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How to Notify Users Only on Replies to Their WordPress Comments

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Do you want to notify users only on replies to their WordPress comments?

By default, users won’t know that someone has replied to their comment unless they come back to the comment section and see the response. This makes it hard to generate in-depth discussions and debates on your website. 

In this article, we will show you how to easily notify users every time someone replies to their WordPress comment.

Notify users only on replies on their own comments

Why Notify Users on Replies to Their WordPress Comments?

Comments are a great way to build user engagement, create a community, and increase your pageviews in WordPress. A long and interesting comment section can even keep people on your website longer, as they will want to read through all the comments.

However, by default, WordPress doesn’t notify people when their comment gets a reply. Instead, the commenter will need to revisit the WordPress post and check whether anyone has responded.

By notifying users when their comment gets a reply, you can often get them to come back to your site. It’s also a great way to get more comments on your WordPress posts and spark in-depth and interesting discussions.

With that being said, let’s see how you can notify users when someone replies to their comment in WordPress. We will share 2 methods, using a premium plugin like Thrive Comments and also a free plugin.

Simply click the links below to jump ahead to any section:

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments using Thrive Comments

The easiest way to notify users when someone replies to their comments in WordPress is by using Thrive Comments.

It is the best WordPress comments plugin and is part of the Thrive Themes plugin suite. With Thrive Comments, you get features to improve engagement with your comments. For instance, it lets you show comment badges, allow upvotes/downvotes, subscribe to comment threads, and more.

To learn more about the plugin suite’s features and benefits, please see our detailed Thrive Themes Suite review.

First, you will need to visit the Thrive Themes website and create a new account.

ThriveThemes

After signing up for an account, you can go to the account dashboard.

Next, you’ll need to click the ‘Download and install the Thrive Product Manager plugin’ link.

Install Thrive Product Manager

From here, you can install and activate the Thrive Product Manager plugin on your WordPress website. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head to the Product Manager page from your WordPress dashboard. Go ahead and click the ‘Log into my account’ button.

Next, you will see the Thrive Product Manager dashboard after logging in.

From the dashboard, simply select the Thrive Comments plugin and click the ‘Install selected products’ button.

Install Thrive Comments

You should see a success message saying ‘Ready to use’ when the installation is complete.

After that, you can click the ‘Go to the Thrive Themes Dashboard button at the bottom.

View Thrive Comments success message

In the Thrive Themes dashboard, you will see all your installed plugins in the suite.

Go ahead and click the ‘Thrive Comments’ button.

Go to Thrive Comments

Next, you will see the Thrive Comments settings.

Simply navigate to the Notifications option and click to expand.

Go to Thrive Comments notifications

In order to send email notifications, you’ll need to connect to an email delivery service.

Go ahead and click the ‘+ Add new’ option.

Add new comment notification

On the next screen, you’ll need to select an email marketing service.

Thrive Comments supports some of the most popular services, like Drip, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, and more.

You can click the ‘+ Add new Connection’ option to continue.

Add new connection for comments

After that, you will need to select an app to connect with Thrive Comments.

Simply click the dropdown menu and choose your email delivery service.

Select email marketing tool to connect

Next, Thrive Comments will require an API key or API token for your selected service.

You can find the API key in your email marketing tools account area or dashboard.

Do note that the steps for accessing the keys might be different for each tool, so we recommend going through the document or reaching out to their customer support for help.

Enter email tool API

Next, you can customize the comment notifications that users will receive when there is a reply to their comment.

There are 2 types of notifications you can set up in Thrive Comments. The Comment Notification is when users are notified via email when someone replies to their comments. Post Notification is when a user receives an email whenever a new comment or reply is added to that particular post.

Customize post and comment notifications

Let’s go ahead and customize these notifications.

To edit the Comment Notification, simply hover over it and click the pencil icon.

Click the pencil icon to edit notification

Next, you can edit the text of the email, change the email subject line, and more.

Thrive Comments also lets you use notification shortcodes to add more details to your email notifications. For example, you can add a site title, comment author, unsubscribe link, and more.

Edit comment notification options

When you’re done, simply click the ‘Save’ button.

Similarly, you can also customize the Post Notifications emails. You can also use shortcodes to add more details to your email text.

Customize notification for new comments on thread

After editing the notification, don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ button.

Now, when a user posts a comment on a blog post and someone replies to it, they’ll automatically get an email notification.

Notify Users Only on Replies to Their Comments using a Free Plugin

Another way to notify users about replies to their WordPress comments is by using Subscribe to Comments Reloaded. It is a free plugin that allows users to sign up for email notifications every time someone responds to a comment. 

You can also manage your subscribers and disable comment subscriptions for specific posts.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can configure the plugin’s settings by going to STCR » Comment Form.

Edit comment form settings

Here, you’ll need to find the ‘Advanced subscription’ section and click on the toggle so it shows Yes.

Then, open the ‘Subscription type’ dropdown and choose the ‘Replies to this comment ‘ option.

Change subscription type

By default, the plugin shows a few different messages to your users, which you can see in the ‘Messages for your visitors’ section.

You can change any of these messages by typing into the small text editors. However, we recommend keeping all the links, as they give visitors access to pages where they can manage their subscriptions.

Edit the messages in comment form

Once you have done that, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.

Now, if you visit your WordPress website, then you will see a subscription option beneath the comment section.

By default, this is set to ‘Don’t subscribe,’ but visitors can change this to ‘Replies to my comments’ to get a notification every time someone responds.

Select replies to my comment option

Visitors can also subscribe without leaving a comment. In this way, they can follow interesting discussions or debates on your WordPress blog.

To do this, they simply need to click on the ‘Subscribe’ link.

Click the subscribe link

This takes them to the ‘Manage Subscription’ page, where they can type in their email address and create their subscription.

For more details, please see our step-by-step guide on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress.

The Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin has more settings that you can use to customize your comment subscriptions. These include a few security options to help combat comment spam and enable reCAPTCHA.

After setting up these comment notification emails, you will want to make sure they arrive safely in the user’s inbox and not in the spam folder. With that in mind, we also recommend using an SMTP service provider to improve your email deliverability rates.

We hope this article helped you learn how to notify users only on replies to their comments in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to track user engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics and must-have WordPress plugins for small businesses.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

44 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Sandro says

    I followed the installation procedure and did what was said. I sent a reply to a comment to a girl but despite having done everything correctly, no notification was received by email to the girl (I know for sure having contacted her personally). How can I solve? Thanks in advance.

  3. Jiawei says

    I have installed the Subscribe To Comments Reloaded plugin, then it keeps sending email to my subscriber and to an a@a.com email address, even if I delete the email and delete all the record in my database. Could you give me some advice to fix this problem? Thank you.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Have you checked the plugin’s notification section to ensure that is not where you’ve set that email?

      Admin

  4. Soufiane El bahri says

    Idk why they don’t receive emails? I just tried to comment and reply to myself as another user, but apparently there’s nothing on my email that says there’s a new reply? Plus, is there any way to modify the text “Replies to my comment”?

    Please reply asap, I really need help with this.

  5. Christopher says

    How do I remove this “Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.” from the comment section after installing StCr

  6. Michelle Parsons says

    I installed the Send Email only on Reply to My Comment plugin. Immediately my featured image functionality broke in WordPress. By “broke,” I mean, when I select an image in the Featured Image pane of my edit post view, the image doesn’t display, just the caption. Also, when I publish the post, the image doesn’t display, just the caption. Here’s an example:

    Here’s an example of a post where I’d already published the post with a featured image. In this case, the Featured Image pane in my edit post view also doesn’t show the image, just the caption. But the published post still successfully shows the featured image:

    I’ve uninstalled the plugin but the issue isn’t resolved. Help!!! I’m on WordPress 4.8.2 running the Twenty Seventeen theme.

  7. Shawn says

    What I think would work great is a popup or some type of indicator and link in menu (not WPs) that someone has replied to their comment as soon as they login. Otherwise they login and have no idea someone has replied or they don’t on my sites because WP stuff is hidden. :)

  8. martin says

    hello dear developer

    the new theme – that comes shipped with the wp 4.7 is called 2017

    seen here
    background here:

    question: can you provide some tutorials & manuals for this upcoming theme?

    that would be fantastic.

    love to hear from you

    greetings martin

  9. Leila Boukarim says

    Hi, I just recently found out that all those people who left comments on my blog over the years probably never found out I replied! I’m furious…

    Anyway, I got myself this plugin and tried everything to make it work. It’s just not working.

    What could be the problem? Is there another plugin that will do the same?

    Thanks in advance for your help!

  10. Divya Parishe says

    Hi ,

    We use citrix application and the employees queries are to be replied immediately when an email comes to the Employee Information center in cirtix. there is a lot of delay in replying to those emails as we work on some other chanels as well. Is there a way that we can get these email notifications to outlook ? Please help with the answer.

  11. Irina David says

    Hello!
    Here’s the problem with my WP comments.
    A reader posts a comment/question on blog post. I reply to their question.
    A reader does not receive a reply to their email or inbox.
    So I just realized one of my posts got 100 comments/questions and I was replying to all but apparently nobody received a reply….!! I just thought the purpose of “reply to comment” button is that the user will receive a reply, no?
    Do you know how to fix this? I’m assuming that I will receive a reply to my comment here. The notification will go to my email I input above, correct? So what must I do in order for my blog readers to receive my replies. Thank you in advance.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Well the reply button lets you reply to the comment but a user will not receive it via email or get any notification. In the article above, we have shown how you can notify users only on replies to their WordPress comments. You can also allow users to subscribe to comments. This way, they can subscribe to comments and receive notifications when there is a new comment.

      Admin

  12. Mary says

    I was wondering if it is wise to istall a plugin that is a year and a half outdated. What do you think? I know Wordprees doesnt issue a warning untill 2 years.

    Is “Send Email only on Reply to My Comment” the only free plugin that has this simple bow to click?

    Best wishes , Mary

  13. Mary says

    Thank you for your great articles.
    Send Email only on Reply to My Comment- hasn’t been updated for 493 days. this is June 21.
    It may be abandoned.
    Is there another plugin that will notify a commenter on a reply? I like the easy check box.

    I think this is really important, but I am not finding any that are simple and updated.

    Also, do you think a captcha is a good idea for comments?
    Best wishes and Thanks alot, Mary

  14. mark says

    nice, I was just looking for this.

    What is the plugin you use for the “Subscribe to WPBeginner Updates” checkbox just below?

  15. Gautam Doddamani says

    a very good plugin…i was about to ask the same thing to u guys…but is there any way i can import the subscribers list from subscribe to comments reloaded plugin…i really dont want to make the move and lose all the existing subscribers…

  16. Jeremy Myers says

    Just the info I was looking for. I emailed a blog owner about it just last week, and they told me it was “Subscribe to Comment reloaded” but I have used that plugin, and I knew they were using something else… also, the emails I received looked different.

    I bet this is what they were using instead (or something like it) and they were just confused…. Thanks!

    • Yaw Ansong says

      Hey Jeremy,
      Glad to see you here, this is Yaw Ansong. Just saying hi, Just installed this plugin on my site. See you later.

  17. Pamela says

    Does this work with Disqus or Jetpack?
    I’m using Jetpack at the moment for the comment section but I’m planning to use Disqus instead. Does it work with any of them?

    Also, I have a problem with the comments in my blog that it’s not related to this post… is there a place where I could ask you guys about it?

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