Email deliverability is increasingly challenging. Switchboard’s goal is to help provide you with as much data as possible to run a good email program. For more about email deliverability, check out Email Deliverability 101. In addition to the domain reputation (which you control), the sending IP reputation will affect your overall deliverability.

Our commitment is to be transparent with you about what IP you are sending from and to use a meritocratic approach to assigning sending IPs to email programs. We do not treat big or small organizations differently, instead, your sending behavior and email engagement results determine what tier of IP pool you are in. Organizations or consulting firms sending at least 10k emails per day are eligible for dedicated IPs — if you are on a dedicated IP, we will still show you a Switchboard Email Reputation Score but your IP pool will not change.

Why does it matter?

Your Switchboard Email Reputation Score determines the shared IP pool your organization uses to send bulk email. All new accounts will start in the MAIN IP pool where the majority of Switchboard customers send email. If your email program is not performing well (high rate of spam reports, low engagement, etc.) we will move you to the LOW or BAD IP pool. This importantly protects the vast majority of stable programs that are on the MAIN pool.

How is it calculated?

In February 2026, we used machine learning models to evaluate our emailing programs and generate a set of new, holistic weights and indicators to use in our updated reputation scores. We first score each email program and then use weights to construct a final score between 1 and 4, where 4 is best. Here is our grading logic.

Key Metrics

We will now be looking at 6 key metrics in this order of priority, on a 30-day rolling basis:

• Prior Action Rate: The percentage of the audience that previously opened, clicked, or donated (90-day rolling).

• Open Rate: The percentage of the audience that opened an email message in the window. Microsoft (Business) addresses are excluded.

• Spam Rate: The percentage of recipients who marked as spam as reported to us by email providers.

• First Time Rate: The percentage of the audience getting an email for the first time.

• Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of recipients who unsubscribed.

• Click Rate: The percentage of the audience that clicked on an email message in the window. Microsoft (Business) addresses are excluded.

Overrides

We maintain overrides that are checked, and used where applicable, in priority order before using the weighted score:

1. An especially bad spam rate (30-day rolling) will downgrade your program.

2. An especially high rate of content/reputation bounces (30-day rolling) will downgrade your program.

3. If Google has assigned the sending domain a reputation of "Bad", we consider that when generating your score.

4. If you're in the warmup period (30 days) and you've sent fewer than 100k messages total, then you stay in the Main pool.

How is the prior action metric calculated?

For your sending in the rolling window, we look at the count of emails sent to someone with previous action (like a click or an open) divided by the count of emails sent.

How often is my score updated?

Your Switchboard reputation score is updated daily. Note: because Google spam data takes a few days to update, that data will be factored in when received from Google. If your program is dormant for a month or more, the 30 day average metrics will be recalculated the next time you send. It is common for new domains or domains that have not sent recently to have a score of UNKNOWN or STALE - if that’s the case you will remain in your most recent IP pool until your score stabilizes again.

If your Switchboard Reputation Email Reputation Score changes, you will then be moved into the corresponding IP pool (i.e. MAIN to HIGH, or MAIN to LOW. That being said, Switchboard always reserves the right to move you to a lower IP pool, especially if we believe your program caused the IP to get blocklisted. We will proactively communicate any such IP movement with you.

Where should I expect my program to be?

The majority of email programs using Switchboard are on the MAIN IP pool. Most of these are fundraising programs that primarily send to an active universe. Voter contact programs are much harder to scale and run well over email (texting is a great option!) because most outreach is to emails from the voter file and there isn’t necessarily a history of previous engagement with the specific organization or candidate. These programs tend to have LOW or BAD reputation scores. Programs that are only sending to opted in emails or are heavily curated (smaller high dollar fundraising programs) should easily remain in the MAIN IP pool.