Postalion

Switching from MailPoet

MailPoet's free plan stops at 500 contacts and puts its logo in your emails. Postalion has no limit, no logo and no account, and it can take your subscribers over from MailPoet in one go. Here is what that move looks like, honestly.

What comes over by itself

  • Subscribers, with first and last names and their original sign-up dates.
  • Statuses: subscribed, waiting to confirm and unsubscribed stay as they are; bounced addresses are treated as unsubscribed; inactive ones as subscribed, since they never left.
  • Lists: MailPoet's ordinary lists become Postalion lists with the same names, and people keep their memberships.
  • Users of your site: recipients in Postalion by default; if they had unsubscribed in MailPoet, they stay unsubscribed.

Nothing in MailPoet is changed or deleted, and the import can be run again; it only adds people who are not here yet.

What you set up again

  • Forms: replace MailPoet's form block or widget with the Postalion block or [postalion_form]. If you used a form per list, add list="slug". The forms page has the options, including the popup.
  • Welcome email and post notifications: two switches under Settings → Automatic emails; write the welcome text once more.
  • Sending: MailPoet's paid plans include a sending service; Postalion sends through your site. Enter an SMTP service under Settings → Sending method and press Send test. The sending page explains the choices; Brevo, Amazon SES, Mailgun or Postmark all do.
  • Sender and templates: check the sender name and address, pick one of the five templates, send yourself a test.

What does not come over

  • Sent newsletters and their statistics stay in MailPoet. Keep it installed, deactivated, if you want to look back; or export what you need first.
  • Newsletter designs: MailPoet's drag-and-drop layouts have no equivalent. Postalion's composer is a text editor with email blocks and a template around it; most letters are rebuilt in minutes.
  • Dynamic segments and custom fields: Postalion has lists, not segments. Send to one list, several, or everyone.
  • WooCommerce purchase emails and automations beyond the two above are planned for the Pro add-on.

The steps, in order

  1. Install and activate Postalion while MailPoet is still active.
  2. Settings → Sending method: enter your SMTP service, send a test, save.
  3. Settings → Import from MailPoet: tick the lists, press Import now, wait for "Done".
  4. Check Subscribers and Lists: the counts should match MailPoet's, minus trashed people and minus users of the site, who are counted separately.
  5. Replace the forms on your pages; turn on the automatic emails you had.
  6. Send one newsletter from Postalion. When it has arrived everywhere it should, deactivate MailPoet.

Why people move

No subscriber or sending limit. No logo in the footer. Nothing sent to outside servers, no account, no telemetry. One plugin, nine tables, your database. And when a Pro add-on comes, nothing in the free plugin will move behind a price.

Postalion is not affiliated with MailPoet. MailPoet is a trademark of its owner; its free plan limits are as published on its site at the time of writing.

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