Email Not Delivering — Checklist + DKIM/SPF/DMARC

<h2>First Check — Use mail-tester.com</h2><ol><li>Go to <a href="https://www.mail-tester.com" target="_blank">mail-tester.com</a></li><li>Copy the unique email address</li><li>Send a test message from your business email to that address</li><li>Click "Then check your score" — getting less than 8/10? You have an issue!</li></ol><h2>What Determines the Score</h2><table><tr><th>Component</th><th>What is it</th><th>At IT Live</th></tr><tr><td><strong>SPF</strong></td><td>DNS record with "who can send mail from your domain"</td><td>Automatically set up during domain registration</td></tr><tr><td><strong>DKIM</strong></td><td>Cryptographic signature on every outgoing email</td><td>Automatically set up + 2048-bit keys</td></tr><tr><td><strong>DMARC</strong></td><td>Policy "what to do in case of spoofing"</td><td>Default: <em>p=none</em>, after 2 weeks changed to <em>p=quarantine</em></td></tr><tr><td><strong>PTR (reverse DNS)</strong></td><td>IP → hostname mapping</td><td>Our server IP has a correct PTR</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Reputation score</strong></td><td>Spam history of our server IP</td><td>Monitored monthly, < 1% spam rate</td></tr></table><h2>Common Gotchas</h2><ul><li>Sending from Gmail/Outlook with "Send as..." → SPF often fails. Send via our SMTP (port 587, STARTTLS)</li><li>Too many ALL-CAPS in the subject → spam filter</li><li>"FREE!!!" in the body → spam filter</li><li>Incorrect Reply-To that doesn't match the From → DMARC fail</li><li>Bcc > 50 recipients at once → bulk flag</li></ul><h2>High Volumes</h2><p>For newsletters and bulk mailings: use our SendGrid integration (integrated in the admin portal). Separate sending IPs, warmed up, without impact on transactional email.</p>