Deliverability · Intermediate · 6 min read
Sending domains, senders and why the distinction matters
What a sending domain actually is, why a sender is the unit reputation attaches to, and how many of each you need for a given daily target.
The vocabulary here is genuinely confusing, and getting it wrong leads to real mistakes. Most commonly, running far more volume through one address than it can carry.
A domain is a reputation surface. A sender is a from-address on it. Reputation attaches primarily to the sender, secondarily to the domain, and the daily limit applies per sender.
The arithmetic
Take your daily target, divide by the safe per-sender rate, and that is how many senders you need. At a mature rate of around fifty a day per address, two hundred sends a day needs four addresses.
Then apply the ramp: those four addresses start at ten a day each, so your real week-one capacity is forty, not two hundred. Plan for that rather than discovering it.
Why a subdomain rather than the root
Subdomains inherit some reputation from the root but accumulate their own, which is the property you want: upside flows down, downside stays contained.
Use something plausible that a human would not blink at. It appears in every from address you send.
How many domains
One domain with several senders is fine up to a few hundred a day. Past that, splitting across domains limits the blast radius of a reputation event.
Do not buy twenty lookalike domains. It is the pattern that filtering systems are specifically built to catch, and it is what the practice is now known for.
- One subdomain, two to four senders: a normal starting point.
- Verify with the provider before assuming the records took.
- Receiving enabled, so replies land where you can see them.
- One reply-to per domain, monitored.
Rotation is not a trick
Spreading volume across addresses is how a team sends more than one address safely can. It only works if each address is individually paced. Rotation with a single global limit just moves the problem around.
The takeaway
Count senders, not sends. Your capacity is the number of addresses times each one's current ramped ceiling, and week one is much smaller than you think.
Read next
All guidesEverything in these guides is a default in the product rather than an exercise left to the reader.
Everything above, running on your list
Describe the company, confirm the keywords, connect a channel. The agents take it from there, and Supervised mode is available when you want to review before sending.
Start with sales. $2,000 or $5,000 onboarding, then at least $250 monthly credit funding.