80
Newsletter – Send awesome emails from WordPress
A seasoned veteran with deep free features and an aging design.
HealthyDeclining
80/100
The plugin offers a powerful free tier but struggles with deliverability and an outdated interface.
Active installs
~234,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 200k+
Rating
4.6★
1,203 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-12%
Declining
2,216 → 1,939 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining · -12% in the last year
2,216/day a year ago→1,939/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayNewsletter is a well-regarded free WordPress email plugin valued for its robust feature set and ease of use, but it is held back by a dated email designer, occasional deliverability failures, and difficult-to-reach support.
What people like
- +Generous free feature set that covers most newsletter needs without a paid subscription×4
- +Easy to set up and works out of the box with little configuration required×5
- +Subscriber list management and segmentation features are useful and effective×3
- +Stable and reliable for users who have run it long-term across multiple sites×4
- +Compatible with third-party integrations such as Amazon S3 with no reported issues
- +Extensive documentation reduces the need to contact support
Common complaints
- −Emails fail to send or reach very few recipients for some users, with no clear resolution×2
- −Email designer is outdated — lacks multi-column layout as a standard feature and does not support background images
- −Back-end UI for managing lists and subscribers is clunky and behind modern standards×2
- −Support is difficult or impossible to reach×2
- −Exporting subscriber email addresses is reportedly broken even with the dedicated add-on plugin installed
- −Frequent updates disrupt workflow and suggest backend instability
Review trustReviews look organic
- 4.34★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.60★
- 8%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-10-182025-02-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 1,203 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-04-27★★★★★Plugin stopped working out of the bluecendrinemedia
- 2026-03-08★★★★★Works greatfert
- 2026-02-22★★★★★Does it allPacificSailors1-shot
- 2026-01-30★★★★★Solid and reliable plugin – works well with S3Bettega
- 2026-01-01★★★★★Well Built and Supported!wdtp
- 2025-12-14★★★★★Works greatdkoek
- 2025-11-11★★★★★great pluginDaniel B
- 2025-11-02★★★★★This newsletter has never worked properly and only getting worseteamyes1-shot
- 2025-09-27★★★★★Big Improvements on this pluginMr Lampstand
- 2025-08-21★★★★★Just what the doctored ordered2cups
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNAlternatives to Newsletter
Top Email plugins, ranked by score.For developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
1,789
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
1,790
Prior 7-day baseline
2,241
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
34,628
Mean release-day peak (30d)
2,511
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-0.1%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
9%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
0.75
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
74%
5★ share in analyzed sample
8%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
-33%
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.33 → 4.34★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered