Do you want to allow your users to subscribe to comments in WordPress?
By subscribing to comments, users will get email alerts about any new replies. This can encourage discussion or even heated debates and get more engagement on your website.
In this article, we will show you how to allow users to subscribe to comments on your WordPress website.
Why Let Users Subscribe to Comments?
Allowing people to comment on your WordPress blog is a great way to get more engagement. However, most of the time, users will visit your website, leave a comment, and never return.
By allowing users to subscribe to comments, they will get email alerts whenever someone comments on the post. This will remind them about their comment and bring them back to your website.
Comment subscription also allows people to follow comment threads that generate a lot of discussions or heated debates.
Sadly, WordPress doesn’t allow visitors to subscribe to comments by default. However, you can easily add this missing feature using a WordPress plugin.
That said, let’s look at how to allow users to subscribe to comments on a WordPress website.
Allow Users to Subscribe to Comments in WordPress
The easiest way to offer comment subscription is by using Subscribe to Comments Reloaded.
This free WordPress plugin allows users to sign up for email notifications for a particular comment thread. You can also manage your subscribers and disable comment subscriptions for specific articles.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. If you need help, please refer to our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to StCR » Comment Form from your WordPress admin sidebar.
You will now see a list of options. To start, make sure the ‘Enable default checkbox’ option is set to ‘Yes’.
With this option enabled, visitors will see a text box that allows them to subscribe to comments on your WordPress blog post.
By default, the plugin will show the following message to visitors: ‘Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.’
To change this message, simply type some new text into the ‘Default label’ box.
Just make sure not to change the subscribe_link code, as this gives visitors the option to subscribe without commenting.
In this section, you can change the text that visitors will see when they subscribe to comments in a blog post and when their subscription still needs to be confirmed. You can also change the text that will be shown to WordPress admins.
When you are happy with how the plugin is set up, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Now if you visit your website, you will see the comment subscription checkbox below the comment form.
If you click on the ‘subscribe’ link, then you can get email alerts without posting a comment.
Additional Comment Subscription Options
The Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin has more settings that you can use to fine-tune your site’s comment subscriptions.
To take a look at these settings, head over to StCR » Options in the WordPress dashboard.
Here, you can change the date format and enable the double-check option to send an email to confirm the comment subscription. Although double opt-in isn’t required by GDPR, many countries see it as a best practice that can improve the user experience.
You can also track users who subscribe without commenting, enable subscriptions for blog posts only, or limit subscriptions to logged-in users. This is useful if you run a WordPress membership website.
If you scroll down, the plugin also offers a few security options that can help combat comment spam.
For example, you can add a challenge to the subscription form and enable reCAPTCHA.
Most of these settings are self-explanatory, so it’s worth looking through them to see what changes you need to make. If you want to learn more about any of these settings, then simply hover your mouse over its ‘?’ to see a tooltip with some more information.
Managing Comment Subscriptions
Subscribe to Comments Reloaded comes with tools that can help you and your users manage comment subscriptions.
To manage your subscribers, go to StCR » Manage subscriptions in the WordPress dashboard. Here, click to expand the ‘Add New Subscription’ box.
You can now add new subscribers manually by entering the post ID and the email address where you will send the alert.
Then, open the ‘Status’ dropdown and choose ‘Active.’ Finally, click on ‘Add.’
Users can manage their own subscriptions by going to:
http://www.example.com/comment-subscriptions/
They simply need to replace ‘example.com’ with your domain name. This URL is also included in all the subscription email alerts, so users can easily manage their subscriptions and cancel them at any time.
Subscribe To Comments Reloaded also comes with built-in email notifications. To change these default messages, select the ‘Notifications tab.
You can now edit the sender email address, the subject line, and even the email wording.
After setting up the plugin, it’s a good idea to subscribe to a comment thread to check that WordPress is sending the emails correctly. If you don’t get any email notifications, then check out our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.
We hope this article helped you allow your users to subscribe to comments in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to allow user registration on your WordPress site and our expert picks for the best email marketing services for small businesses.
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Valerie says
If I want to subscribe users myself where is the Post ID coming from. What is listed on the comment I’m using isn’t working.
WPBeginner Support says
The post ID would come from the post, for finding it properly, we would recommend taking a look at our article below.
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-find-post-category-tag-comments-or-user-id-in-wordpress/
Admin
Trish says
Thank YOU!
Turns out, that was the ONLY one I had not tried. Not sure if I was able to find in a search… though, it has been awhile ago since I lost my dependable plugin and tried finding a replacement.
Geoffrey says
I wanna try out the subscribe feature
WPBeginner Support says
You can certainly do so!
Admin
Niala says
Thanks for sharing this plugin. Very useful.
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome
Admin
Navin Rao says
My God…!! your blog is just a magic, I put any query regarding wordpress in google, your blog comes up…!
I know you have worked hard for years that to happen..
Excellent work…!!
Sourav Biswas says
Thanks for This Post
Joseph says
Long ago I was looking for a similar solution, very grateful to share.
Shanti says
Thanks for sharing this list.
Ramon says
Only testing the plugin
John says
awesome
Debra says
Hi,
I was so excited to try this plugin, however I am having trouble whereas the little box and the line “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.” is not showing up. Do you have a suggestion or a link that might help?
Thank you in advance
Miguel says
thank so much
Reedyseth says
Hey EDITORIAL STAFF,
Thank you for taking the time to share this and to review the plugin.
I am release two wonderful features (one click unsubscribe and a WYSIWYG editor) on the next update so stay tune.
WPBeginner Support says
Thanks for writing this useful plugin and sharing it with the WordPress community.
Admin
Reedyseth says
Thank you for spreading the word.
Graham Cluley says
Thanks for this guide – I’m going to give it a try.
Santiago says
Could you suggest how to implement this functionality without plugins? i mean, manually?
Tosty says
Do you have a translation of the plugin in Dutch? And i tried to translate it .po .mo but i did not work when i uploaded it. I use not a standard theme. Where should ik put the .mo .po? Best Regards, Tosty
WPBeginner Support says
you need to upload the translated files in the plugin directory.
Admin
Ravi says
How can i get this option “Subscribe to WPBeginner Updates (Weekly Email)” with check box like yours.
Any plugin available or any related link you can paste here.
Editorial Staff says
This should answer that:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/blueprint/comments/
Admin
Ravi says
Thank you.
Marlita Hill says
Hi. I run a blog that has lots of authors. I want them to be able to get notified when someone comments on their post and replies to their comments. How can I do that?
Editorial Staff says
Try using this plugin:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/cbnet-multi-author-comment-notification/
Admin
My Own Advisor says
Anyway to delete the “Subscribe to comments feed” rss icon that appears above the “Notify me of followup comments via email” checkbox?
This appears on my site and I’ve seen it on many others.
Thanks so much!
Mark
Editorial Staff says
That’s part of your theme. You’d have to edit the theme file for that. Look in your comments.php file. Another thing you can do is use display: none in css to hide that link.
Admin
Willem says
There is also a Reloaded version of subscribe to comments, why not use that one?
Editorial Staff says
Because this one does the job just fine.
Admin
Theite Herron says
Really very useful tips. Thank you.
I’d like to test if the subscription for followup comments is working, using Twitter sign-in.
Editorial Staff says
Thanks. Did the reply work?
Admin
Theite Herron says
No, unfortunately it didn’t. I was hoping you solved the problem that Twitter doesn’t provide the user’s email address. Twitter doesn’t seem to understand that it’s technically necessary to have a valid email address to send the followup comments to.
What’s the use of signing in with Twitter in order to comment on a blog post if you can’t subscribe to followup comments via email? Well, you can subscribe, but you won’t ever get an email.
The fake-email which is generated (by the API?) would be fine if Twitter forwarded the email to the real email address. I.e. I’m not interested in the real email-address, I just want to offer subscribing to comments not only for people who signed in with Facebook or their name and email address but also if they signed in with Twitter.
Editorial Staff says
Ah that sucks. Will have to talk to twitter about it then.
arsieorgano says
actually, i am looking for manually coding it and adding it on my blog… do you have any?
coolcash4live says
Thank you fro sharing this plugins but it doesn’t have menu where you can use to edit it…how about this?
Stan says
Very nice feature indeed, but as Johan said, what is the best plugin for preventing spam comments?
Stan
Editorial Staff says
Here is the article you should refer to:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/vital-tips-and-tools-to-combat-comment-spam-in-wordpress/
Admin
Johan Roode says
But what can you do about all those spam comments? CAn you post some tips / advice on which plugins to use to minimise the spam comments?
Editorial Staff says
Will have an article coming up soon about that as per your request
Admin
Nadia says
Thanks for this nice tip.