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4M+ installs 4.8★ (5,185)
Comment Reply Email
Commenters can receive email notifications of replies to their comments.
The facts
- Rating
- 4.7★ from 15
- Active installs
- 500+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 27 Jun 2025
- Added
- Jun 2020
- Requires WP
- 4.0
- Tested up to
- WP 6.8.8
- Downloads
- 17,297
Our analysis
AI-assistedComment Reply Email is a WordPress plugin that sends notification emails to commenters when someone replies to their comment. The site administrator can enable this feature automatically or allow users to opt-in or opt-out through a checkbox in the comment section. It is designed to work best with email-sending plugins and services like WP Mail SMTP, SendGrid, or Mailgun to ensure reliable email delivery.
The plugin offers various modes for notifications, allowing flexibility in how and when emails are sent. Users can edit the email subject and message, and there is a shortcode for dynamically inserting the year into email templates. This plugin is suitable for site administrators looking to enhance engagement through comment notifications.
Best for: This plugin is best for WordPress site administrators who want to improve user engagement through comment notifications.
What it does well
- ✓Automatically sends reply notifications to commenters
- ✓Flexible feature modes for notification settings
- ✓Customisable email subject and message
- ✓Developer-friendly with hooks for customisation
- ✓Fixes issues with email notifications for moderated comments
Where it falls short
- •Best used with additional email-sending plugins for reliability
- •No information on support or updates beyond June 2025
Verdict
Comment Reply Email provides a straightforward solution for sending comment reply notifications, with useful features for customisation. It is a practical choice for enhancing interaction on your site.
From the developer
treeflips's own description of Comment Reply Email, lightly tidied.
This simple plugin automatically sends a notification email to commenters when someone replies to their comment. This feature can be enabled automatically by the site admin, or through an opt-in/opt-out checkbox below comment section on frontend.
It’s best to use it with an email-sending plugin like WP Mail SMTP, and with SMTP or transactional email service like SendGrid or Mailgun. Sending from your server via PHPmailer can cause deliverability issues (email notfications caught in spam).
I loved the original plugin Comment Reply Notification (by @denishua) for its simplicity but it was abandoned and stopped working years ago. So I forked and revived it to work with the latest PHP and WordPress. I also improved some wording, removed unnecessary author links in the email notifications, and also keep it more updated. Credits to Denis who first hacked it 5 years ago, and later Walter for fixing string escapes.
Features:
- Feature modes – disabled, author/admin replies only, automatically, checkbox opt-in.
- Edit email notification – subject and message.
- [year] shortcode for dynamic year in email templates.
- Developer-friendly hook for adding custom shortcodes.
- Fixes issue with email notifications for moderated comments.
- Can delete plugin options – after deactivation.
Tagged as
purpose
SMTP & Transactional Email
feature
Email Notifications
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