Every MenuDock store can send emails out of the box, using MenuDock's own shared email service. That's the default and you don't have to configure anything. If you'd rather send from your own email account so messages come from your domain and your sending reputation, you can connect your own provider instead. This article covers both.
The platform default
Out of the box, MenuDock sends every notification through its shared email service (Brevo, run by MenuDock). New stores start here, and nothing needs setting up for customer confirmations and admin alerts to go out.
The trade-off is that emails come from a MenuDock-owned address rather than your own domain. For most stores that's fine. If you want emails to come from orders@yourrestaurant.co.uk and land with your own deliverability, connect your own provider below.
Bring your own provider
You can connect your own account with any of these providers:
- Brevo
- SMTP (any standard SMTP server)
- Mailgun
- SendGrid
- Postmark
- Mailjet
- Resend
The email provider cards live on the Integrations page, not on the notifications settings page.
- Open Integrations from the admin sidebar.
- Scroll to the Email provider section.
- Find the card for the provider you want and enter its details — typically an API key (or, for SMTP, host, port, username and password) plus the from-address you want emails sent from.
- Save. MenuDock encrypts your key and switches your store over to that provider.
Only one provider is active at a time. Saving a provider's details makes it the active one. To go back to the shared service, use the Activate button on the MenuDock default card.
How routing works
MenuDock stores your choice against your store and reads it every time it sends an email. Whatever provider is active is the one that gets used — you don't pick a provider per email type. Switching is a single change that applies to all of your notifications at once.
If your own provider is selected but its details are incomplete or can't be used (for example a key that won't decrypt), MenuDock quietly falls back to its shared service for that send rather than dropping the email. The fallback is recorded, and the email log shows which provider actually delivered each message — handy when you've just switched and want to confirm your own provider is really being used.
When to change this
- You want emails sent from your own domain and address.
- You already pay for an email service and want your sending volume and reputation in one place.
- Your customers' inboxes are filtering MenuDock's shared sender and you want full control over deliverability.
If none of those apply, the default is a perfectly good place to stay.
A note on from-address verification
Whichever provider you use, the from-address has to be one that provider has verified you're allowed to send from. That's set up inside the provider's own dashboard, not in MenuDock. If your emails fail with a "sender not verified" type error in the log, that's the place to fix it.
Related articles
Need a hand?
If you've connected a provider but emails still aren't arriving, open the email log and check the Provider and any error on recent sends — that usually points straight at the cause (wrong key, unverified sender). Still stuck? Email support@menudock.co.uk with your store name.