Overview
Every email sender with WarmUp enabled gets a Health score from 0 to 100, shown in the Health column on Outreach → Email Senders.
The score is not a fixed grade. SalesBlink recalculates it regularly from your sender's recent Email WarmUp activity and your domain's technical setup. As your warmup performance improves, the score moves up into higher ranges.
This article explains:
- What the score is based on
- What each score range means
- What lowers the score
- How the score improves over time
Related: If your score is already low and you want recovery steps, see How to fix low sender health.
Note: The health formula was updated in mid-September 2026. Right after the update, many senders were recalculated and some scores dropped sharply, including senders at the top of the range dropping to 50 overnight. Scores can swing for 24–48 hours after a recalculation like this before they settle. If your score changed suddenly around that time and nothing else changed on your side, wait for the next couple of checks before you change any settings.
When Health Is Available
Health is calculated only when all of the following are true:
- Email WarmUp is enabled for the sender
- Sending and Receiving are both enabled
- The sender is not an SMTP-only account
- The sender uses a business domain (health is not calculated for free addresses like
@gmail.comor@outlook.com)
In the Health column you will see:
| Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red ✕ | Health is not available. Hover to see why (WarmUp disabled, SMTP-only, or free email address). |
| Yellow ↻ | Health is being calculated. The first score can take up to 48 hours after WarmUp is enabled. |
| A number | The current health score. |
How Often Health Is Updated
SalesBlink re-checks each sender roughly every 48 hours. Each check looks at a rolling window of recent warmup activity, so the score reflects how your sender has been performing lately, not over its whole lifetime.
The rolling window means old problems stop counting against you automatically. For example, a warmup email that landed in spam affects your score for 14 days and then drops out of the calculation.
What the Score Is Based On
Each time health is calculated, SalesBlink looks at two things: your warmup readiness and your domain setup.
1. Warmup Readiness
These are the same checks that power the Readiness Status on your WarmUp Report:
| Check | What is required |
|---|---|
| Domain age | The domain must be at least 30 days old. If the domain's age can't be looked up, the date the sender started warming up is used instead. |
| Warmup history | The sender must have at least 7 days of warmup sending in the last 14 days, and must have sent warmup emails in the last 7 days. |
| Consistency | Warmup emails must have gone out on at least 70% of your scheduled warmup days in the last 14 days. |
| Enough data | Enough warmup emails must have been sent in the last 14 days to judge placement reliably. |
| Overall spam rate | No more than 5% of warmup emails sent in the last 14 days can land in spam. |
| Spam rate per provider | For each recipient provider (Google, Microsoft, Others) that received at least 25 of your warmup emails, no more than 10% can land in spam. |
| Receiving | The mailbox must have received warmup emails in the last 10 days. This confirms SalesBlink can still read your inbox. |
When every check passes, the sender is Ready for Outreach. If any check fails, SalesBlink estimates how many days it will take to pass, and that estimate decides your score range.
2. Domain Setup
SalesBlink also checks your domain's technical setup (the same checks as the Domain Setup Report). Each missing record or unreachable website lowers the score by 3 points, and each blacklist listing lowers it by 1 point:
| Issue | Penalty |
|---|---|
| SPF record missing | −3 |
| DKIM record missing | −3 |
| DMARC record missing | −3 |
| MX record missing | −3 |
| Domain website not reachable | −3 |
| Domain listed on a blacklist | −1 per blacklist (up to 5 blacklists, max −5) |
The domain penalty cannot push the score below 50 on its own. Domain checks are cached for up to 48 hours, so a DNS fix can take up to two days to show up in your score.
Tip: A missing DNS record is the fastest problem to fix. See Domain Technical Setup to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly.
What Each Score Range Means
The readiness result places your sender in a score range. Domain setup penalties are then subtracted.
| Score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 96–99 | Ready for Outreach, no warmup emails landed in spam in the last 7 days. |
| 91–95 | Ready for Outreach, but some warmup emails landed in spam in the last 7 days. |
| 85–90 | Expected to be ready in about 1–3 days. Also shown when everything else is healthy but one email provider is filtering a small share of your warmup emails to spam. |
| 81–84 | Expected to be ready in about 1–3 days, with some recent spam placement. |
| 75–80 | Expected to be ready in about 4–7 days. |
| 71–74 | Expected to be ready in about 8–14 days. |
| 65–70 | Expected to be ready in about 15–20 days. Also used when a sender that was ready gets a sudden spike in spam placement. |
| 50–64 | More than 20 days away, or SalesBlink can't estimate yet (for example, the sender hasn't sent enough warmup emails). |
| 45 | The mailbox hasn't received any warmup emails in the last 10 days. This usually means a connection or inbox-reading problem. |
| 10 | Sending or Receiving is turned off, or your warmup schedule has no active days. |
The badge color follows the score:
- Green — 90 and above
- Yellow — 60 to 89
- Red — below 60
Note: The score never reaches 100. A small amount of headroom is always kept because deliverability can change at any time.
How Health Improves Over Time
Health is designed to climb steadily as your sender proves itself, not to jump around.
A typical new sender
For a brand-new domain with WarmUp enabled from day one, the score usually looks like this:
- Days 1–2: Health shows as being calculated (yellow ↻).
- First few weeks: The score sits in the 50s–70s while the domain is under 30 days old and warmup history builds up. As the domain gets closer to 30 days old, the expected wait shrinks and the score moves into higher ranges.
- Final few days: Once only a few days remain, the score reaches 85–90.
- Ready: When every readiness check passes, the score moves to 96–99 (or 91–95 if a few warmup emails recently landed in spam).
An older, established domain with consistent warmup usually reaches Ready for Outreach in about 7–8 days, because it doesn't have to wait for the 30-day domain age requirement.
Steady climbing within a range
While your sender stays in the same range between checks, the score only moves up within that range, never down. For example, a ready sender may show 96, then 97, then 98 on later checks. The score drops only when something actually changes, such as new spam placements, a missed warmup day, or a new DNS issue.
Spam placements wear off
Every warmup email that lands in spam counts against you for 14 days. As long as no new spam placements happen, older ones age out of the window and your expected ready date gets closer with every check. New clean warmup emails also lower your spam rate, which helps you pass the spam checks sooner.
Staying ready
Once a sender is Ready for Outreach, it doesn't have to pass every check again on each update. It stays ready unless:
- More than 15% of warmup emails sent in the last 7 days land in spam (score drops to around 65)
- The sender stops sending warmup emails for a long stretch (at least 10 days)
- The mailbox stops receiving warmup emails for 10 days (score drops to 45)
If any of these happen, the sender drops back to not ready and has to earn readiness again through the normal checks.
Outreach ready status explained
The outreach ready status tells you whether a sender has passed every warmup readiness check. You see it in a few places, and the labels are easy to mix up.
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Green ✓ in the Warmup column on Outreach → Email Senders | WarmUp is turned on for the sender. It does not mean the sender is ready for outreach. Click it to open the WarmUp Report. |
| Ready for Outreach | Every readiness check passes. |
| Will be ready for outreach in ~N days | Not ready yet. The ~ means the number is an estimate. It assumes the sender keeps following its warmup schedule and no new warmup emails land in spam. |
Will be ready for outreach in N days (no ~) |
Not ready yet, with an exact calendar wait, such as a new domain reaching 30 days old. |
| Warming up - needs more warmup sends | Not ready yet. The sender needs more warmup history before SalesBlink can estimate a date. |
| Warmup Paused - enable sending & receiving | WarmUp is paused for the sender, so readiness can't progress. Turn WarmUp back on. |
| Waiting for warmup email - check connection | SalesBlink is not seeing warmup emails for the sender. Check that the sender is connected. |
| Warmup Not Active | SalesBlink has no readiness result for the sender because WarmUp is not active. |
| Caution badge next to the sender | Shown for Titan and Proton senders. These providers are not fully supported and are not ideal for sending cold emails. It is not a readiness status. |
readyForOutreach |
Returned by the API, MCP, and AI tools. The value is ready (Ready for Outreach), not_ready (any of the "not ready yet" labels above), or unknown (Warmup Not Active). |
What makes a sender ready
A sender becomes Ready for Outreach only when all the checks in Warmup readiness pass. The most common things holding a sender back are:
- The domain is less than 30 days old.
- The sender doesn't have enough warmup history yet (at least 7 days of warmup sending in the last 14 days).
- Warmup didn't run on enough of the scheduled days.
- Too many warmup emails landed in spam, either overall or with one provider (Google, Microsoft, or Others).
- The mailbox hasn't received warmup emails in the last 10 days, which usually means a connection problem.
You can still send while not ready
The status does not block sending. A sender that is not ready yet, such as one showing Will be ready for outreach in ~N days, can still send sequence emails. If you start before the sender is ready, start with a low daily volume and ramp up slowly, and keep WarmUp running alongside your sequences.
The only health setting that stops a sender from sending cold emails is Pause cold emails when health falls below.
Why the status can flip back
A sender that was Ready for Outreach can go back to Will be ready for outreach in ~14 days or a similar message. Common reasons:
- New spam placements. A spike of warmup emails landing in spam (more than 15% in the last 7 days) drops the sender back to not ready.
- Missed warmup days. Turning WarmUp or Sending/Receiving off, or a disconnection, means warmup emails stop going out or coming in.
- A health recalculation. Health is recalculated about every 48 hours, and a formula update (like the one in mid-September 2026) can move the estimate.
- Deleting warmup emails. Deleting warmup emails from your mailbox can push the ready date back. Filter them into a folder instead (see Warmup Filter Tag).
When this happens, keep WarmUp running and let the checks pass again. Reconnecting the sender or changing settings repeatedly doesn't speed it up. If the date keeps moving out instead of counting down, see WarmUp Ready for Outreach Keeps Extending.
Note: SalesBlink does not send a notification when a sender becomes ready for outreach. Check the WarmUp Report or the Health column to see the current status.
What Lowers Your Health
These are the most common reasons a score drops:
- Warmup emails landing in spam. This is the most common cause. Usually it comes from spammy content, too much cold email volume, or a weak domain.
- Turning off Sending or Receiving. The score drops to 10 right away, because WarmUp can't run.
- Disconnections. If SalesBlink can't read the inbox, no warmup emails are received and the score drops to 45. See Understanding Email Account Disconnection Reasons.
- Inconsistent warmup. Missing more than 30% of your scheduled warmup days pushes the ready date out.
- DNS or blacklist issues. Each missing record takes 3 points off, and each blacklist listing takes 1 point off.
How to Improve Your Health
- Keep WarmUp running continuously. Don't switch it off and on. Consistency is one of the readiness checks.
- Keep Sending and Receiving enabled so WarmUp can send and receive emails.
- Fix your DNS. Make sure SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX are all set up, and that your domain has a working website. Run a Domain Setup Report to confirm.
- Reduce cold email volume if health is dropping. Follow the limits in Email Deliverability (Best Practices).
- Warm up your real templates and links using WarmUp Templates and WarmUp Links, so providers learn to trust the content you actually send.
- Check the Deliverability Breakdown on the WarmUp Report to see if one specific provider (Google, Microsoft, or Others) is filtering you.
- Be patient. Spam placements take 14 days to age out. Constantly changing settings or reconnecting the sender doesn't speed this up.
Automatically Pause Cold Emails When Health Is Low
You can protect a sender by pausing cold emails automatically when its health drops.
- Go to Outreach → Email Senders and open the sender's settings.
- Under Sender Health Score, tick Pause cold emails when health falls below.
- Enter a threshold (default 80).
- Save.
When the score falls below your threshold:
- SalesBlink stops scheduling cold emails from this sender. Sequences skip it, so no new emails are queued for it, and emails already queued for it are not sent. If the sequence has other healthy senders, they keep sending.
- The sender shows the message Low Deliverability Score. Health Score is 50. Emails Paused. (with your sender's current score).
- WarmUp keeps running, so the sender can recover.
- Check the Email Senders page to see which senders are paused. To manage the notifications SalesBlink sends, see Enable Disable Notifications.
- Once health climbs back above the threshold, new emails are scheduled from this sender again. Emails that came due while it was paused are marked as errors and are not retried, so reschedule the sequence to send them. See How to fix Error leads in a sequence?.
Note: This setting only works while WarmUp is enabled, because health is not calculated without WarmUp.
Note: This is the most common reason a sequence shows 0 scheduled emails. If every sender in a sequence is below its threshold, nothing is sent. Lower the threshold or untick the setting if you want the sender to keep sending, then reschedule the sequence. See Why Isn't My Sequence Sending?.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why does my sender show 85–90 when the WarmUp Report says "not ready"?
Readiness checks spam placement separately for each email provider. If one provider filters a small share of your warmup emails to spam while everything else is healthy, the sender stays not ready but health stays in the 85–90 range. Your deliverability is fine. This usually clears on its own within days as those placements age out. See WarmUp Ready for Outreach Keeps Extending.
Q: Why is my health 50 when the WarmUp Report shows zero spam?
A score in the 50–64 range doesn't mean emails are landing in spam. It means the sender is more than 20 days from being ready, or SalesBlink can't estimate yet. The usual reasons are a domain that is less than 30 days old, or not enough warmup history to judge placement. Domain setup issues can also pull the score down to 50. Check the readiness checks in the WarmUp Report and run a Domain Setup Report.
Q: Why do my SMTP/IMAP senders score lower than my Google or Microsoft senders?
SMTP/IMAP senders and domains on extensions other than .com tend to score lower than Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 senders on .com domains. For the best results, use the recommended senders.
Q: I see "Low Deliverability Score. Health Score is 50. Emails Paused." What should I do?
The sender's health is below your Pause cold emails when health falls below threshold, so SalesBlink stopped scheduling cold emails from it. Keep WarmUp running so the score can recover, or change the threshold in the sender's settings. See Automatically pause cold emails when health is low.
Q: Can I send emails before the sender is Ready for Outreach?
Yes. The outreach ready status doesn't block sending. Start with a low daily volume and ramp up slowly. See Outreach ready status explained.
Q: My health dropped suddenly. What happened?
Usually one of three things happened: a spike in spam placement, Sending or Receiving got turned off, or the sender disconnected. Check the sender's status on the Email Senders page and open its WarmUp Report. Sudden drops in mid-September 2026 were caused by the health formula update and can settle within 24–48 hours.
Q: I fixed my DNS records. Why hasn't my score gone up?
Domain checks are cached for up to 48 hours, and health is recalculated about every 48 hours. Allow up to a couple of days for the change to show.
Q: My health is high, but an Inbox Placement Test shows spam. Why?
Health measures your mailbox's reputation, but some providers filter email that comes from a different provider more strictly. See Inbox Placement Test Shows Spam Despite High Sender Health.
Q: Does cold email performance (bounces, replies) affect health?
Health is calculated from your warmup activity and domain setup. But heavy or spammy cold emailing hurts your mailbox reputation with providers, which then shows up as warmup emails landing in spam and lowers your score.