You’ve set up your event, your attendees checked out successfully — and then the messages start coming in: “I never got my ticket.” A WooCommerce ticket email not sent issue can turn a smooth event into a support nightmare. The good news: in most cases, this is fixable in under five minutes, and it has nothing to do with your plugin configuration.
This guide walks you through the three most common causes and exactly how to fix each one. We’ve also embedded the video walkthrough above if you prefer to follow along visually.
Before you start digging through settings, it helps to understand what’s actually happening. When a customer completes checkout, WooCommerce triggers an order confirmation email. If you’re using Event Tickets with Ticket Scanner, this email includes a link for the customer to download their QR-code PDF ticket.
The problem is almost never your plugin. WooCommerce sends the email just fine — but it never reaches the inbox. Here’s why:
Each of these has a straightforward fix. Let’s go through them in order.
Start with the basics. Go to WooCommerce → Settings → Emails in your WordPress dashboard. You’ll see a list of all email notifications WooCommerce can send.
[SCREENSHOT: WooCommerce Emails tab showing the list of email notification types with their enabled/disabled status]
Find the Processing Order and Completed Order templates. Click into each one and make sure the checkbox labeled “Enable this email notification” is ticked. Also verify that the “From” name and “From” address are filled in correctly — a missing sender address can cause delivery failures on some servers.
While you’re here, scroll down and send a test email using the button at the bottom of each template. If it arrives, WooCommerce is working. If it doesn’t, the problem is almost certainly your mail sending method — which brings us to the main fix.
This is the fix that resolves the WooCommerce ticket email not sent issue in the vast majority of cases. PHP mail is unreliable by design. It sends emails without proper authentication, which means receiving servers have no way to confirm the message is legitimate. Gmail, in particular, has become aggressive about filtering or silently dropping these messages.
The solution is to route your WordPress emails through a real SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server with proper authentication. Here’s how to do it:
[SCREENSHOT: WP Mail SMTP settings screen showing the mailer configuration and the Send Test Email section]
Once SMTP is configured, WooCommerce will automatically use it for all outgoing emails — including ticket delivery emails from Event Tickets with Ticket Scanner. You don’t need to change anything in the ticket plugin itself.
If you’re on shared hosting, check whether your host offers their own SMTP relay. Many do (SiteGround, Hostinger, Kinsta all provide this), and it’s often the easiest path because the credentials are pre-configured for your domain.
Once SMTP is running, go back and address any attendees who reported missing emails from before your fix. First, ask them to check their spam or junk folder. As the video above shows, this is where tickets often end up — the QR code is there, the checkout worked perfectly, the email just got filtered.
If the email genuinely wasn’t sent (not just filtered), you can resend it manually. Go to WooCommerce → Orders, open the relevant order, and use the “Resend order confirmation” option in the order actions dropdown on the right.
[SCREENSHOT: WooCommerce order detail screen with the Order Actions dropdown showing “Resend order confirmation”]
Also double-check the billing email address on the order. If a customer mistyped their address at checkout, no email server in the world can help — you’ll need to contact them directly and verify the correct address before resending.
It’s worth clarifying exactly how ticket delivery works so you know what your attendees receive. When an order is completed, Event Tickets with Ticket Scanner generates a unique QR-code ticket for each item and includes a download link in the WooCommerce order confirmation email. The customer clicks the link, downloads their PDF ticket, and shows it at the door for scanning.
The built-in ticket scanner runs directly in a mobile browser — no separate app required. Your team at the door opens the scanner on any phone, scans the QR code, and gets instant confirmation. It can also be installed as a PWA for a fullscreen, app-like experience with haptic feedback.
If you’re on the Premium version, ticket PDFs are sent as direct email attachments rather than download links, which removes the extra click for your attendees and works better for corporate or formal events where people expect a file directly in their inbox. Premium also includes calendar invitations (ICS files) in the email, so attendees can add the event to their calendar in one tap.
[SCREENSHOT: Example ticket email showing the download link (Free) and the event details in the WooCommerce order confirmation]
Neither of these delivery methods bypasses your mail server — which is exactly why fixing SMTP is the foundational step. Get that right first, and ticket delivery becomes completely reliable.
In almost every case, fixing SMTP is all it takes to permanently resolve the WooCommerce ticket email not sent problem. It’s a five-minute change that makes your entire WordPress email stack — not just tickets — dramatically more reliable.
Event Tickets with Ticket Scanner is free to install from the WordPress plugin directory: wordpress.org/plugins/event-tickets-with-ticket-scanner. If you need PDF attachments, calendar invites, and team scanner access, the Premium version is available at vollstart.com.