Sarah runs a small community garden and sends her volunteers a monthly update with photos and planting schedules. James writes an independent local newsletter and composes his pieces directly in WordPress. Emma manages a small music school and shares the season programme with families — concert photos included. And Michael, an amateur astronomer, keeps his community of curious minds alive through a blog he writes in the evenings after work.
What they share: the desire to offer something genuine to people who genuinely care about it. They don't need a marketing platform. They need somewhere to write freely, and a simple way to send what they've written.
Plume is built for them — and perhaps for you. And because that kind of project shouldn't be held back by a subscription that grows alongside your community, Plume is free, with no contact limits, and your data stays on your own server.
The block editor lets you compose freely: texts, images, WordPress articles, buttons. No imposed template, no format constraints.
Subscriptions, preferences and statistics stay on your own server. What you write lands directly in your readers' inboxes, with no intermediary.
Plume is free, with no contact or campaign limits. Because the size of your community shouldn't determine whether you can afford to write to it.
Writing gives you wings.
Write, illustrate and send your newsletters directly from your WordPress dashboard. To stay connected with your community, at your own pace, in your own voice.
Free. Requires WordPress 6+ and PHP 7.4+.
Plume is built for people who have something worth saying and want to say it well, without getting lost in technical setup or worrying about subscription ceilings.
Compose your emails with blocks: text, image, button, divider, WordPress article. Customise colours, typography and layout without writing a single line of code.
Create as many lists as you need. Import contacts in bulk, filter by status, select by range and act on a group. Your data stays in your WordPress database.
The Article block converts your WordPress posts directly into illustrated email blocks. Title, image, excerpt, link — choose what appears, with the excerpt length you prefer.
Schedule sending for a specific date and time. Plume delivers messages in configurable batches to avoid overloading your server. A send in progress can be cancelled at any time.
Track opens, clicks and bounces through feedback from your SMTP platform. Export detailed statistics per campaign to Excel in one click.
Double opt-in, per-recipient unsubscribe links signed cryptographically, and a public subscription preferences page. Subscribers stay in control of their own data.
Embed a sign-up form or popup button on any page with a simple WordPress shortcode. No theme modifications required.
Save your newsletter structure as a template. Apply it to future campaigns, keeping your existing content in place or replacing everything at once.
Your public forms are protected by an automatic spam-prevention mechanism, invisible to your visitors. Cloudflare Turnstile integration is available for additional protection.
From the Plume menu in your dashboard, create and edit newsletters block by block. Each element — text, image, button, article — is independent and fully customisable.
The Lists screen gives you a complete view of each list: number of contacts, subscription statuses, delivery history. Import, filter and act in bulk.
Once your newsletter is ready, choose your recipient lists, your sending cadence and the start date. Plume manages the queue in the background — you can close your browser.
Connect your SMTP platform via the return webhook to automatically receive delivery confirmations, opens and bounces. Export per-campaign statistics whenever you need them.
Plume installs like any WordPress plugin. No account to create, no subscription to sign up for.
From WordPress.org or directly in your site's admin, search for Plume Mailer and activate the plugin.
For reliable delivery, install an SMTP plugin or connect a transactional service (Brevo, TurboSMTP, Mailgun) to your WordPress.
Add your first lists under Plume > Lists. Decide which ones are public and which are kept for admin use only.
Compose your first newsletter with the block editor, choose your recipients and schedule the send. That's all there is to it.
No subscription, no locked features, no contact ceiling. Plume is distributed as open source under the GPL licence. Your data stays on your own WordPress server, and you can switch sending platforms whenever you like.
Competing plugins are often free for small volumes — and expensive once your community grows. Plume has no ceiling.
| Feature | Plume | MailPoet (free) | Newsletter (free) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no limits | Free ≤ 500 contacts & 5,000 emails/month, then paid | Free with limited features; paid addons required for advanced use |
| Sending platform | ✓ Your choice — any SMTP service compatible with WordPress (Brevo, Mailgun, SendGrid, Amazon SES, TurboSMTP…) | ✗ MailPoet Sending Service imposed on free plan; third-party providers only on paid plan | ⚠ wp_mail() by default; paid SMTP addon required for advanced providers |
| Unlimited contacts | ✓ | ✗ (paid above 1,000) | ✓ |
| Data hosted on your server | ✓ | ✗ (MailPoet servers) | ✓ |
| Visual block editor | ✓ | ✓ | ⚠ limited |
| WordPress article integration | ✓ with advanced options | ✓ | ⚠ partial |
| Double opt-in included | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open & click statistics | ✓ via SMTP webhook | ✓ | ⚠ paid plan |
| Configurable batch sending | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Excel statistics export | ✓ | ⚠ paid | ✗ |