Deliverability and Domain Configuration

Q: What is SPF and do I need to add MailChannels to my SPF record?
A: SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication method that lets domain owners specify which mail servers are allowed to send on their behalf. If your domain has an SPF record, you should update it to include MailChannels. Specifically, add include:relay.mailchannels.net to your SPF TXT record (Set up SPF Records), placing it before the all mechanism. This tells receiving mail servers that MailChannels’ servers are legitimate senders for your domain. Without this, some receivers might mark messages as suspicious or fail SPF checks if they see MailChannels IPs sending for you. In summary: adding MailChannels to SPF isn’t strictly required to use the service, but it is strongly recommended for optimal deliverability and to comply with recipients’ policies.

Q: Does MailChannels filter or block any outgoing emails (for spam/phishing)?
A: Yes – one of MailChannels’ core advantages is its built-in abuse prevention. All emails sent through the platform are automatically scanned and filtered in real-time. If a message appears to be spam or malicious (phishing, malware, etc.), we may prevent it from being delivered (Email API Documentation). We use threat intelligence and spam signature databases, as well as machine learning anomaly detection, to catch abusive emails. This protects your domain’s reputation by stopping spam before it reaches recipients. In practice, if you (or a compromised account in your app) try to send a bulk spam, we will likely drop those messages (“dropped” events will show in your webhooks) and could rate-limit your sending temporarily (MailChannels Help Center - Do you charge for spam messages?). We have systems to detect sudden volume spikes or spam outbreaks – for example, if your account suddenly sends far more email than normal, we might throttle your sending rate and alert you, rather than let a spam blast go out. All of this happens automatically to ensure high deliverability for legitimate mail while mitigating abuse.

Q: Will MailChannels provide a dedicated IP address for my emails?
A: Not at this time. we uses pools of shared IP addresses to send email, and we focus on domain reputation rather than IP reputation. In fact, over time the industry has shifted such that a sender domain’s reputation (DKIM, DMARC, etc.) matters more than owning a dedicated IP. MailChannels has decided to use shared IPs for all customers – our systems manage these IP pools to maintain good reputation and mitigate any bad actors. Dedicated IPs are not part of the standard offering currently (and lack of a dedicated IP won’t hurt deliverability in our system).

Q: Does MailChannels support TLS encryption for outgoing emails?
A: Yes. MailChannels supports Opportunistic TLS for delivering email. This means when our servers connect to recipient mail servers, we will negotiate TLS (SSL) encryption if the recipient server supports it, ensuring the email is encrypted in transit. The vast majority of mail providers support TLS, so most MailChannels emails are sent securely. You don’t have to do anything special to enable this – it’s automatic. In terms of the API, you always send your API requests to MailChannels over HTTPS, so your email content is encrypted on its way into MailChannels, and then MailChannels uses TLS on the way out whenever possible. This end-to-end approach keeps your messages private and secure.

Q: Is MailChannels GDPR compliant and what about data privacy?
A: Yes, MailChannels is fully GDPR compliant (Is MailChannels GDPR-compliant?). We have strict policies to protect data security and user privacy. Regarding data retention: MailChannels minimizes how long email content is stored. Messages you send are queued and retried for up to a few hours as needed, but once delivered, the message content is permanently deleted from our systems. We do not archive or keep the body of your emails. Only some metadata is retained for logging and abuse monitoring – such as sender/recipient addresses, subject line, and sending IP or account ID. This metadata is used to track sending patterns and support (for example, to investigate spam complaints), and it’s handled in compliance with privacy laws. In short, MailChannels ensures that personal data is protected: content is only stored transiently to perform the service, and we abide by GDPR principles for any data we do store. If you have special privacy requirements (for instance, needing certain data deletion or EU-only data processing), you can reach out to our support to discuss solutions.