Hostinger WordPress Email Setup: Free Email & SMTP Configuration

Hostinger includes free email hosting with Starter, Business, and Cloud plans. You can create professional email addresses like contact@yourdomain.com:

1. hPanel → Emails → Email Accounts
2. Click Create Email Account
3. Enter username (e.g., 'info', 'contact', 'hello')
4. Create a strong password
5. Choose storage allocation (100MB to 5GB per account)
6. Click Create

Each plan includes different email storage limits — Business plan includes 100 email accounts with generous storage. Access your email via Webmail (hPanel → Emails → Webmail) or configure an email client (Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail) using IMAP/SMTP settings from hPanel.

WordPress uses PHP's mail() function by default to send emails. On shared hosting, these emails frequently land in spam or don't deliver at all because:

• Shared hosting IPs are often on spam blacklists
• No proper SPF/DKIM authentication
• High volume from shared servers triggers spam filters

This affects contact form submissions, WooCommerce order confirmations, password resets, and account notifications. The fix: configure SMTP to send WordPress emails through a dedicated transactional email service.

Recommended transactional email services (all have free tiers):

• Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): 300 emails/day free. Best for beginners.
• Postmark: Excellent deliverability, 100 free emails/month, then $15/mo
• SendGrid: 100 emails/day free, trusted by developers

Setup with FluentSMTP (free plugin):

1. Install FluentSMTP from WordPress Plugins → Add New
2. Go to FluentSMTP → Settings → Add Connection
3. Select your email provider and enter API credentials
4. Set 'From Name' and 'From Email' to your business email address
5. Send a test email to verify delivery

WooCommerce sends several transactional emails: new order (to admin), order confirmation (to customer), shipping notification, refund confirmation, and password reset. All of these rely on WordPress's email system.

After configuring FluentSMTP:

1. WooCommerce → Settings → Emails → Test each email type
2. Customize email templates: WooCommerce → Settings → Emails → click each email type to customize header, color, footer, and content
3. Set the From email to your business address (not a shared hosting address)

Test order email delivery by placing a test order in WooCommerce testing mode with a personal email address as the customer.

For the best email deliverability when sending from your Hostinger domain, configure SPF and DKIM records in hPanel → DNS Zone Editor:

SPF record (example for Brevo):
Type: TXT | Name: @ | Value: v=spf1 include:sendinblue.com ~all

DKIM: Your SMTP provider generates DKIM keys. Add the TXT record they provide to your DNS zone. Both Brevo and SendGrid provide step-by-step DNS configuration instructions.

Proper SPF + DKIM dramatically reduces email going to spam and is required by Gmail and Yahoo for bulk senders since 2024.