When is a mailbox ready to send?

The short answer

You decide when to send. EmailPal does not block a mailbox from a campaign because it is still warming, and it does not make you wait a fixed number of days. Warming is not enforced: configure it however suits you and start cold sending whenever you like.

What it gives you instead is information. The warming dashboard marks a mailbox campaign-ready once it has completed 14 days of warming, and shows the inbox rate measured at Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo beside it. Treat both as a guide to risk, not a lock.

• Hosted mailbox with warming on: campaign-ready tells you the mailbox has been through the usual ramp. Before then you can still pick the mailbox in a campaign. The picker marks it Warming up and the launch checklist warns that sending cold now may hurt deliverability.
• Pre-warmed lease: ready as soon as the claim job finishes. The recommended default is 15 cold emails per day per inbox.
• Fresh mailbox with warming off: nothing has been measured, so there is no evidence it will inbox. Sending campaign volume is the highest-risk option.
• In an Engage campaign: every mailbox that is not on hold or unavailable can be selected. The picker labels each one Ready, Warming up, On hold or Unavailable, and shows the reason underneath.

You can also configure warming however suits you, including a profile with no ramp at all. The cost of starting early is yours: unknown senders get filtered, and a mailbox that has not been warmed has no placement history to lean on.

What "campaign-ready" means here

Campaign-ready vs inbox placement covers the two signals. In one sentence: campaign-ready is a 14-day warming flag (immediate on the no-ramp profile), and the inbox rate is the measurement of where warming mail actually landed.

Typical ramps are guidance, not rules the product enforces:

• Aged domain, accelerated profile: starts around 5 a day and reaches the ceiling in about a week. Campaign-ready is still flagged at 14 days. Aged, unwarmed domains
• Fresh domain, standard profile: starts around 2 a day and reaches the ceiling after about 14 days, when campaign-ready is flagged
• Pre-warmed inventory: the ramp already happened on our side. We only list addresses after 14 days of warming, so you inherit the measurement.

A mailbox can have the flag and still land in spam. If it is in Slow-Ramp or blocked, adding cold volume is how you train spam. Troubleshooting failed warmup.

Price of the ramp you run yourself: $0.60/inbox/mo. Pre-warmed includes it. Email warming by EmailPal.

Checklist before you launch

1. SPF, DKIM and DMARC are green in the dashboard. See How to set up DNS records.
2. Warming is on and not paused. Pausing resets progress. See Enable, pause or resume warming.
3. Status shows campaign-ready, or you claimed a pre-warmed inbox, and the inbox rate looks healthy. If not, you can still launch. Expect the launch checklist to warn you.
4. You verified the list. A bounce storm the first week undoes the ramp. See How to verify an email list before sending.
5. You will stay modest on volume: 15 a day per inbox is the recommended default, and 100 a day is the hard cap. See Sending limits per mailbox.
6. Copy is plain on the first mail. No attachments, no three tracking links. Open tracking off. EmailPal's own sequencer sends the first email as plain text by default and does not offer open tracking.

The wider version of this list: Cold email deliverability guide.

Pre-warmed: ready means ready, with a ceiling

They are listed only after the ramp finished. Treat them as ready the minute the claim job rotates passwords, usually minutes, not hours.

Ready does not mean full volume. Fifteen a day per inbox is how the measurement survives contact with a campaign. What "pre-warmed" means.

FAQs

Can I send before a mailbox is campaign-ready?

Yes. EmailPal will not stop you. The mailbox shows Warming up in the picker and the launch checklist warns you. A handful of highly engaged messages is less risky than a blast, but our advice is to keep volume low until placement looks good. The warming network is already sending, and cold volume on top of a mailbox that is still landing in spam trains the wrong signal.

Can I turn the ramp off?

Yes. Warming profiles are yours to choose, including one with no ramp. Campaign-ready is still reported (immediately, on that profile) and the inbox rate is still measured, so you can see how that choice is going.

Why is my health still low after a week?

Early warming often lands in spam while providers learn the domain. That is expected. Watch the trend, not a single day. If warming is failed or disabled, fix that first. A warmup bounce is a different problem: credentials or authentication, not patience.

Do pre-warmed inboxes show campaign-ready?

They are listed only after the ramp finished. Treat them as ready, at 15 cold emails a day per inbox. The listing's inbox rate is the measurement that already happened.

Does "day 14" on another tool match EmailPal?

Roughly, yes: EmailPal flags a mailbox campaign-ready after 14 days of warming, and a mailbox on the no-ramp profile is flagged straight away. Neither is a lock here. What differs from a bare timer is that we also show the inbox rate measured at real providers, so look at that on the mailbox you are sending from.

Do warmup emails count toward the cold-send cap?

No. Do warmup emails count toward sending limits?.

Need more help?

Email warming by EmailPal, What is email warmup and how it works, or open a ticket.