Mailster

Overview

Mailster is a self-hosted WordPress newsletter plugin that allows website owners to create, send, and track email campaigns directly from their WordPress dashboard without relying on external email marketing services. Developed by EverPress and available through CodeCanyon since its original launch, the plugin has been continuously maintained and improved over many years, earning over 25,400 active users worldwide. The plugin transforms WordPress installations into complete email marketing platforms with features comparable to SaaS services like Mailchimp or ConvertKit, but with the fundamental difference that all subscriber data stays on your own server.

What differentiates Mailster from cloud-based email marketing platforms is its one-time payment model and complete data ownership. Instead of paying recurring monthly fees that scale with subscriber count, users purchase an annual license starting at $79 (currently discounted to $39) and can manage unlimited subscribers, unlimited lists, and unlimited forms with no volume restrictions. The plugin stores all subscriber information directly in your WordPress database rather than on third-party servers, providing full control over your data and GDPR compliance without depending on external processors. For newsletter creators already invested in WordPress who want to eliminate recurring subscription costs and maintain complete control over their email marketing infrastructure, Mailster provides enterprise-level features at a fraction of the cost of traditional email service providers.

Best For

Mailster is ideal for WordPress users, bloggers, WooCommerce store owners, and small to medium businesses who want to manage email marketing directly from their website without ongoing subscription fees. The platform works particularly well for technically comfortable users who understand WordPress plugin management and are willing to configure SMTP delivery services for optimal inbox placement. Newsletter creators with established WordPress sites who send regularly and want to avoid the escalating costs of subscriber-based pricing will benefit most from Mailster's unlimited model. The plugin suits users who value data privacy and need GDPR-compliant email management where all subscriber information remains on their own servers, though it requires more technical setup than plug-and-play SaaS alternatives.

Key Features

• Unlimited Subscribers and Lists: Mailster imposes no artificial limits on subscriber counts, email lists, or form creation, allowing newsletter creators to grow their audience indefinitely without facing pricing tier increases. This unlimited model makes the plugin particularly cost-effective for businesses with large or rapidly growing subscriber bases, as the annual license cost remains constant regardless of whether you have 100 or 100,000 subscribers.

• Drag-and-Drop Email Builder: The plugin includes an intuitive visual editor that allows you to design professional newsletters without coding skills, using drag-and-drop functionality to add text, images, buttons, videos, and other elements. The builder provides real-time previews showing how emails will appear across different devices and email clients, ensuring your campaigns look polished whether subscribers read on desktop, mobile, or tablet.

• 400+ Email Templates: Mailster offers access to over 400 free and premium email templates covering various styles and use cases, from simple text newsletters to complex promotional campaigns. These mobile-responsive templates provide professional starting points that can be customized to match your brand, eliminating the need to design email layouts from scratch for every campaign.

• Advanced Automation Workflows: The plugin supports sophisticated automation sequences including welcome series for new subscribers, birthday campaigns, follow-up drip sequences, and behavior-triggered campaigns based on subscriber actions. While not as visually sophisticated as some SaaS automation builders, Mailster provides the essential automation capabilities that represent the majority of what most newsletter creators actually implement.

• RSS-to-Email Functionality: Mailster can automatically pull content from your blog's RSS feed and send it as an email newsletter to subscribers on a schedule you define. This RSS-to-email feature allows bloggers and content creators to automatically notify subscribers whenever new posts are published without manually creating campaigns for each piece of content.

• Multi-Provider SMTP Integration: The plugin integrates with professional email delivery services including SendGrid, Mailgun, Amazon SES, Sendy, Mailjet, and MailerSend through both native integrations and standard SMTP connections. These delivery integrations ensure reliable inbox placement and high deliverability rates that typically exceed what's possible when sending directly from a WordPress server.

• Comprehensive Analytics and Tracking: Mailster tracks essential email metrics including open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe data, and geographic distribution of subscribers. The analytics dashboard provides real-time insights into campaign performance with heat maps showing exactly where subscribers clicked within emails, helping newsletter creators understand what content resonates and optimize future campaigns.

• Advanced Segmentation Capabilities: The plugin allows you to create highly targeted subscriber segments based on demographics, engagement behavior, custom fields, list membership, and campaign interactions. Dynamic segmentation automatically updates based on subscriber actions, ensuring your audience groups stay current without manual maintenance and enabling personalized campaigns that deliver relevant content to specific reader interests.

• Time Zone-Based Delivery: Mailster can send emails based on individual subscriber time zones rather than one universal sending time, ensuring messages arrive when recipients are most likely to check their inbox. This time zone targeting optimizes open rates by delivering emails at appropriate local times across global audiences, though it requires saving subscriber IP addresses to determine locations.

• WooCommerce Integration: For online stores using WooCommerce, Mailster integrates to send transactional emails, abandoned cart reminders, product recommendations, and post-purchase follow-ups directly from WordPress. This ecommerce integration connects email marketing directly to sales activity without requiring separate platforms or manual coordination between your store and email system.

• GDPR Compliance Built-In: Mailster fully complies with GDPR requirements by storing all subscriber data in your own WordPress database without transferring information to third parties. The plugin includes features like double opt-in confirmation, easy unsubscribe options, subscriber data management, and audit trails that help newsletter creators meet European privacy regulations.

• Campaign Pre-Check System: Before sending campaigns, Mailster includes a pre-check feature that tests emails for spam triggers, broken links, missing images, and technical issues that might hurt deliverability. The Starter plan includes 1,000 pre-checks per month, helping creators catch problems before campaigns reach subscribers and protecting sender reputation.

Pricing

Mailster operates on an annual license model rather than monthly subscriptions. The Starter plan is currently priced at $79 per year but offered at a promotional discount of $39 per year, providing access for one site or domain with one year of support and updates, unlimited subscribers, unlimited lists, unlimited forms, three automation workflows, and 1,000 campaign pre-checks per month. The Growth plan costs $149 per year (discounted to $79) and adds five sites or domains, ten automation workflows, and 5,000 monthly pre-checks. The Professional plan runs $349 per year (discounted to $149) and includes unlimited sites, unlimited automation workflows, and 10,000 monthly pre-checks, making it suitable for agencies managing client websites or businesses operating multiple WordPress installations. All plans include 10 free email templates with access to purchase additional premium templates separately. After the first year, licenses must be renewed annually to continue receiving plugin updates and email support, though the plugin continues functioning even without an active license. The one-time nature of the annual payment combined with unlimited subscribers makes Mailster significantly more economical than subscription-based platforms for users with large or growing email lists, though users must separately pay for SMTP email delivery services like Amazon SES, SendGrid, or Mailgun, which typically charge $0.10 to $1 per 1,000 emails sent depending on volume. Mailster offers a 14-day money-back guarantee and occasionally offers lower pricing through resellers, though purchasing directly from the official website ensures authentic licensing and proper support access.