Scan your sending domain for authentication gaps, DNS errors, and reputation issues. Get a scored report with fix priorities.
Deep analysis mode: Performs live DNS queries for accurate real-time results
A search for a deliverability test turns up two distinct products with the same label. One sends an actual email to a set of seed mailboxes and tells you which folder each provider placed it in. The other inspects your domain's public DNS and reputation records while sending nothing. This page runs the second type, and the two serve separate purposes.
Inbox placement test
Domain scan (this page)
Do the domain scan before anything else. A bad SPF record or an active blacklist entry will ruin a placement test anyway, and the test would just confirm what DNS already shows in a second. When the scan is clean, run a placement test on a single mailbox per domain. Do not test all mailboxes on a domain together; the limit is two or three at a time. Also, because reputation is judged per domain, a spam result for that one mailbox applies to every other mailbox on the domain.
Neither test can reveal whether your copy is at fault. If reply rates drop by about 90% within a day or two while your list and volume stay unchanged, the provider has fingerprinted the copy, and new domains will burn just as fast as the previous set. A gradual decline over several weeks means the domain itself is wearing out. If this page shows a clean scan while replies keep falling, the copy or the list is the cause, so that is where your time goes.
Email deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach the recipient's inbox, not their spam folder, not a bounce, not a black hole. It's the single most important metric for anyone who depends on email to generate business.
Deliverability is not the same as delivery rate. Your delivery rate measures how many emails were accepted by the receiving server (didn't bounce). Your deliverability measures how many of those accepted emails actually landed in the inbox versus spam. You can have a 98% delivery rate and terrible deliverability.
Inbox
The goal. Recipient sees it.
Spam/Junk
Accepted but invisible.
Bounce
Server rejected it entirely.
A score providers assign based on your sending history, spam complaints, bounce rates, spam trap hits, engagement, and volume patterns. Check yours with our Reputation Checker.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC prove you're allowed to send email from your domain. Missing or broken authentication is one of the most common and most fixable problems. Check with our SPF Checker, DKIM Checker, and DMARC Checker.
Spam filters analyze for patterns: excessive links, salesy language, image-heavy layouts, misleading subject lines, and trigger phrases. Writing like a normal human is the best content strategy.
Sending to invalid, inactive, or unengaged addresses hurts you. Bounces damage reputation. Inactive addresses may be recycled spam traps.
Consistent, predictable patterns look legitimate. Erratic bursts look like spam. Gradually warming up is essential for new IPs and domains.
Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo track opens, replies, clicks, and marking as spam. High engagement improves deliverability over time. Low engagement degrades it.
Your infrastructure and practices are solid. Maintain what you're doing and monitor for changes.
You're likely in the inbox most of the time, but specific issues are dragging your score down. Fix the flagged items.
You're probably landing in spam for a significant portion of recipients. Address critical issues immediately.
Most of your email is likely going to spam or being rejected. Major fixes needed, start with authentication failures.
Cold email operates under different rules. You're emailing people who didn't opt in, which means mailbox providers give you less room for error. Every cold email starts at a disadvantage, no prior engagement signals to draw on.
The email infrastructure stack for cold email includes:
Separate Domains
Never send cold email from your primary business domain. Use dedicated sending domains to protect your main reputation.
Proper Authentication
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC must be correctly configured on every sending domain. No exceptions.
Warmed-Up Mailboxes
New mailboxes need 2-4 weeks of gradual warmup before sending cold email at any meaningful volume.
Volume Rotation
Spreading cold email across multiple mailboxes and domains reduces the risk of burning any single one.
Symptoms: Low open rates (below 15-20% for cold email), recipients finding your email in spam.
Fixes: Run our SPF Checker and DMARC Checker. Check reputation with our Reputation Checker. Remove excessive links and aggressive sales language. Warm up properly. Check our Blacklist Checker and get delisted.
Symptoms: More than 2-3% of your emails bouncing on a given send.
Fixes: Verify your email list before sending. Check MX records and DNS records. Remove addresses that haven't engaged in 6+ months.
Symptoms: SPF, DKIM, or DMARC showing "fail" in email headers.
Fixes: Add your sending server to your SPF record. Merge multiple SPF records into one (only one allowed per domain). Re-generate and publish DKIM keys. Add a DMARC record starting with p=none and work toward p=quarantine or p=reject.
This is the foundation. Publish a valid SPF record, configure DKIM signing on every sending service, and add a DMARC record. If these are broken, nothing else matters.
Start with 5-10 emails per day from a new mailbox and gradually increase over 2-4 weeks. Send to engaged recipients during warmup. There's no shortcut.
Verify all email addresses before sending. Remove bounced addresses and recipients who haven't engaged in 6+ months. Never use purchased or scraped lists without verification.
Keep cold emails short (50-125 words). Write plain text, not HTML templates. Limit links (0-1 for cold email). Sound like a human, not a sales machine.
Check blacklists weekly. Watch bounce rates, spam complaints, and open rates. Re-run this deliverability test monthly.
For well-maintained senders, 85%+ inbox placement is a reasonable target. Top performers hit 95%+. Below 70% means active problems need fixing. Deliverability varies by provider, you might have 95% at Gmail but 60% at Outlook.
At minimum, monthly. If you're actively sending cold email, test weekly. Also test after any infrastructure change, new domain, new IP, new provider, DNS changes.
Yes, but less than most people think. Authentication and sender reputation are far more important. Content becomes the tiebreaker when everything else is equal. Certain red flags (excessive links, image-only emails, deceptive subject lines) can push you into spam regardless.
Authentication fixes can improve things within days. Rebuilding sender reputation takes 2-4 weeks of clean sending. Full recovery from severe damage can take 4-8 weeks of careful rehabilitation.
The fundamentals are the same, but cold email is harder. No opt-in, no engagement history, and you're contacting strangers. This means you need better infrastructure, more careful warmup, lower per-mailbox volume, and tighter sending practices.
Not directly, but it affects engagement, which affects deliverability over time. Emails sent at 3 AM that get ignored drag down your metrics. For cold B2B email, Tuesday through Thursday during business hours tends to perform best.
An inbox placement test, also called a seed test or spam test, sends a real message to a network of seed mailboxes and reports which folder it landed in at each provider. It tells you where one message from one mailbox went at the moment you sent it. A domain scan, which is what this tool runs, reads your public DNS and reputation data with no send involved. Run the domain scan to find configuration problems you can fix, and a placement test to confirm a mailbox and a piece of copy reach the inbox before you scale volume.
They are accurate for what they sample, which is the seed network the vendor owns. Seed networks run business mailboxes, so a placement test tells you close to nothing about personal Gmail, Outlook.com or Yahoo addresses, and those filters behave very differently from Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. A placement test also scores one mailbox and one piece of copy at the moment you run it, so a pass on one mailbox does not clear the others on the same domain.
Both are possible and they need different fixes. If reply rates fall by around 90% within a day or two while your list and your volume stayed the same, the copy has been fingerprinted and you need structurally different copy rather than new domains. If reply rates decline gradually over several weeks, the domain or the mailboxes are burning and you need to rotate them. A clean domain scan alongside falling replies points at copy or targeting rather than DNS.
Your deliverability test gives you a snapshot of where you stand. For deeper dives into specific issues:
Look up all DNS records and find configuration issues
SPF Record CheckerValidate your SPF record syntax and included sources
DMARC Record CheckerCheck your DMARC policy and reporting setup
Email Blacklist CheckerCheck if your domain or IP is listed on any blacklists
Sender Reputation CheckerSee your domain and IP reputation scores
Most of what this page checks is configuration work someone has to do and then keep doing, on every domain, every time you add capacity. At ScaledMail we provision and manage that infrastructure layer end to end:
Warmup runs inside your sequencer (Smartlead, Instantly, EmailBison, PlusVibe), where the engagement signals live. You keep the sequencer you already use, and you stop rerunning this scan to find out what broke.