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Email deliverability in Kinde
Kinde encourages users to configure their own email sender, so that verification and other emails are sent form your own business, and not Kinde.
When emails are sent via Kinde, we support the email routing, and are proactive about monitoring verification email deliverability and speed.
This topic describes email delivery via Kinde, deliverability factors, and some common reasons why delivery can fail.
Manage your own email sender
Link to this sectionBy default, when you first start using Kinde, all emails are sent from @kinde.com. But you can set up your environments to use your own email, so users receive authentication emails from @yourbusiness.com.
You’ll want to configure this before your production environment goes live. All you need is to add SMTP details in Kinde settings. See Customize email sender.
Emails sent from Kinde
Link to this sectionEven if you enter custom sender details, these emails will still be sent from Kinde:
- Invitation to join business team - triggered by manual or API addition of team member
- Warnings and notifications of data export
Deliverability factors
Link to this sectionEmail delivery is dependent on a number of factors.
IP address reputation and blocklists
Link to this sectionEmail providers check against a pool of IP addresses and domain blocklists to help protect against bad actors. They constantly monitor to make sure IP addresses are not on any of these lists. If you experience issues, check that your domain doesn’t exist on any of these lists.
Domain name reputation
Link to this sectionEvery domain name (i.e. example.com, kinde.com, etc.) has its own reputation score. Newer domains do not have a high score, and this may impact deliverability.
Setup a real email address
Link to this sectionEmail providers will check if there’s an actual mailbox behind the “from address” of an email. Make sure when you set your custom email sender, that you use a real email address such as notifications@yourbusiness.com.
Email content
Link to this sectionKinde email content is optimized to (as far as we can) ensure our communications don’t get identified by providers as spam. Maintaining deliverability is one of the reasons we have limited the ability to edit email content.
SPF, DMARC, and DKIM for email authentication
Link to this sectionSPF (Sender Policy Framework), DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) are email authentication methods used to combat email spoofing, phishing, and other forms of email fraud.
These records add a digital signature to every outgoing message, which allows your provider to verify that emails were actually sent from you. Almost all email providers look for these to be set as a strong signal of legitimacy.
Strengthen email authentication with your provider
Link to this sectionYou and your email provider are ultimately responsible for ensuring the right level security and risk management for email authentication. Because Kinde allows you to use any provider you like, check their documentation to find out if their policies and approach meet your needs.
Provider-related issues
Link to this sectionDespite all we can do, verification emails still occasionally end up in spam or quarantined. The cases below are specific, but might help you troubleshoot is they arise.
Gmail
Link to this sectionDelivery addresses that are part of Google Workspace can sometimes be delayed by about 4 minutes, due to pre-delivery message scanning. It can help to sign up for Gmail’s postmaster tools, to help troubleshoot issues.
Microsoft (Hotmail / Outlook / Office365)
Link to this sectionMicrosoft Defender’s aggressive anti-spam filters sometimes stop verification emails reaching certain Outlook inboxes. Then the email is placed in quarantine and the administrator has to restore it, for it to be delivered. With Kinde, this should be rare, as we only send OTPs and not magic links. Access Outlook Sender Support and check you are following recommendations.