What is a good email deliverability rate for a SaaS company?

A good email deliverability rate (inbox placement) should be 95% or higher, while your delivery rate (emails that didn't bounce) should ideally exceed 98%. Rates below 90% indicate significant foundation issues with your domain reputation or technical authentication that require immediate auditing.

Why are my SaaS emails going to spam in Outlook but not Gmail?

Outlook doesn’t judge email the same way Gmail does. It pays close attention to how old your domain is and how recipients have responded to your messages over time. If your authentication is already set up properly, landing in spam is usually about trust, not a technical mistake. Having early users mark your emails as “Not Junk” can help build that trust, and it’s also worth confirming that your domain hasn’t been flagged on any Microsoft-related blocklists, such as the Barracuda Reputation Block List.

How long should I warm up a new SaaS domain?

The usual warm-up period is about 14 to 30 days, and it begins with as little as 20 emails per day and then gradually increases. The gradual and slow build up is necessary so that the new domains for SaaS don't get flagged by the ISP. This is because they think any sudden large bursts are bot activity or something suspicious.

Is it not ok to use the same domain for cold outreach and transactional emails?

We really don't recommend it. This is because high complaint rates from cold outreach can damage your domain reputation and cause critical transactional emails, like password resets, to fail. You should use a dedicated subdomain or a secondary domain for marketing and outreach to isolate your primary SaaS infrastructure.

Can you give me the spam triggers that cause the most problems in SaaS email content? I would like to avoid those!

Avoid excessive use of "salesy" keywords like "Free," "Buy Now," or "Urgent," and maintain a healthy text-to-image ratio of at least 60:40. Additionally, ensure all links use HTTPS and point to reputable domains, as broken links or link shorteners are frequently flagged by modern spam filters.

How often should I clean my SaaS email list?

You should try to do that at least once per month or whenever your hard bounce rate is 0.5% or higher. Following a sunset policy that auto-unsubscribes any of your users who haven't been around in over 90 days will help protect your long-term email deliverability rate.

How to Improve Email Deliverability in SaaS [5 Step Guide]

为了 improve email deliverability, validate your domain identity and manage your sender reputation with technical and behavioral adjustments. This will help your SaaS communications, like onboarding sequences and invoices, get through spam filters and make it to the user’s inbox. You need those high email deliverability rates because even small technical errors can cause your domain getting blacklisted by Google or Outlook.

Our guide is here to give you the details you need to make your current setup the best version of itself. AND show you the protocols you need to protect your domain.

步骤 1

Audit Your Current Technical Infrastructure

Before you change anything at all, are there any problems with your DNS records? A lot of emails being sent from SaaS platforms never get to the inbox because of missing or conflicting authentication records. That’s because it’s a trigger that security flags.

You can try out some tools such as MXToolbox 或 GlockApps to run a baseline report on your current email deliverability rate.

Make sure you don’t have any duplicates and that there is just one SPF record. Having two v=spf1 records is a common error that causes a permanent fail (PermError) in many mail servers.

We recommend reaching out to your provider to make sure your IP地址 is properly directed to your domain and verify reverse DNS (PTR). This is due to the fact that a mismatch is usually the reason for blocks with B2B. To be certain you aren’t blacklisted, run your domain and IP through various databases such as Spamhaus 或 Barracuda to see if you are on there.

注意

Corporate firewalls like Mimecast 或 Proofpoint may block your emails if your DMARC policy is not set to at least p=quarantine. Why is that? Simply put, B2B filters are more aggressive than consumer filters. So if you’re 销售B2B SaaS, make your SaaS data security and authentication protocols airtight so those emails will also reach enterprise inboxes.

Free SaaS Email Deliverability Checklist

Ensure your email deliverability rate stays above 95% by following our verified sender framework.

Step-by-step DNS record configuration
Warm-up schedule for new domains
List hygiene and maintenance protocols
Critical deliverability metrics to monitor
以及更多！

获取您的免费清单

步骤 2

Authentication Protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

If you want to improve your SaaS email deliverability then start with 身份验证. These records prove to the receiving server that you are who you say you are and that the message has not been altered. For a SaaS founder, this is the most critical technical step to prevent spoofing and phishing attempts using your brand.

Type of Record	What is it For	Sample Value
SPF	Authorizes specific IPs/services to send mail.	v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all
DKIM	Digital signature to verify email content.	v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=[LongKeyString]
DMARC	Instructions on handling failed emails.	v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:[email protected]

提示

For the first week, closely analyze reports, set up DMARC by starting with p=none and then confirm that the real emails are passing through. After that, change to p=quarantine and work on protecting your reputation. Data from Postmark on DMARC says that when you see quarantine or reject policies with a domain, there are a lot less spoofing instances.

Free SaaS Email Deliverability Checklist

Ensure your email deliverability rate stays above 95% by following our verified sender framework.

Step-by-step DNS record configuration
Warm-up schedule for new domains
List hygiene and maintenance protocols
Critical deliverability metrics to monitor
以及更多！

获取您的免费清单

步骤 3

Choose your Strategy for Sending Email

Think about how you can isolate risk. Finding the right tools depends largely upon your volume and the needs of your SaaS business. Do you think it’s best to split your traffic based on the type of messages or should you use just one provider to send them all? Believe it or not, this one decision can impact the long game rate of your email deliverability rates.

Consider these questions as you do a self-assessment:

Which strategy is right for your SaaS? Do you send more than 5,000 emails per day? If yes, you likely need a dedicated IP address. SendGrid’s 2024 Global Email Benchmark Report indicates that high-volume senders on shared IPs are more susceptible to the “noisy neighbor” effect.
Are you doing cold outreach? If yes, you should use a secondary domain (e.g., try-yourdomain.com) to protect your primary domain.
Is your product a high-volume notification tool? If yes, use a specialized transactional service like Postmark or Mailgun.

示例

A startup like Lovable, which handles agreement and e-signature contracts, might use Postmark for high-priority contract links and a separate service like HubSpot for their monthly newsletters. This approach prevents underperforming newsletters from delaying critical emails, such as time-sensitive contracts. For teams in the early stages, our startup guide explains how to balance these decisions while keeping operational costs under control.

Free SaaS Email Deliverability Checklist

Ensure your email deliverability rate stays above 95% by following our verified sender framework.

Step-by-step DNS record configuration
Warm-up schedule for new domains
List hygiene and maintenance protocols
Critical deliverability metrics to monitor
以及更多！

获取您的免费清单

步骤 4

Implement a Gradual Warm-up Protocol

New domains or IPs are viewed with suspicion by ISPs like Gmail and Outlook.

A “warm-up” involves sending a small number of emails and slowly increasing the volume over 14 to 30 days. This establishes a baseline of positive engagement that tells providers your SaaS is a safe sender.

During the first week Limit sending to 20–50 emails per day to known, active users.

For the second week you can increase to 100–200 emails per day. You can begin to gradually scale toward your target volume during week three.

Then continue with looking at your engagement data and be sure to monitor your open and reply rates.

Lemwarm data suggests that a reply rate of 3-5% during the warm-up phase improves your sender score faster than opens alone.

提示

We recommend that you do not use no-reply addresses. Use an email address like [email protected] so that the ISP sees you are willing to communicate. This will give you a higher sender score too! This is particularly useful for SaaS user onboarding, where prompt replies can improve the customer experience.

Free SaaS Email Deliverability Checklist

Ensure your email deliverability rate stays above 95% by following our verified sender framework.

Step-by-step DNS record configuration
Warm-up schedule for new domains
List hygiene and maintenance protocols
Critical deliverability metrics to monitor
以及更多！

获取您的免费清单

步骤 5

Keep your List clean and Monitor Data

A good email delivery rate of 98% can drop quickly if you continue to send to or invalid addresses. High bounce rates (over 2%) are a primary signal to ISPs that you are a low-quality sender.

Regular cleaning of your database is a fundamental part of how you improve email deliverability.

Remove hard bounces by immediately deleting addresses that return a “user does not exist” error.

NeverBounce’s case studies show that list cleaning can reduce bounce rates by up to 90%.

指标	目标	Warning Level
Delivery Rate	> 99%	< 95%
Bounce Rate	< 0.5%	> 2%
Spam Rate Complaints	< 0.01%	> 0.1%

Separate emails by engagement and send your marketing content to users who have opened an email in the last 60–90 days. This helps you 减少客户流失 by focusing on active users.

然后 monitor feedback loops and sign up for Google Postmaster Tools 和 Microsoft SNDS to see exactly how these providers perceive your traffic.

结论

Improving your SaaS email performance requires a combination of correct DNS records and disciplined sending habits. By configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, you provide the necessary proof of 身份信息 to mailbox providers. Consistently 监控 your engagement and cleaning your list ensures that your how to improve email deliverability efforts lead to a sustained, high email deliverability rate.

For more help on avoiding emails going to spam, check our dedicated troubleshooting guide.

常见问题解答

What is a good email deliverability rate for a SaaS company?

A good email deliverability rate (inbox placement) should be 95% or higher, while your delivery rate (emails that didn’t bounce) should ideally exceed 98%. Rates below 90% indicate significant foundation issues with your domain reputation or technical authentication that require immediate auditing.
Why are my SaaS emails going to spam in Outlook but not Gmail?

Outlook doesn’t judge email the same way Gmail does. It pays close attention to how old your domain is and how recipients have responded to your messages over time. If your authentication is already set up properly, landing in spam is usually about trust, not a technical mistake. Having early users mark your emails as “Not Junk” can help build that trust, and it’s also worth confirming that your domain hasn’t been flagged on any Microsoft-related blocklists, such as the Barracuda Reputation Block List.
How long should I warm up a new SaaS domain?

The usual warm-up period is about 14 to 30 days, and it begins with as little as 20 emails per day and then gradually increases. The gradual and slow build up is necessary so that the new domains for SaaS don’t get flagged by the ISP. This is because they think any sudden large bursts are bot activity or something suspicious.
Is it not ok to use the same domain for cold outreach and transactional emails?

We really don’t recommend it. This is because high complaint rates from cold outreach can damage your domain reputation and cause critical transactional emails, like password resets, to fail. You should use a dedicated subdomain or a secondary domain for marketing and outreach to isolate your primary SaaS infrastructure.
Can you give me the spam triggers that cause the most problems in SaaS email content? I would like to avoid those!

Avoid excessive use of “salesy” keywords like “Free,” “Buy Now,” or “Urgent,” and maintain a healthy text-to-image ratio of at least 60:40. Additionally, ensure all links use HTTPS and point to reputable domains, as broken links or link shorteners are frequently flagged by modern spam filters.
How often should I clean my SaaS email list?

You should try to do that at least once per month or whenever your hard bounce rate is 0.5% or higher. Following a sunset policy that auto-unsubscribes any of your users who haven’t been around in over 90 days will help protect your long-term email deliverability rate.

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How to Improve Email Deliverability for Your SaaS

Audit Your Current Technical Infrastructure

Authentication Protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

Choose your Strategy for Sending Email

Implement a Gradual Warm-up Protocol

Keep your List clean and Monitor Data

结论

常见问题解答

准备好开始了吗？

FREE SaaS Email Deliverability Checklist