--- title: "HubSpot Email Deliverability: A Practical Guide" description: "Why your HubSpot emails land in spam, and how to improve deliverability: the five levers that decide inbox placement, and how to keep your list healthy." --- [Skip to content](https://koalify.io/hubspot-email-deliverability#main-content) [![rectangle\_long\_koala\_with\_name\_bold\_200\_125\_white](https://koalify.io/hubfs/rectangle_long_koala_with_name_bold_200_125_white.png)](https://koalify.io?hsLang=en) - Products Show submenu for Products - [Deduplication](https://koalify.io) - [Email Validation](https://koalify.io/hubspot-email-validation) - Pricing Show submenu for Pricing - [Deduplication](https://koalify.io/pricing) - [Email Validation](https://koalify.io/hubspot-email-validation-pricing-koalify) - [Partners](https://koalify.io/partners) - [Blog](https://koalify.io/blog) - Knowledge base Show submenu for Knowledge base - [Deduplication](https://koalify.io/knowledge-base) - [Email Validation](https://koalify.io/email-validation-knowledge-base) - Products Show submenu for Products - [Deduplication](https://koalify.io) - [Email Validation](https://koalify.io/hubspot-email-validation) - Pricing Show submenu for Pricing - [Deduplication](https://koalify.io/pricing) - [Email Validation](https://koalify.io/hubspot-email-validation-pricing-koalify) - [Partners](https://koalify.io/partners) - [Blog](https://koalify.io/blog) - Knowledge base Show submenu for Knowledge base - [Deduplication](https://koalify.io/knowledge-base) - [Email Validation](https://koalify.io/email-validation-knowledge-base) ![menu-toggle](https://21645388.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/21645388/menu-toggle.svg) ![menu-close](https://21645388.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/21645388/menu-close.svg) [Get Started Free](https://api.koalify.io/hubspot/install?utm_source=koalify&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=navigation) # HubSpot email deliverability: a practical checklist for reaching the inbox HubSpot tells you the email was delivered. The dashboard shows a healthy send. But opens are lower than they should be, replies have dried up, and then someone forwards you a screenshot of your last campaign sitting in their spam folder. You didn't change anything about the email. So what happened? What happened is the gap between *sent* and *seen*. Deliverability is everything that decides whether an email HubSpot hands off actually lands in the inbox, or gets quietly filtered to spam where nobody looks. It's invisible until it breaks, and by the time you notice, your sender reputation has usually already taken the hit. This guide is a working checklist, not an essay. It covers the five levers that decide inbox placement, what to check for each one in HubSpot, what a healthy result looks like, and what to do when a check fails. Work through it once to find your weak spot, then use the monitoring rhythm to keep it fixed. #### What is HubSpot email deliverability? HubSpot email deliverability is whether the marketing emails you send from HubSpot reach recipients' inboxes rather than their spam folders. It depends on five levers: authentication (SPF, DKIM and DMARC), list quality, engagement, spam complaints and content, and sender reputation. HubSpot's "delivered" status only confirms the receiving server accepted the email, not that it reached the inbox. #### How to improve email deliverability in HubSpot 1. Authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. 2. Validate the email addresses already in HubSpot and suppress invalid ones. 3. Validate new contacts from forms, imports and enrichment tools before their first send. 4. Stop sending to unengaged contacts, and cut emails nobody reads. 5. Keep hard bounces under 1% and spam complaints under 0.1%. 6. Monitor the Health tab and Google Postmaster Tools every month. ![How to check your sender reputation in HubSpot](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/How%20to%20check%20your%20sender%20reputation%20in%20HubSpot.png?width=1707&height=681&name=How%20to%20check%20your%20sender%20reputation%20in%20HubSpot.png) ### What's the difference between sent, delivered and inbox placement in HubSpot? These three terms get confused, and separating them is where the fix starts. **Sent** means HubSpot attempted delivery. **Delivered** means the recipient's server accepted the email. **Inbox placement** means it actually reached the inbox rather than spam or a quarantine folder. HubSpot shows you the first two clearly. It can't show you the third, because no sending platform can see inside Gmail's or Outlook's filtering decisions. That's the trap. A campaign can show a 99% delivery rate in HubSpot and still be landing in spam for many of its recipients. What HubSpot does give you are warning signs: rising bounces, falling clicks on a list that used to engage, climbing spam reports and unsubscribes. When those move in the wrong direction together, inbox placement is slipping even though "delivered" still looks fine. → For what every status on HubSpot's Recipients tab means, see HubSpot email statuses explained. ![Sent, delivered dropped bounced HubSpot email statuses explained](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/Sent%2c%20delivered%20dropped%20bounced%20HubSpot%20email%20statuses%20explained.png?width=665&height=600&name=Sent%2c%20delivered%20dropped%20bounced%20HubSpot%20email%20statuses%20explained.png)   ### What limits does HubSpot enforce on marketing email? Two sets of thresholds sit behind most of the checks below. **HubSpot's limits.** HubSpot can suspend marketing email if your account goes over any of these in a given month: a 5% hard bounce rate, a 0.1% spam report rate (one per 1,000 emails sent) or a 3% unsubscribe rate. During a suspension, all marketing email stops, including automated emails in workflows. These are ceilings, not targets. HubSpot notes that many mailbox providers prefer bounce rates under 1%, and that a healthy unsubscribe rate is under 1%. **Mailbox providers' rules.** Since 2024, Google and Yahoo require bulk senders to authenticate with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe, and keep spam complaints under 0.3%. Microsoft began enforcing authentication for high-volume senders to Outlook.com in 2025, and rejects mail that fails. ### Lever 1: Email authentication in HubSpot (SPF, DKIM and DMARC) **In short:** Connect your sending domain in HubSpot for SPF and DKIM, and publish a DMARC record on your own domain. Without all three, Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook can reject your bulk email outright. Authentication proves your email really comes from you. It's a one-time setup, but if it's missing, nothing else in this guide will save your inbox placement. Mail that fails authentication doesn't get filtered to spam. It gets rejected. **Checklist** - **Your email sending domain is connected in HubSpot.** Check Settings \> Domains & URLs. Healthy: the domain shows as connected, with no pending DNS records. - **SPF and DKIM pass for HubSpot.** Healthy: both are verified for every domain you send from. - **A DMARC record is published.** Healthy: a DMARC policy exists on your domain, even if it starts at `p=none` with reporting. This is the most common single gap in HubSpot portals. - **Every From address uses your own domain.** Healthy: no marketing email is sent "from" a gmail.com or outlook.com address, which fails DMARC. - **All bulk email supports one-click unsubscribe.** Healthy: every marketing email from your domain has a working one-click unsubscribe, including sends from tools other than HubSpot. **If a check fails:** fix it before your next large send. Publish DMARC at `p=none`, review the reports for a few weeks to confirm everything that sends on your behalf passes, then tighten the policy. ![Email authentication in HubSpot](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/Email%20authentication%20in%20HubSpot.png?width=800&height=396&name=Email%20authentication%20in%20HubSpot.png) ### Lever 2: List quality, bounces and invalid addresses **In short:** Validate every address before it's emailed, both the backlog already in HubSpot and each new contact, and keep hard bounces under 1%. List quality is the lever most within your control, and the one that gets worse on its own. Every invalid address, spam trap and dead mailbox you send to tells Gmail and Outlook that you don't manage your list, and the reputation damage affects your good contacts too. Your list decays whether or not you touch it. Contacts change jobs and their addresses die. Forms collect typos and throwaway addresses. Apollo, Clay, ZoomInfo and Clearbit add guessed addresses nobody has verified. Imports bring dead mailboxes across from your old CRM. HubSpot only tells you an address was bad after it bounces, which is exactly the event that cost you reputation. **Checklist** - **Hard bounce rate per send is under 1%.** Check each email's performance page. Act now: anything approaching 2%, well before HubSpot's 5% limit. - **Existing addresses have been validated.** Healthy: the backlog in your database has been checked, and invalid addresses are suppressed or set as non-marketing. - **New contacts are validated before their first send.** Healthy: addresses from forms, imports, enrichment tools and events are checked before they receive marketing email. - **Your database is re-validated regularly.** Healthy: the full list is re-checked at least quarterly. An address that was valid last year may have died when its owner changed jobs. - **Every marketing contact opted in.** Healthy: no purchased lists, and no imports without a documented lawful basis. This matters especially for EU and UK contacts under GDPR. **If a check fails:** validate the backlog first, then put validation between every entry point and your sends so invalid addresses never reach a campaign. → Go deeper: the complete guide to email validation in HubSpot and HubSpot bounce rates. ![Catch-all, role-based, disposable what your HubSpot email validation results actually mean](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/Catch-all%2c%20role-based%2c%20disposable%20what%20your%20HubSpot%20email%20validation%20results%20actually%20mean.png?width=1402&height=592&name=Catch-all%2c%20role-based%2c%20disposable%20what%20your%20HubSpot%20email%20validation%20results%20actually%20mean.png) ### Lever 3: Engagement, graymail and unengaged contacts **In short:** Send less to people who don't engage. Keep HubSpot's graymail suppression on, cut emails nobody clicks, and sunset contacts who've gone cold. Modern spam filtering relies heavily on engagement. When people open, click and reply, providers treat your mail as wanted. When you keep emailing people who never engage, providers start filtering you, including for the contacts who do read your mail. Sending to a large unengaged segment "to stay top of mind" is one of the fastest ways to damage deliverability for the emails that matter. Engagement problems come from two directions: **emails** nobody reads (graymail) and **people** who have stopped reading everything (unengaged contacts). *\[Image: What is graymail? Alt text: "Graymail sits between spam and wanted mail: email contacts opted in to but no longer open or click."\]* **Checklist** - **HubSpot's graymail suppression is switched on.** Healthy: **Don't send to unengaged contacts** is on by default, and only switched off deliberately, for a reason you can explain. - **The unengaged share isn't growing.** For each email, check Not sent \> Unengaged on the Recipients tab. Healthy: stable or falling over time. - **Click rates are stable by subscription type.** Use clicks, not opens, because privacy features record opens nobody made. Healthy: no subscription type or workflow email with clicks falling quarter after quarter. - **A sunset policy exists and runs automatically.** Healthy: there's a written rule for when contacts stop receiving marketing email, and a workflow applies it. - **Each contact's email volume is under control.** Healthy: no contact getting several emails a week from different teams without anyone noticing. **If a check fails:** cut graymail at the source (subscription types, old automated emails, frequency) and sunset contacts who no longer engage. → Go deeper: what graymail is and how to cut it and unengaged contacts in HubSpot. ![Unengaged contacts in HubSpot why sending to them hurts everyone](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/Unengaged%20contacts%20in%20HubSpot%20why%20sending%20to%20them%20hurts%20everyone.png?width=991&height=312&name=Unengaged%20contacts%20in%20HubSpot%20why%20sending%20to%20them%20hurts%20everyone.png) ### Lever 4: Spam complaints and content **In short:** Keep spam reports under 0.1% by making it easier to unsubscribe than to complain, and by sending content people expect. A spam report is the heaviest negative signal there is, heavier than any bounce. Content still matters too: misleading subject lines, image-only emails, link shorteners and dubious link domains all count against you. But the bigger risk is how people react to your emails. **Checklist** - **Spam report rate is under 0.1%.** Healthy: under 0.1% on every send. HubSpot's count doesn't include Gmail, so check Postmaster Tools too. - **Unsubscribe rate is under 1%.** Healthy: under 1% per send. Act now: a sudden jump on one email or subscription type. - **Unsubscribing is easy.** Healthy: a visible unsubscribe link and a preference page that lets people choose fewer emails instead of none. An unsubscribe costs you far less than a spam report. - **Content passes a basic check.** Healthy: clear subject lines, a real balance of text and images, and links only to reputable domains. ### Lever 5: Sender reputation and how to monitor it **In short:** Your reputation is the sum of the other four levers. Watch HubSpot's Health tab, delivery by mailbox provider, and Google Postmaster Tools so you see problems before they cost you the inbox. Mailbox providers score both your sending domain and the IP addresses you send from. The first four levers feed that score. This lever is about watching it, so you see problems coming rather than finding out from a forwarded screenshot. Most HubSpot accounts send from shared IP pools. High-volume senders can add a dedicated IP, but it has to be warmed up gradually and only helps if your sending habits are already clean. For most teams, it's the wrong first move. *\[Image: How inbox providers evaluate your email. Alt text: "How Gmail and Outlook evaluate HubSpot email: engagement and complaints versus authentication and hygiene."\]* **Checklist** - **Your HubSpot email health score is stable or rising.** Check Marketing \> Email \> Health. Healthy: no downward trend over the last three months. - **Delivery is consistent across mailbox providers.** On Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, the Delivery tab breaks delivery down by mailbox provider. Healthy: no single provider with noticeably lower delivery than the rest. - **Google Postmaster Tools is set up.** Healthy: your domain is verified, spam rate stays under 0.1% and never reaches 0.3%, and domain reputation is steady. → Go deeper: the HubSpot email health tool explained. ![How to check your sender reputation in HubSpot](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/How%20to%20check%20your%20sender%20reputation%20in%20HubSpot.png?width=1707&height=681&name=How%20to%20check%20your%20sender%20reputation%20in%20HubSpot.png)   ### How healthy is your HubSpot email? Score your portal Count the checks you pass (22 in total). **20–22: healthy.** Keep to the monitoring rhythm below. **14–19: needs attention.** Fix any failed list-quality checks first, because they feed straight into your bounce, complaint and engagement numbers. **Under 14, or any failed authentication check: fix before your next large send.** Authentication failures and bounce problems can get mail rejected outright or put your account at risk of suspension. One rule applies whatever your score: if a single send goes over HubSpot's bounce or spam limits, pause bulk sending to that list until you know why. ### Keep it healthy: a monitoring rhythm Deliverability isn't a project you finish. Authentication stays fixed once it's set up, but the list underneath your campaigns keeps changing. - **After every large send:** check bounces, spam reports and unsubscribes on the Recipients tab. - **Monthly:** review the Health tab, Postmaster Tools and click rates by subscription type. - **Quarterly:** re-run the full checklist and re-validate your database. - **After any import, migration or new enrichment tool:** validate the new addresses before they're emailed. ### HubSpot deliverability guides Each lever in this checklist has a deeper guide: - **HubSpot email statuses explained:** what sent, delivered, bounced and not sent mean, and why an email wasn't delivered. - **The HubSpot email health tool:** what your health score means and what it misses. - **What graymail is:** the emails your contacts asked for and stopped reading. - **Unengaged contacts in HubSpot:** when to re-engage contacts and when to stop emailing them. - **Email validation in HubSpot:** how to keep invalid addresses out of your sends. - **HubSpot bounce rates:** hard and soft bounces, and the thresholds that matter. ### Where Koalify fits Koalify Email Validation works on one lever: list quality. It doesn't handle authentication, your IP or your content. Those are yours to set up in HubSpot and in your DNS. What it does is keep the addresses in your HubSpot valid, both the backlog and every new contact, without leaving HubSpot. A workflow action validates your entire database in one pass, then stays enrolled to check each new contact as it's created or updated. A card in the contact sidebar lets you check any address in one click before you enrol someone in a sequence. Every result is written to a native HubSpot property, so you can filter on validation status and build a suppression list that keeps invalid addresses out of your sends. Teams have used it to bring sends down to a 0.4% bounce rate across 4,000+ emails. It runs inside HubSpot, with GDPR support and SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification, so your contacts aren't shipped to a third-party platform to be checked. To be clear about the limits: a validated list won't rescue deliverability if your domain isn't authenticated or your content gets reported as spam. But of the five levers, list quality is the one that gets worse on its own, and the one a tool can genuinely keep clean for you. ### Frequently asked questions #### What is HubSpot email deliverability? It's whether your HubSpot marketing emails reach recipients' inboxes rather than their spam folders. Deliverability depends on authentication, list quality, engagement, spam complaints and sender reputation. HubSpot shows whether an email was delivered, but not whether it reached the inbox, so you need to watch the warning signs as well as the delivery rate. #### Why are my HubSpot emails going to spam? Usually one of five things: your domain isn't fully authenticated, you're sending to invalid or unengaged addresses, your spam complaint rate is too high, your content triggers filters, or your sender reputation has dropped. For most HubSpot portals, the cause is list quality or a missing DMARC record. #### Why does HubSpot say delivered when the email wasn't received? "Delivered" only means the recipient's server accepted the email. After that, it can still be filtered to spam, held in a corporate security quarantine, or sorted into a tab like Gmail's Promotions. If many contacts at one company or provider are affected, your sender reputation is the likely cause. #### How do I check email deliverability in HubSpot? Go to Marketing \> Email and open the Health tab for your overall score, then check bounce, spam report and click rates on individual emails. On Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, the Delivery tab breaks delivery down by mailbox provider. Add Google Postmaster Tools to see how Gmail rates your domain. #### What is a good bounce rate and spam complaint rate in HubSpot? Aim for a hard bounce rate under 1% and a spam complaint rate under 0.1%. HubSpot can suspend marketing email if you go over a 5% hard bounce rate, a 0.1% spam report rate or a 3% unsubscribe rate in a month. #### Why was my HubSpot marketing email suspended? HubSpot suspends marketing email when its deliverability protection system detects too many hard bounces, spam reports, unsubscribes or complaints, or fraudulent activity such as spam trap hits. While you're suspended, all marketing email stops, including automated workflow emails. You'll need to clean the affected contacts before you can appeal. #### Do I need SPF, DKIM and DMARC to send email from HubSpot? Yes. Connect your sending domain in HubSpot for SPF and DKIM, and publish a DMARC record on your own domain. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft require all three from bulk senders. Start DMARC at `p=none` to monitor safely, then tighten the policy. #### Does HubSpot use a shared or dedicated IP for email? Most HubSpot accounts send from shared IP pools, so other senders on the same IPs partly affect your reputation. High-volume senders can add a dedicated IP, but it needs a gradual warm-up and only helps if your list and sending habits are already clean. #### Does email validation improve deliverability? Yes, on the list-quality lever. Validating addresses before you send prevents the bounces and spam trap hits that damage your sender reputation. It won't fix missing authentication or content problems, but it removes the most common and most preventable cause of a falling reputation. ## Koalify HubSpot deduplication and email validation - - [Review us on HubSpot](https://app-eu1.hubspot.com/l/marketplace/listing/koalify-io/write-review?eco_review_source=external-button) [![SOC 2 Logo](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/SOC%202%20Logo.webp?width=70&height=70&name=SOC%202%20Logo.webp "SOC 2 Logo")](https://trust.koalify.io/) [![gdpr](https://koalify.io/hs-fs/hubfs/gdpr.png?width=70&height=70&name=gdpr.png "gdpr")](https://trust.koalify.io/) ## Company [Product](https://koalify.io?hsLang=en) [Pricing](https://koalify.io/pricing-usd?hsLang=en) [Knowledge Base](https://koalify.io/knowledge-base?hsLang=en) [Blog](https://koalify.io/blog?hsLang=en) [Partners](https://koalify.io/partners?hsLang=en) ## Blog [HubSpot Deduplication](https://koalify.io/blog/hubspot-deduplication-the-ultimate-guide-to-zero-duplicates-in-hubspot?hsLang=en) [Merge HubSpot Contacts](https://koalify.io/blog/how-to-merge-contacts-in-hubspot-manual-or-in-bulk?hsLang=en) [Merge HubSpot Companies](https://koalify.io/blog/how-to-merge-companies-in-hubspot-manual-or-in-bulk?hsLang=en) [Merge HubSpot Deals](https://koalify.io/blog/how-to-merge-deals-in-hubspot-manual-or-in-bulk?hsLang=en) [Bulk Merge HubSpot](https://koalify.io/blog/how-to-bulk-merge-hubspot-duplicates-contacts-companies-more?hsLang=en) ## Security [Trust Center](https://trust.koalify.io/) [Terms of Service](https://koalify.io/terms-of-service?hsLang=en) [Privacy Policy](https://koalify.io/privacy-policy?hsLang=en) [Data Processing Addendum](https://koalify.io/data-processing-addendum?hsLang=en) [Security](https://koalify.io/security?hsLang=en) © 2026 Koalify. All rights reserved.