Many Saint Lucian businesses discover their email problem the same way: a guest says the booking confirmation never arrived, a customer finds an invoice in their spam folder, or a website contact form stops forwarding messages. The cause is often the same too. The website or software is sending email through a shared hosting server with no authentication and a poor reputation. An SMTP relay fixes that.
What an SMTP relay does
SMTP is the standard protocol for sending email. An SMTP relay is a server that accepts messages from your software and delivers them on your behalf, using well-maintained infrastructure and your domain’s authentication. For a primer, read what is SMTP?
Software that benefits
- Websites: WordPress and other CMS contact forms and order notifications.
- Booking and property-management systems: confirmations, pre-arrival details and invoices for hotels, villas and tour operators.
- Accounting and invoicing packages: statements and receipts for local clients and overseas customers.
- Point-of-sale and loyalty systems: digital receipts and points updates for retailers.
- Office equipment and internal tools: scanners, alerts and reports.
Setting it up
- Create a Mailpro account and get your SMTP credentials.
- In your software’s email settings, enter the Mailpro server, port, username and password.
- Add SPF and DKIM records to your domain’s DNS, plus a DMARC record. Your web designer or domain registrar can help if you do not manage DNS yourself.
- Send a test and check that it arrives in the inbox, not spam.
Full technical details are on the Mailpro SMTP page.
Why authentication matters for island businesses
Most of your guests and many of your trade partners use Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo. Since 2024 Gmail and Yahoo have required bulk senders to authenticate their domains. A small Saint Lucian business that sends only a few hundred emails a month may not count as a bulk sender, but authentication still decides whether a confirmation from an unknown island domain is trusted. It is the single most effective fix for “my emails go to spam”.
Tracking every message
Unlike a basic hosting server, Mailpro’s SMTP relay records what happened to each message: delivered, bounced, opened, clicked. When a guest says an email never arrived, you can check. See SMTP statistics for what to monitor.
Security and data location
Emails from your software contain personal data: names, bookings, amounts. Mailpro encrypts connections with TLS 1.3 and processes mail in Switzerland on private infrastructure, outside US jurisdiction. That is relevant to Saint Lucia’s Data Protection Act 2011, which restricts transfers to countries without adequate protection; Switzerland holds an EU adequacy decision.
Cost
You pay per email sent, which suits the uneven volumes of seasonal businesses. See pricing and start with 500 free credits.