PMPro Hosting includes built-in support for transactional emails sent by your WordPress site. This service is designed to reliably deliver important, site-generated messages while protecting overall email deliverability for all customers.

This article explains what transactional emails are, how sending limits work, and what is allowed and not allowed when using this feature.

What Are Transactional Emails?

Transactional emails are automated messages sent in response to a specific action taken by a user or administrator on your site.

Common examples include:

• Membership confirmation and checkout receipts
• Password reset emails
• Account status or expiration notices
• Admin notifications related to site activity

These emails are sent automatically by WordPress, Paid Memberships Pro, or other plugins as part of normal site operation.

What PMPro Hosting Provides (and What It Doesn’t)

PMPro Hosting provides outbound email delivery only.

Included

• Sending transactional emails from a unique {your_domain}@pmpromailer.com sender address.
• Monitoring of outgoing email volume
• Automatic warnings when you approach sending limits
• Temporary blocking if limits are exceeded (to prevent abuse)

Not Included

• Email inboxes or mailboxes
• Webmail access
• Receiving or storing incoming email

You must already have an email address from another provider (such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho, or a domain email service) to use transactional emails.

PMPro Hosting sends emails on behalf of your site, but does not host or manage your email accounts. Replies to transactional emails are delivered to the inbox associated with your reply-to address.

Email Inboxes and Email Accounts

PMPro Hosting does not provide email inboxes or email accounts. You’ll need an email provider to create email addresses for your domain (for example, support@yourdomain.com).

These inboxes are used to:

• Receive replies to transactional emails
• Monitor bounces or delivery issues
• Receive admin and support messages

Common Email Providers

You can use any email provider that supports custom domain email, including:

• Google Workspace (Google Apps for Your Domain)
• Fastmail
• Proton Mail
• Zoho Mail
• Email services included with some domain registrars

Once you have an email address set up, you can use it as the reply-to email address for transactional emails on your site.

Sending Limits

To ensure reliable delivery and prevent misuse, transactional emails are rate-limited per domain.

• Soft warning: 220 emails sent within a rolling 1-month period
• Hard limit: 250 emails sent within a rolling 1-month period

If you approach the limit, you will see a warning in your WordPress admin. If the limit is exceeded, outgoing transactional emails will be temporarily blocked.

What Happens If Emails Are Blocked?

If your site exceeds the transactional email limit:

• Outgoing transactional emails will temporarily stop sending
• A warning will be displayed in the WordPress admin
• Email sending will automatically resume once the limit resets

No manual action is required unless your site continues to exceed the limit.

Allowed Email Use

The transactional email service may only be used for site-generated, transactional messages, including:

• Membership checkout and renewal confirmations
• Password reset and account security emails
• Member notifications triggered by actions on the site
• Admin alerts and system notifications

If the email would reasonably be expected as part of using your site, it is likely allowed.

Disallowed Email Use

Transactional emails may not be used for:

• Newsletters or bulk email campaigns
• Marketing or promotional messages
• Sales announcements or drip campaigns
• Cold outreach or unsolicited email
• Any form of mass mailing unrelated to a specific user action

If an email is primarily promotional, scheduled, or sent to many recipients at once, it is not transactional and is not permitted.

For these use cases, you must use a dedicated email marketing service (EMS) such as Mailchimp or Kit.

If you need to send higher volumes of email or use your own provider, you can configure WordPress to use a separate transactional email service.

Using Your Own Transactional Email Sending Service

If you prefer not to use PMPro Hosting’s built-in transactional email service, you can configure your site to send transactional emails using your own email provider.

This option is recommended if you:

• Already use an email provider for your domain
• Need higher transactional email sending limits
• Want more control over email delivery and logging

Email Providers

The following providers work well for transactional email sending:

Google Workspace (Google Apps for Your Domain)

Google Workspace provides reliable email inboxes and strong deliverability, but requires SMTP configuration to send transactional emails from WordPress. You’ll need to connect your site using an SMTP plugin.

Brevo (Transactional Email)

Brevo offers a dedicated transactional email service with higher limits and detailed delivery reporting. Brevo can be connected to WordPress using their official plugin or via SMTP.

Why These Limits Exist

Transactional emails must be delivered quickly and reliably. Sending high volumes of non-transactional email can negatively impact email delivery for everyone on the platform.

These safeguards help:

• Protect your site’s email reputation
• Ensure critical emails reach your members
• Prevent abuse and accidental misconfiguration

Frequently Asked Questions