Compliance scorecard
Gmail & Yahoo Bulk Sender Compliance Check
Free check for the Feb 2024 sender requirements. Pass all 4 mandatory checks or your campaigns get filtered to spam.
What changed in February 2024
Gmail and Yahoo simultaneously rolled out hard requirements for senders pushing more than 5,000 messages per day to their inboxes. Cold email is squarely in scope. The rules cover authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), unsubscribe behavior, spam complaint rate, and TLS/reverse-DNS hygiene. Failing any of these gets campaigns deprioritized — and at scale, blocked outright.
Most existing tools (mail-tester, MXToolbox) report on individual checks but don't tell you straight up whether you'd pass Gmail's bar. This page does.
The 4 requirements we can verify from DNS
We check these directly from your domain — pass/fail in 30 seconds.
SPF with -all or ~all
Your SPF record must list every authorized sender and end with -all (strict) or ~all (soft-fail).
DKIM signed with a 1024-bit key
Every outbound message must carry a DKIM signature with a key length of at least 1024 bits.
DMARC published with p=none minimum
You need a DMARC record at _dmarc.<domain>. p=none satisfies the bar; p=quarantine or p=reject is stronger.
Forward-confirmed reverse DNS
Each sending IP must have a PTR record that resolves back to itself. We pull your IPs from your SPF and check automatically.
4 more requirements need a sample email or report
We surface these on your scorecard with the right next step — Postmaster Tools, DMARC reports, or our Agency tier for ongoing monitoring.
DMARC alignment on outbound mail
Your From: domain must align with the SPF or DKIM signing domain. Verifiable from DMARC aggregate reports — set up rua= reporting.
STARTTLS on inbound mail servers
Your MX servers must accept TLS. We can't probe SMTP from the cloud (port 25 is blocked); use Hardenize.com to verify.
One-click List-Unsubscribe header
RFC 8058 — both List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click headers must be present on bulk mail.
Spam complaint rate under 0.3%
Tracked via Google Postmaster Tools and Yahoo Sender Hub. Stay under 0.10% to be safe.
Frequently asked questions
What is Gmail's bulk sender threshold?
Gmail's bulk sender rules apply once you send roughly 5,000 messages per day to Gmail addresses. Yahoo applies the same threshold to Yahoo Mail recipients. Below that volume the rules are recommendations; above it they're enforced.
Do I need DMARC for Gmail bulk sending?
Yes. Bulk senders must publish a DMARC record with at least p=none. p=quarantine and p=reject also satisfy the rule. A missing or syntactically broken DMARC record is one of the most common reasons cold email campaigns get filtered after February 2024.
What's the spam complaint rate limit for Gmail?
Gmail's hard ceiling is 0.30% — three out of every 1,000 messages marked as spam. Stay consistently under 0.10% to be safe. Monitor it in Google Postmaster Tools after verifying your domain there.
What does one-click List-Unsubscribe mean?
It's an RFC 8058 header (List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click) that lets recipients unsubscribe in a single click without leaving Gmail or Yahoo. Cold email platforms like Smartlead, Instantly, and Lemlist add it for you when you enable transactional unsubscribe.
How do I check forward-confirmed reverse DNS (FCrDNS)?
For each IP that sends mail on your behalf, the IP must have a PTR record pointing to a hostname, and that hostname's A record must resolve back to the same IP. Our scanner pulls your sending IPs from your SPF record and checks them automatically.
My domain passes 4/4 here — am I done?
Not quite. Four more requirements (DMARC alignment, STARTTLS, working one-click unsubscribe, and complaint rate) can only be verified from a sample email or DMARC reports. Use Google Postmaster Tools and our Agency tier for ongoing monitoring of those.
Want continuous monitoring?
Agency tier tracks Gmail/Yahoo compliance daily and alerts you on regressions — never get blindsided by a silent SPF or DKIM change.