address, sign with DKIM and publish a DMARC policy. AWeber enforces all three: a free @gmail.com or @yahoo.com From address cannot be authenticated at all, so a custom domain with a real mailbox is a prerequisite.

Verify the From address first

Open Domains and Addresses, click Add New Email Address, and confirm the verification message. This screen is the biggest source of confusion on the platform: it looks like an SMTP setup form, but it only proves you control the address.

SPF and DKIM setup

AWeber signs with three rotating DKIM keys published as CNAMEs, so you delegate rather than paste key material. Add all three at your DNS provider, or use AWeber’s automatic setup, supported for 40+ registrars and DNS hosts:

; DKIM, three CNAME records, all required
Type    Host                       Value
CNAME   aweber_key_a._domainkey    aweber_key_a.send.aweber.com
CNAME   aweber_key_b._domainkey    aweber_key_b.send.aweber.com
CNAME   aweber_key_c._domainkey    aweber_key_c.send.aweber.com

; TTL: leave at your provider's default
; Do NOT proxy these records (Cloudflare: DNS only / grey cloud)

SPF needs nothing. AWeber says so in the title of its own help article, “Do I need to update my domain’s SPF record? The answer is No.”, because SPF aligns against the return-path, and the return-path here is send.aweber.com, which AWeber owns and publishes SPF for itself. An include on your record changes no outcome and burns one of the 10 DNS lookups SPF allows. Alignment comes from DKIM.

DMARC alignment

A DMARC policy is mandatory. AWeber’s compliance guidance requires a published policy of none, quarantine or reject alongside custom DKIM signing and a custom-domain From address. The starter record AWeber supplies:

Type    Host      Value
TXT     _dmarc    v=DMARC1; p=none; pct=100; rua=mailto:dmarc@fbl.optin.com;

Two cautions. Keep exactly one _dmarc TXT record. AWeber’s guide is explicit that duplicates must be deleted, and strip any quotation marks your DNS provider auto-inserts, a common cause of a record that looks right in the dashboard and parses as invalid at the receiver. If you already run DMARC with your own rua, keep yours. Allow 24-48 hours for propagation before the dashboard flips to “Installed”, then set the verified address as the From address in List Settings and ramp volume gradually.

Sending limits

AWeber does not gate by hourly throughput, because there is no relay to throttle. It gates by a monthly send allowance expressed as a multiple of subscriber count, plus a per-minute ceiling on the API.

Common mistakes

Pairing AWeber with an SMTP provider

Recommended setup

Give each job its own subdomain. Let AWeber sign and send from your primary domain, the one subscribers recognise, and run the relay from mail.example.com. Our pick for the relay half is Postmark, for separated transactional and broadcast infrastructure plus per-message logs; Brevo and SMTP2GO are the budget picks and drop straight into WP Mail SMTP; Amazon SES wins on unit cost inside AWS. AWeber endorses none of these, this is SMTPedia’s judgement, not a partnership. Budget the relay separately, because nothing in AWeber’s pricing, not $12.49/month Lite, not $19.99/month Plus, not Done For You at $20/month plus a one-time $79 setup fee, unlocks SMTP.

Keeping the two systems from conflicting

Two failure modes matter. The first is DMARC interference: both systems must align independently, and the subdomain split does that work, since the relay authenticates mail.example.com with its own SPF and DKIM while AWeber’s three CNAMEs cover the parent. Publish _dmarc at the organisational domain so it applies to both by inheritance, and keep exactly one such record however many senders you add.

The second is double-sending. If your app writes a subscriber into AWeber while also firing a welcome through the relay, and an AWeber campaign triggers on list entry, the recipient gets two welcomes seconds apart. Decide per message class which system owns it: lifecycle and marketing sequences belong to AWeber, anything triggered by a single user action belongs to the relay. Keep suppression lists separate, an unsubscribe in AWeber must never stop a password reset.

Frequently asked questions