SendPulse SMTP Settings and Configuration (2026)
Native SMTP relay on smtp-pulse.com
SendPulse runs a first-class SMTP relay with its own pricing page, its own quota table and its own credentials — it is not a bolt-on to the campaign product. Connect on 587 (STARTTLS), 465 (implicit SSL/TLS) or 2525 when your host blocks the standard ports. The free tier relays 12,000 emails a month, throttled to 50 per hour and 400 per day.
The relay and the REST API are two parallel doors into the same transactional service, so nothing forces you into HTTP just to send mail. The catches are operational rather than technical: SMTP credentials are only issued after a human moderator approves your account (officially up to 24 hours), and the SMTP product is billed and quota’d separately from Email Marketing. If you need a relay you can switch on the same afternoon, Brevo and MailerLite provision faster; Moosend and GetResponse are the closest peers if you are shopping the marketing suite and the relay together.
Quick reference
| SMTP server | smtp-pulse.com — one global hostname, no regional endpoints |
| Port — STARTTLS | 587 RECOMMENDED |
| Port — SSL/TLS | 465 — implicit TLS, the value shown in SendPulse’s own PHPMailer sample |
| Alternative port | 2525 — for hosts that block 25 and 587 |
| Username | Your SendPulse login email address — shown as Login under SMTP settings › General |
| Password | A dedicated SMTP password generated by SendPulse — not your dashboard password |
SMTP configuration
SendPulse transactional relay
Transactional mail from an application, a CMS or any client that speaks SMTP AUTH.
Setup steps
- Complete your user profile — primary email, intended use case, how you collected the list, and confirmation that your mail carries an unsubscribe link. SendPulse will not release SMTP credentials without it.
- Confirm the primary email address, then wait for manual moderation. SendPulse states approval takes up to 24 hours; the service settings stay hidden until it lands.
- Add your sending domain and publish the SPF and DKIM records described below, then hit verify in the dashboard. Propagation can take several hours.
- Open SMTP settings › General and copy the SMTP server, Port, Login and Password fields into your application or plugin configuration.
- Send a test message from a confirmed sender address on 587, then check the SMTP log in the dashboard. If the connection hangs rather than rejects, retry on 2525 before touching credentials.
Free-plan accounts are capped at 3 sender addresses and 2 authenticated domains, and every sender email must be confirmed individually before the relay accepts it in the From header. The sending address must sit on a corporate domain. Domains can also be managed over the API at /v2/email-service/smtp/sender_domains.
Authentication
SPF and DKIM setup
SendPulse uses a fixed DKIM selector, sign, so the DKIM host is always sign._domainkey. The public key is generated per account — copy your own value from the dashboard rather than any example you find in the documentation. Publish both records at your DNS provider:
; SPF — TXT record at the domain root @ IN TXT "v=spf1 include:mxsspf.sendpulse.com +a +mx ~all" ; DKIM — TXT record, fixed selector "sign" sign._domainkey IN TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=<your public key from the SendPulse dashboard>" ; Optional — branded click tracking (CNAME supplied in the dashboard) ; track IN CNAME <value supplied by SendPulse>
Two details break more setups than anything else here. First, in cPanel-style DNS editors the name field is not relative, so you enter the fully qualified sign._domainkey.yourdomain.com instead of the bare selector. Second, if the domain already publishes an SPF record, do not add a second TXT record — merge include:mxsspf.sendpulse.com into the existing one. A domain carrying two SPF records fails SPF outright, which is worse than having none.
The CNAME is optional and affects branding only: it removes SendPulse’s domain from tracked links while keeping open and click metrics intact. Delivery works without it.
DMARC alignment
DMARC is documented separately from the SMTP knowledge base. The record goes at _dmarc and SendPulse’s own example reads v=DMARC1;p=reject;rua=mailto:example@domain.com;ruf=mailto:email@domain.com;fo=s. Do not start there. SendPulse explicitly recommends publishing with p=none first, reading the aggregate reports for a couple of weeks to confirm every legitimate stream is passing, and only then moving the policy flag to quarantine and eventually reject.
; Phase 1 — monitor only _dmarc IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com; fo=s" ; Phase 3 — enforce, once reports are clean _dmarc IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com; fo=s"
Alignment is straightforward because the relay signs with your own domain: once sign._domainkey resolves and the From address is on the verified domain, DKIM aligns and the message passes DMARC on the DKIM leg even if a forwarder breaks the SPF path. Treat DKIM verification as the blocking step and SPF as the supporting one.
Rate limits & sending caps
| Limit | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly speed — free | 50/hour | Hard daily ceiling of 400 emails on top, inside a 12,000/month allowance. |
| Hourly speed — paid | 2,500 to 25,000/hour | Tied to the plan tier, not to remaining quota. Subscription 100,000 gives 8,000/hour; pay-as-you-go 500,000 gives 25,000/hour. |
| Bounce throttle | 7% bounce rate | Crossing it drops the account to 50/hour. More than 20 errors in 24 hours blocks the account. |
| Message size | 25 MB hard maximum | Above 1 MB a message counts as two emails against quota; on the free plan anything over 1 MB is refused. |
| API requests | 1,000 to 3,000/minute | Free 1,000/min and 500,000/day, up to Enterprise 3,000/min and 3,000,000/day. Over the ceiling returns HTTP 429. |
Read the hourly figure as a speed limit, not a budget. The bounce throttle is evaluated on the last 15 minutes of sending, so one dirty import can collapse an account paying for 20,000/hour to the 50/hour floor inside a single batch. Poll GET /smtp/bounces/day if you want warning before it bites.
Common setup gotchas
SMTP credentials do not exist until a human approves the account
You cannot sign up and relay the same hour. SendPulse requires a completed profile, a confirmed email address, and then manual moderation taking up to 24 hours — the service settings only become available after approval. Teams planning a same-day cutover to smtp-pulse.com stall here. Budget a day, and start the profile before you schedule the migration window.
The SMTP password is not your account password
The relay wants your login email plus a password that SendPulse generates for you under SMTP settings › General. Neither your dashboard password nor the API client_secret will authenticate against smtp-pulse.com. Most “authentication failed” reports trace back to someone pasting the API secret into a WordPress SMTP plugin.
A 7% bounce rate silently costs you 99.75% of your throughput
SendPulse layers a deliverability throttle on top of the plan speed: exceed 7% bounces and the hourly limit drops to the 50/hour minimum, no notification required. More than 20 errors in 24 hours blocks the account outright. Validate lists before large sends, and treat suppression hygiene as a throughput problem, not just a reputation one.
SMTP and Email Marketing are separate products with separate quotas
The relay is sold at its own pricing page (12,000 emails/month free, pay-as-you-go from $15 per 10,000) while Email Marketing is a different product with a different free tier (500 subscribers, 15,000 emails/month). Upgrading the marketing subscription does not raise SMTP throughput, and SMTP credits do not fund campaigns. The campaign API also carries an unrelated cap of 4 campaigns per hour.
Migrating SMTP setups
Moving to SendPulse
Sequence the account work before the DNS work, because moderation is the long pole. Open the account, complete the profile and clear moderation first; only then add the domain, publish include:mxsspf.sendpulse.com and sign._domainkey, and verify. If you are coming from a provider that used a CNAME-based DKIM setup, note that SendPulse gives you a TXT record with a fixed selector instead, so the two can coexist during the cutover without collision — keep the old provider’s DKIM published until traffic has fully moved.
On the application side the change is a hostname, a port and a credential pair. Point the client at smtp-pulse.com on 587, swap in the login email and generated password, and run a canary send before flipping production traffic. Watch throughput on day one: if your old relay let you burst, the plan-tier hourly ceiling here will queue you. Check the free-plan sender caps too — 3 addresses and 2 domains is tight for a multi-brand setup.
Moving away from SendPulse
Export the SMTP unsubscribe list before you cancel. It lives behind GET /smtp/unsubscribe and it is not the same list as your campaign unsubscribes — losing it means re-mailing people who already opted out on the transactional stream. Pull the bounce history from /smtp/bounces/day at the same time if you want a suppression seed for the new provider; SendPulse keeps a year of SMTP history but you will not have access after the account closes.
Then run both relays in parallel for a few days. Add the new provider’s SPF include alongside the existing one in a single merged record, publish the new DKIM selector (anything other than sign will not conflict), and shift traffic gradually. Remove include:mxsspf.sendpulse.com only once the SendPulse logs show zero sends, and note that pay-as-you-go credits expire 12 months after purchase.
Frequently asked questions
What are the SendPulse SMTP server settings?
Host smtp-pulse.com, port 587 with STARTTLS or 465 with implicit SSL/TLS, username = your SendPulse login email address, password = the dedicated SMTP password generated under SMTP settings › General. Port 2525 is available as an alternative when a host blocks the standard ports.
Which port should I use — 465, 587 or 2525?
Use 587 by default: STARTTLS on 587 is the modern submission standard and is the least likely to be filtered by a corporate network. Use 465 if your library prefers implicit TLS — SendPulse’s own PHPMailer sample uses it. Fall back to 2525 only when the first two time out, which usually means a shared host or cloud provider is blocking outbound mail ports.
Why is my SendPulse SMTP login failing?
Three causes cover nearly all of them. Your account has not cleared moderation yet, so the credentials shown are placeholders or absent. You are using the account dashboard password or the API client_secret instead of the generated SMTP password. Or the From address is not one of your confirmed sender addresses — the relay authenticates but then refuses the envelope.
How many emails per hour can I send?
50 per hour on the free plan, with an additional daily ceiling of 400. Paid tiers run from 2,500/hour up to 25,000/hour depending on the plan size and on whether you are on a subscription or pay-as-you-go. The figure is a function of the plan tier, not of how much quota you have left.
Why did my sending limit drop to 50 emails per hour?
Your bounce rate crossed 7%. SendPulse evaluates it over the last 15 minutes of sending and drops the account to the 50/hour minimum when it is exceeded. Clean the offending list, let the rate recover, and monitor GET /smtp/bounces/day. If you accumulate more than 20 errors within 24 hours the account is blocked rather than throttled.
Does an Email Marketing plan raise my SMTP limits?
No. The SMTP relay and Email Marketing are separately priced products with separate quotas and separate limits tables. An Email Marketing subscription leaves your SMTP hourly speed exactly where it was, and SMTP pay-as-you-go credits cannot pay for bulk campaigns. Buy against the product you are actually sending from.
Official documentation: SMTP setup guide, SMTP limits and DKIM configuration.
This review follows our email infrastructure testing methodology. We disclose affiliate relationships in our editorial independence policy.
