How is your email reputation computed?
Every time you send an email, email providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.) assign a reputation to your address. The higher it is, the more likely your emails are to reach the inbox. The lower it is, the more likely they are to get filtered into spam.
Mailbox providers don’t publish your score. If they did, bad actors would use it to find their way around the filters. So it can’t be looked up directly. It has to be estimated, using signals mailbox providers might weigh when they decide whether to trust an address.
That’s what Mailmeteor’s reputation score does: a 0 to 100 estimate built from those signals. It’s the same score whether you check it with the free Email Reputation Checker, see it in your Deliverability Hub, or watch it move during email warm-up. One algorithm, wherever it shows up.
What the score is based on
We look at three things, all tied to your sending address and domain:
- Your email setup. Does the domain exist, is it configured to send and receive mail, and is there anything in its basic configuration that would get messages rejected outright? This is the foundation everything else sits on.
- Quality and risk signals. Patterns that spam filters react to, and anything about the address or domain’s history that looks risky.
- Security and authentication. Whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC are in place, the three standard ways of proving an email really came from you. We also check the domain against known blocklists, and flag that separately since it’s usually urgent.
Message content, open rates, and spam complaints aren’t part of this score. They still matter for real-world deliverability, just not for this particular number. If you want your subject lines and copy checked too, that’s what the Spam Checker is for.
Reading the score
Email Reputation (ER) is a proprietary metric by Mailmeteor. It represents the strength of your email address reputation on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 75–100 | Excellent. Your setup is in good shape. |
| 50–75 | Good, with room to improve. |
| Below 50 | Weak, and likely hurting delivery. |
The scale is logarithmic, not linear. The gap between 90 and 91 is much bigger than the gap between 40 and 41. So, reaching 50 isn’t “halfway.” It means your fundamentals are in place. Past that, each additional point costs more effort than the last, while its effect on actual delivery keeps shrinking.
Why did my score change?
If nothing on your side has changed, checking the same address again returns the same score. When it does move, it’s likely for one of these reasons:
- Your configuration changed, or broke
- Your domain got added to a blocklist
- Other factors have influenced the score
Deliverability isn’t static, and neither is our algorithm. Mailbox providers change what they expect from senders, authentication standards evolve, and new abuse patterns show up. We update our scoring to keep up, so your score can shift even when you haven’t touched your setup.
What the score can’t tell you
A high score means your technical setup is sound. That’s necessary for good deliverability, but it’s not the whole picture. The score doesn’t see:
- How often recipients mark your emails as spam;
- Whether people open, reply to, or ignore what you send;
- Your sending history the way each mailbox provider sees it;
- How one specific provider treats you.
So a strong score won’t save a campaign sent to a stale list, or one written with weak, irrelevant content. Treat it as clearing the technical hurdles, not as a guarantee.
You can use other tools alongside our email reputation checker to confirm your deliverability is in good shape:
Our guide on email reputation is also a good place to learn more about all of this.