Email Types Reference

Reading time: 8 minutes | Difficulty: Beginner

Overview

WP Simple Pay can send 11 different transactional emails covering every stage of a payment’s lifecycle — from the moment a customer hits “Pay” through invoicing, refunds, and subscription cancellations — plus a recurring summary report for site administrators. This article is the complete reference for what each email is, when it fires, and where to configure it.

All of these emails are managed under WP Simple Pay > Settings > Emails. The tab uses a dropdown selector — pick an email type from the list, click Configure, and the matching settings screen opens.

Prerequisites

• WP Simple Pay (any tier — From Name, From Address, and Payment Confirmation are available in the free plugin)
• WP Simple Pay Pro for the email template, header image, footer content, and the additional email types listed below

How to Open Email Settings

1. Navigate to WP Simple Pay > Settings.
2. Click the Emails tab.
3. Use the Select an email to configure… dropdown at the top, choose an email, and click Configure to open its settings.

The dropdown groups emails into two categories — Payments (10 emails tied to transactions) and Other (the Summary Report).

Global Settings (General Subsection)

These settings affect every email WP Simple Pay sends.

• From Name — The sender name that appears in customers’ inboxes. Defaults to your site name.
• From Address — The sender email address. Acts as both the From: and Reply-To: headers. Falls back to the WordPress admin email if empty or invalid.
• Template (Pro) — Choose between Default (a styled HTML template with a header image and footer content) or None (plain HTML). Selecting Default reveals the Header Image and Footer Content settings.
• Header Image (Pro) — An image displayed at the top of every templated email. Recommended size: 300×100px or smaller.
• Footer Content (Pro) — Free-form HTML/text appended to the bottom of every templated email — perfect for legal disclaimers, support links, or unsubscribe text.

Email Types

Each section below lists the email’s trigger, recipient, and the most important configurable fields. Every email supports smart tags such as {form-title}, {customer-name}, {total-amount}, and {payment-link}.

Payment Confirmation (Receipt)

• Trigger: A successful one-time payment or completed subscription signup
• Recipient: Customer
• Configurable: Subject, body, enabled/disabled. Per-form subject overrides are supported — see How to Customize Email Subjects Per Form.
• Required for: Sending receipts to customers. This is the most commonly customized email.

Payment Notification

• Trigger: A successful one-time payment or completed subscription signup
• Recipient: Site administrator (configurable)
• Configurable: Subject, body, To Address, enabled/disabled. The To Address can be a comma-separated list to notify multiple stakeholders (sales, support, finance).
• Required for: Internal awareness when payments come in. Per-form subject overrides supported.

Invoice Confirmation

• Trigger: A successful invoice payment outside the standard checkout flow (e.g., a manually issued Stripe invoice)
• Recipient: Customer
• Configurable: Subject, body, enabled/disabled.

Upcoming Invoice

• Trigger: A subscription renewal is approaching (Stripe sends the invoice.upcoming event ~3 days before the renewal)
• Recipient: Customer
• Configurable: Subject, body, enabled/disabled.
• Useful for: Giving subscribers advance notice before they’re charged again — reduces failed payments and refund requests.

Manage Subscriptions

• Trigger: A customer requests a Manage Subscriptions link from the front-end form (no password required)
• Recipient: Customer
• Configurable: Subject, body, enabled/disabled.
• Notes: The email contains a secure, time-limited URL that lets the subscriber update their payment method or cancel their subscription without logging in.

Payment Processing Confirmation

• Trigger: A delayed-confirmation payment method (ACH, BECS, Bacs, SEPA, Klarna review) enters the processing state — funds are confirmed but not yet settled.
• Recipient: Customer
• Configurable: Subject, body, enabled/disabled.
• Useful for: Setting expectations on payment methods that take days to clear, so customers don’t worry that their payment failed.

Payment Processing Notification

• Trigger: Same as above (delayed payment method enters processing)
• Recipient: Site administrator (configurable To Address)
• Configurable: Subject, body, To Address, enabled/disabled.

Payment Refunded Confirmation

• Trigger: A payment is refunded (full or partial) from the Stripe Dashboard or via the customer record in WP Simple Pay
• Recipient: Customer (and optionally administrator via To Address)
• Configurable: Subject, body, To Address, enabled/disabled.

Subscription Cancellation Confirmation

• Trigger: A subscription is cancelled (by the customer via Manage Subscriptions, or by an administrator)
• Recipient: Customer
• Configurable: Subject, body, enabled/disabled.

Subscription Cancellation Notification

• Trigger: Same as above
• Recipient: Site administrator (configurable To Address)
• Configurable: Subject, body, To Address, enabled/disabled.
• Useful for: Triggering retention workflows or downstream offboarding tasks.

Summary Report

• Trigger: A recurring schedule (weekly or monthly)
• Recipient: Site administrator (configurable To Address)
• Configurable: Interval (Weekly/Monthly), To Address, enabled/disabled.
• Contents: Total payments, refunds, new subscribers, and a snapshot of activity for the period.

Delivery Subsection

The Delivery subsection sits at the top of the Emails settings tab and addresses the most common deliverability problem in WordPress: emails sent through wp_mail() getting flagged as spam or never arriving. WP Simple Pay recommends WP Mail SMTP — when it’s installed, the Delivery link jumps directly to its configuration screen.

If WP Mail SMTP is active and you’ve enabled Force From Name or Force From Email there, WP Simple Pay automatically disables those fields in its own General settings to avoid conflicts and shows a notice pointing back to the SMTP plugin.

Tools Subsection (Pro)

The Tools subsection contains operational utilities for managing already-sent emails.

• Resend Payment Receipt — Search for a customer by email address, pick the matching record, and re-send their Payment Confirmation email. Useful when a customer says they never received their receipt or accidentally deleted it.

The Tools subsection only appears if the Payment Confirmation email is enabled.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why isn’t my customer receiving emails?

Run through the checklist in Email Receipts and/or Notifications Are Not Being Sent. The most common cause is unauthenticated mail being silently rejected by the recipient’s mail server — installing WP Mail SMTP and configuring a real provider (SendLayer, Postmark, SMTP.com, Gmail, etc.) fixes it nearly every time.

Can I use HTML in email bodies?

Yes. The body field is a standard WordPress editor with both Visual and Text modes. HTML is preserved when the email is sent. If you’ve selected the Default template in General settings, your content is rendered inside the template’s wrapper.

Which emails support per-form subject overrides?

Currently, only Payment Confirmation (customer receipt) and Payment Notification (admin alert) support per-form subject overrides. All other emails use the global subject. See How to Customize Email Subjects Per Form.

What smart tags can I use?

All emails support the same set of dynamic tags. See Using Smart Tags for the full list and examples.

Why is the Tools subsection not visible?

The Tools subsection only appears when the Payment Confirmation email is enabled. If you’ve disabled that email, enable it and the Tools subsection will show on next page load.

Are these emails sent through Stripe?

No. WP Simple Pay sends these emails directly from your WordPress site using wp_mail(). Stripe also has its own built-in customer emails (receipts, invoice notifications) that you can enable in your Stripe Dashboard — but they’re separate and use Stripe’s branding by default. Most users prefer to disable Stripe’s emails and customize WP Simple Pay’s instead, since they support custom subjects, templates, and your site’s branding.

What’s Next?

• How to Customize Email Subjects Per Form – Override global subjects on individual forms
• How to Configure Email Settings – General overview of email settings
• Email Receipts and/or Notifications Are Not Being Sent – Troubleshooting deliverability