Account reputation
The 0 to 100 score that sets the team's level, the daily sending ceiling and the bounce limits: how it goes up and down, the 5 levels, the history, the automatic pause and best practices.
What it's for
The account reputation is a score from 0 to 100 that Postal gives each team based on its sending history. The score sets the team's level, from 1 to 5, and the level sets how many emails the team can send per day and the bounce rate at which sending is paused. New accounts start with 0 points and go up with each day of sending without problems.
When to use it: To understand why your daily limit is below your plan's limit, how to raise it, what happens when bounces or complaints go up and what to do if sending is paused.
#How it works
Postal cares about the quality of every send: it is what gets customers' email to the inbox. Sending to addresses that do not exist or to people who did not ask makes mailbox providers distrust the sends. The account reputation builds trust with history: a newcomer sends less per day, and the limit grows as the sends show the list is good.
- Every team has a score from 0 to 100. A new account starts at 0. Teams that already existed for more than 14 days when the reputation was introduced started with 70 points.
- The score sets the level, and the level sets the daily ceiling on sending and the permanent bounce limit that pauses sending.
- The reputation's daily ceiling applies together with the plan's daily limit: the lower of the two applies. At level 5 only the plan's limit applies. The plan's monthly quota does not change.
- Once a day, when the day ends (00:00 UTC), Postal scores the day's sends of each team that sent and adds or takes points. See How the score goes up and down.
- A sending pause takes points right away, and the lower score can lower the level and the daily ceiling.
- If Postal's team set a daily limit of its own for your team, it replaces the reputation ceiling.
- Emails to the test addresses are not counted in the bounce and complaint rates.
See also: Levels · Automatic pause · Sending quotas.
#How the score goes up and down
Each clean day adds points
A day is clean when, among the emails sent that day, hard bounces stay below 2%, spam complaints below 0.1%, content rejected by the providers below 1% and bounces of every type below 10%. A clean day adds points by the day's volume, and each volume only takes the account up to a level:
| Emails sent in the day | Points |
|---|---|
| Fewer than 10 emails | Nothing changes. |
| 10 to 99 emails | +3 points, up to level 3 (up to 5,000 emails a day) |
| 100 to 999 emails | +5 points, up to level 4 (up to 10,000 emails a day) |
| 1,000 emails or more | +6 points, up to level 5 (the plan's limit) |
Time alone does not build trust: a day without sending, or with fewer than 10 emails, neither adds nor takes points. What counts are the days the team sent. And volume counts too: the points of a clean day stop at the top of the level that day's volume allows, so a few emails a day do not take the account to the highest limits. A score already above that top does not drop because of it. For example, a team that sends 100 to 999 emails a day without problems earns 5 points per sending day: it reaches level 2 on day 1, level 3 on day 3 and level 4 on day 6. To reach level 5, it needs clean days with 1,000 emails or more.
What takes points
| What happens | Effect |
|---|---|
| Day above the limits | −10 points. A day with 50 emails or more on which one of the rates went over the clean-day limit (2% permanent bounces, 0.1% complaints, 1% rejected content or 10% bounces of every type). With fewer than 50 emails, a day above the limits takes no points, but it adds none either. |
| Severe day | −25 points. A day with 50 emails or more on which permanent bounces reached 5%, complaints 0.3%, rejected content 5% or bounces of every type 20%. |
| Sending pause | −40 points, right away, for each pause: the automatic one or one made by Postal's team. |
| Team adjustment | Postal's team can adjust the score, up or down. The adjustment shows up in the history. |
How the rates are counted
| Rate | What counts |
|---|---|
| Permanent bounces | Addresses that do not exist or refuse email for good, over the emails sent. They go into the suppression list on their own. Each address counts once, even if it got more than one email. |
| Spam complaints | Recipients who marked the email as spam, over the emails sent. Each recipient counts once. |
| Rejected content | Emails the recipient's provider refused because of their content (a transient bounce of the ContentRejected type), over the emails sent. |
| Bounces of every type | Hard, soft and undetermined bounces together, over the emails sent, each address once. A high rate shows a list with many problem addresses, even when most bounces are soft. |
Tip
The score never goes below 0 or above 100. When it falls into the range of a lower level, the daily ceiling drops with it; when it goes up, the ceiling rises.
#Levels
The level comes from the score. Each level has a daily sending ceiling and a permanent bounce limit: above the warning, the owner and admins get an email; above the pause, sending stops.
| Level | Score | Daily ceiling | Pause for permanent bounces | Notice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Starting | 0 to 4 | 500 emails | above 3% | from 2% |
| 2 · Building | 5 to 14 | 2,000 emails | above 4% | from 2.5% |
| 3 · Growing | 15 to 29 | 5,000 emails | above 5% | from 3% |
| 4 · Steady | 30 to 59 | 10,000 emails | above 5% | from 3% |
| 5 · Established | 60 to 100 | the plan's limit | above 5% | from 3% |
- At every level, spam complaints pause sending above 0.3%, with a warning from 0.15%.
- The lower of the level's ceiling and the plan's daily limit applies. If the plan already has a daily limit below the ceiling, nothing changes for you.
- Levels 1 to 3 have extra protection rules: see Automatic pause.
- Broadcasts and automations also count toward the daily limit. A broadcast that hits the ceiling midway is paused and resumes by itself the next day.
- The Sends add-on reserve extends only the monthly quota: it does not lift the daily ceiling.
When the daily ceiling is reached
Sends receive 429 daily_quota_exceeded (over SMTP, 452 4.5.3) until 00:00 UTC. When the reputation is what limits, the API message gives the level and the ceiling:
Your account is at reputation level 2 of 5, which allows 2000 emails a day while it builds its sending history. The limit grows with each day of sending without bounces or complaints. It resets at 00:00 UTC.To send more per day, keep sending to good lists: each clean day brings the next level closer. Changing plans does not raise the reputation ceiling. If you have a concrete reason to need more now, talk to the team through Help.
#History
Where to find it: Team settings › Account reputation.
The section shows the current score, level and daily ceiling, how many points are left to the next level and its ceiling, the table of levels and the history with the last 30 changes, newest first. Each history row is one of these:
| Row | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Daily scoring | The day's result (clean, few sends, above the limits or severe), the points added or taken, the score after that, how many emails went out and the day's four rates. |
| Pause | The 40 points taken by a sending pause, with the reason. |
| Team adjustment | A change made by Postal's team, with the points added or taken. |
The same numbers are in the reputation block of GET /usage. With a sending-only key (sending_access), the response has no history.
See also: Settings › Usage · Usage (API).
#Automatic pause
Besides the daily ceiling, Postal watches the team's rates and pauses sending when they go over the limit, to protect delivery for everyone. The rates are measured over the last 7 days and, at levels 1 to 3, also over the last 24 hours.
| What pauses | When |
|---|---|
| Permanent bounces | Above the level's limit (3%, 4% or 5%: see Levels). Code bounce_rate. |
| Spam complaints | Above 0.3%, at any level. Code complaint_rate. |
| Rejected content | Above 5% of the emails refused for their content, at any level. Code content_rejected. |
| Bounces of every type | Above 15%, at levels 1 to 3. Code all_bounce_rate. |
- The rates are only judged from 100 sends in the period at levels 1 to 3, and from 1,000 sends at levels 4 and 5.
- In the first 24 hours after the team's first send, a pause for permanent bounces only happens above twice the level's limit (at level 1, above 6%). The first sends usually reveal the invalid addresses all at once, and they leave the list by themselves after the first bounce.
- Before the pause, the owner and admins get an email warning when permanent bounces reach the level's warning or complaints reach 0.15% (see Deliverability alerts).
- Each pause takes 40 points off the reputation.
While sending is paused
The API, batch sending, SMTP, broadcasts and the test addresses receive 403 sending_paused. The dashboard shows the Sending paused banner with the reason, and the pause email lists up to 10 addresses with the most recent bounces (they are already suppressed). Through the API, the reason is in sending.reason_code of GET /usage and in the sending.paused webhook.
What to do
- See the reason in the Sending paused banner or in the pause email.
- Find the source: the View the bounced emails shortcut opens the filtered Emails list. It is almost always an old list, an imported one or one with mistyped addresses.
- Fix it before sending again: take the problem addresses off the list, validate what is left and, if the problem was the content, review the email.
- Request a review: the owner or an admin clicks Request review in the banner, or uses the contact form. The answer arrives by email within 1 business day.
- When sending is back, restart gradually, with the most engaged contacts. The score carries on from where it stopped.
Warning
Sending to the same list again without fixing the cause leads to a new pause, and each pause takes another 40 points. In case of spam, a purchased list or misleading content, the account can be suspended or closed without prior notice: see the Terms of Use.
#Best practices
- Send only to people who asked. Use lists with consent and, for marketing, prefer double opt-in in your forms.
- Never use a purchased, rented or scraped list. Besides being forbidden by the Terms of Use, it is the most common cause of bounces, complaints and pauses.
- Validate old or imported lists before sending with Postal's Email validation: it points out the addresses that do not exist before they turn into bounces.
- Remove bounces. Postal suppresses permanent bounces and complaints by itself; do not take addresses off the suppression list without a reason. If you keep the list in your own system, handle the
email.bouncedevent of the webhooks to remove them there too. - Raise the volume gradually. Start with the most engaged contacts and let the reputation grow as you send.
- Authenticate the domain with DKIM, SPF and, preferably, DMARC. See Domains.
- Keep transactional and marketing apart. Promotions go through broadcasts, with unsubscribe, not through the transactional sending API.
See also: Sending limits and reputation · Email validation · Terms of Use.