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Why Your MailPoet Welcome Emails and Automations Aren't Sending (And How to Fix It)

49 threads Sep 17, 2025

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Welcome emails are a cornerstone of email marketing, making it incredibly frustrating when they don't work as expected. A common issue reported by users of 'MailPoet – Newsletters, Email Marketing, and Automation' is that their welcome automations fail to send, send with significant delays, or appear to be stuck in a "sending" state indefinitely.

Based on community reports and troubleshooting threads, this guide will walk you through the most common reasons for this problem and the steps you can take to resolve it.

Why This Happens

Welcome emails, now managed within the Automations section of the plugin, rely on a specific series of events to trigger. When one part of this chain is interrupted or misconfigured, the automation can fail silently, often without generating an obvious error message in your dashboard.

Common Solutions

1. Confirm Double Opt-In is Completed

This is by far the most frequent cause. A welcome email automation triggered by "Subscribed to list" will only send after a new subscriber has clicked the confirmation link in their initial double opt-in email.

  • The Problem: You receive the confirmation email and see the confirmation, but the welcome email never sends.
  • The Fix: Double-check that your test subscriber has fully confirmed their subscription. Their status in the MailPoet subscriber list should be "Subscribed," not "Unconfirmed." The welcome email will not send for "Unconfirmed" subscribers.

2. Check Your Sending Method

Your website's method for sending emails (its sending service) can be a bottleneck.

  • The Problem: General newsletters might send fine, but automated emails get stuck or are extremely slow. This is often due to using the default WordPress sending method (PHP mail), which is unreliable for automated tasks.
  • The Fix: Configure a proper sending service. The 'MailPoet – Newsletters, Email Marketing, and Automation' team recommends using their own sending service or a third-party SMTP provider (like SendGrid, Mailgun, or Google SMTP). This is configured under MailPoet > Settings > Send With... A dedicated SMTP service is far more reliable for triggering and sending automations.

3. Investigate the Task Scheduler (Cron)

MailPoet uses a system called a "task scheduler" to trigger automated events like welcome emails. If this is not working correctly, automations will not run.

  • The Problem: Emails are stuck in a "Scheduled" or "Sending" state for days.
  • The Fix: Go to MailPoet > Help > System Status. Look for the "Cron" or "Task Scheduler" section. If it says "No" for accessible, this is likely your issue. The official knowledge base provides guides on how to set up a proper cron job for your website, which often resolves stalled automations.

4. Test for Plugin Conflicts

Sometimes, other plugins on your WordPress site can interfere with how MailPoet operates.

  • The Problem: Automations worked before a update or after installing a new plugin.
  • The Fix: Temporarily deactivate all other plugins except MailPoet. Then, test your welcome email automation again. If it works, reactivate your plugins one by one to identify the culprit. Also, testing with a default WordPress theme (like Twenty-Twenty Four) can help rule out theme-related conflicts.

5. Legacy Welcome Email Migration Issue

After a plugin update, older welcome emails created before the Automations feature was introduced were supposed to migrate automatically. In some cases, this migration did not complete fully.

  • The Problem: A welcome email you created weeks or months ago has disappeared from the Automations list, yet subscribers may still be receiving it (or not).
  • The Fix: You will likely need to recreate the automation from scratch within the new Automations tab. Check that the trigger and all settings are correctly configured in the new system.

What to Do If You're Still Stuck

If you've worked through these common solutions and your welcome emails are still not sending, the next step is to gather detailed information about your site's environment. Before seeking help from the community, be prepared to provide the following, which can be found under MailPoet > Help > System Status and System Info:

  • The sending method you are using.
  • The status of your Task Scheduler/Cron.
  • Any errors listed (even if they seem unrelated).
  • The exact steps to reproduce the issue.

This information is crucial for anyone trying to diagnose a more complex or unique issue with your setup.

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