Mailster

What it is

Mailster is a premium WordPress plugin for sending email newsletters and automated campaigns from your own WordPress site. Its tagline is "Send Beautiful Email Newsletters in WordPress." Subscribers, lists, forms and campaigns live inside WordPress, and the features page says "All your subscribers' data is stored in your own database. No third party has access to that data." The site invites visitors to "Join more than 27,000 people worldwide and use Mailster to grow your business."

The plugin is built to feel familiar to WordPress users. The features page says "We use the same User Interface as WordPress, so you'll easily find your way around." You choose how mail goes out: Mailster connects to an email service provider or to your own server.

Getting started

The home page describes setup in three steps: "Import your data from Excel or your CMS, or start your email list from scratch. Then pick one of our amazing newsletter templates, create your first Mailster campaign, and go!" A demo lets you try the plugin before buying, and the site also offers a free trial.

Lists, forms and subscribers are unlimited on every plan. The features page says "With Mailster there's no limit on subscribers. Unlimited subscribers, unlimited forms, and unlimited lists let you capture more actionable leads." Signup forms are a feature area of their own in the site's menu.

Editor and templates

Campaigns are built in a drag-and-drop editor. The home page says it lets you build campaigns in minutes and that "No coding skills are required," and that "You can also create customized templates so your campaign displays your brand." The template gallery offers "more than 400 free and premium designs," covering newsletters as well as email brochures and catalogs.

For developers, Mailster has a custom template language. The FAQ says it is "a simple email template language that you can quickly adapt to your existing HTML email templates," and the features page adds that Mailster "provides plenty hooks and filters you can use to increase its functionality and options." Merge tags personalize content with placeholders that the site describes as "customizable, extendable and easy to remember."

Before sending, the precheck feature reviews a campaign. The features page says "Mailster gives you feedback on what you should improve. Fix these issues, send and relax."

Automation

Mailster handles recurring and triggered email. The features page says you can "Send automatic welcome emails, birthday emails, drip campaigns, follow-ups, auto-responders and more." It can send your posts, products, events or other custom post types, and "Every type can also be used for email automation." A welcome series greets new subscribers.

RSS to email works with outside content too: "Your subscribers will want to know if there's new content on a third-party site they follow. With our RSS-to-email feature, new posts are automatically imported into an email and sent to your subscribers." Time zone based sending delivers campaigns "based on the time zone of your subscribers," so readers get them at the times they are most likely to open.

Segmentation and insights

The features page promises better targeting through segmentation, saying "Mailster provides many metrics to choose from so only the right audience gets the right email," and the pricing page lists advanced segmentation among the included features. Campaign insights are real time. The site says you can "Find out about your subscribers' click rates and open rates, their location, and other activities," and the home page adds their email providers to that list. The pricing page also lists reports and a public archive of your latest newsletters.

Sending

The features page says "Mailster works with any email provider, no matter if you want to use a professional provider or your own server," and the home page adds "We have integrations for many professional email service providers and support SMTP connections out of the box." The FAQ confirms you can send from your own server but advises using a dedicated email provider for better deliverability.

Throughput depends on your setup. The FAQ says "Delivery depends on your server infrastructure. We have customers who run Mailster on a VPS and send 12 emails per second (> 43.000 per hour)."

Teams, languages and integrations

Built-in capability management lets you "Assign specific rights to the people in your team." The pricing page says Mailster is "Available in over 15 languages." For other WordPress plugins, the features page says "We've partnered with many popular developers so you can continue using your favorite plugins along with Mailster," with add-ons listed on a separate page.

GDPR and data

The features page says "Mailster fully complies with GDPR requirements" and that data "is not transferred or shared with third parties." The FAQ answers "Is Mailster GDPR Compliant?" with "Yes. We provide all the features out of the box to make Mailster compliant with European law," while noting that the company cannot give legal advice on GDPR compliance for your business.

Plans and pricing

The pricing page lists three annual licenses priced per year excluding tax, with a toggle between US dollars and euros and the note "All pricing is in USD." At the time the page shows a "Special Black Friday price," each plan carries two figures: Starter 79 and 39, Professional 99 and 49, and Agency 199 and 99. The page adds "All renewals are at full price. You can change plans or cancel your account at any time."

• Starter: 1 site or domain, one year of support and updates, unlimited subscribers, lists and forms, 3 automations, 10 prechecks a month and 10 free email templates.
• Professional: the same, with 10 automations, 100 prechecks a month and 7 premium email templates added.
• Agency: unlimited automations and 1000 prechecks a month, with the same templates, still for 1 site or domain.

The FAQ says Mailster "is not a subscription-based service. You are entitled to use its features for a lifetime, regardless of whether your license is still valid." An active license is what brings updates and personal support, and it has to be renewed each year to keep them. There is no free version: "Mailster is premium only."

Purchases are covered by a 14-day money-back guarantee; the pricing page says that if you are not happy for any reason, "simply let us know within 14 days of your purchase and we'll refund you your money. No questions asked." The company also promises a full refund if it offers a lower price within 90 days of your purchase. Payment is by major credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard and American Express, or PayPal.

Support

The FAQ says "We provide support exclusively through individual emails," covering plugin bugs, conflicts and guidance on using Mailster. The support page says official support runs through the member area, and a knowledge base holds "over 300 articles, tips and troubleshooting guides." A Mailster Academy is linked from the footer, and for custom development the company points to its "expert support partner Codeable for consultations, customizations and small to medium-sized projects." Testimonials from CodeCanyon users on the support page include "customer support is fantastic" and "Support is responsive. They answer fast and fix issues promptly."

Who it suits and who it does not

Mailster suits WordPress site owners who want their subscriber list in their own database, unlimited contacts without per-subscriber pricing, and a WordPress-style interface: bloggers sending new posts automatically, publishers with international readers who benefit from time zone sending, and developers who want to code templates or extend the plugin with hooks and filters. Every plan, Agency included, is listed for 1 site or domain, which matters to anyone running email on many WordPress sites.

It is not for sites outside WordPress, and it is not a hosted service. You still need an email provider or server to send through, and the company recommends a dedicated provider for deliverability. Teams that want the vendor to handle sending infrastructure end to end will find a hosted platform simpler.