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How to block countries in MC4WP: Mailchimp for WordPress?

The short answer: MC4WP doesn’t include country blocking. If you’re dealing with spam signups or traffic from unwanted regions, you’ll need to add another layer of protection. The quickest fix is to use the OOPSpam Anti-Spam plugin (that’s us 👋), which filters submissions before they reach your Mailchimp list. For a stronger defense across your entire site, enable Cloudflare Firewall Rules to block traffic from specific countries at the network level.

Why This Gap Exists in MC4WP?

Mailchimp for WordPress is built to connect forms to your Mailchimp account. Its focus is smooth email integrations, not access control. That’s why it won’t stop bots or bad actors based on location.

Instead, think of MC4WP as the marketing bridge, and pair it with security tools designed to handle filtering, blocking, and protection.

Option 1: Using OOPSpam for Form-Level Protection

OOPSpam adds the missing filter to your Mailchimp forms. You get to decide which countries can submit, and it blocks spam before it ever reaches Mailchimp.

Why it works:

• Country-level control over who can and cannot submit forms.
• Language checks to block unwanted text.
• Rate limits, so one user can’t flood your forms.
• Machine learning spam detection that filters bots in real time.
• Proxy, VPN, and TOR blocking for added defense.
• Submission logs for visibility into what’s stopped.

Setup in a few steps:

Install the OOPSpam Anti-Spam plugin in WordPress. Create an account at OOPSpam.com and generate an API key.

Go to Settings > OOPSpam Anti-Spam in your dashboard and paste the key.

Enable protection for MC4WP forms.

Choose which countries to block or allow from the filtering panel.

Save and monitor results in the Spam & Ham logs.

With this, only clean signups make it through to your Mailchimp list.

Option 2: Using Cloudflare for Site-Wide Blocking

Sometimes the problem isn’t just form spam, it’s traffic abuse. That’s where Cloudflare comes in.

Cloudflare’s Firewall lets you block all requests from chosen countries before they touch your server.

Quick setup guide:

1. Log in to your Cloudflare account.
2. Go to Security > WAF > Firewall Rules.
3. Create a new rule (call it “Block Countries”).
4. Select Country as the field, operator is in, then choose which countries to block.
5. Set the action to Block and save.

From now on, your website will be inaccessible to visitors from those regions, protecting not just MC4WP forms, but everything else.

Final thoughts

Here’s the bottom line:

• Use OOPSpam if you want targeted, form-level filtering in MC4WP.
• Use Cloudflare Firewall if you need site-wide protection against bad traffic.

Neither tool replaces MC4WP’s job, they extend it. They give you the control and security Mailchimp for WordPress doesn’t have on its own.