Does Valimail offer an outbound email relay product?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 15 Nov 2025
Updated 15 Nov 2025
6 min read
The world of email security is full of specialized tools, and it's easy to get confused about what each platform offers. Recently, I came across a discussion asking whether Valimail provides an outbound email relay product, similar to how Proofpoint offers one. This question highlights a common misunderstanding about the distinct roles of email authentication services versus email sending infrastructure. Let's clarify Valimail's role in the email ecosystem.
Many email professionals, including myself, have typically viewed Valimail as a leader in DMARC enforcement and email authentication, not as a sender of emails. The distinction is crucial for maintaining proper email deliverability and security. An email relay handles the actual sending of emails, while an authentication service focuses on verifying the legitimacy of those emails on the receiving end.
This confusion often arises because companies like Valimail integrate with numerous Email Service Providers (ESPs) and other sending systems to ensure their DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records are correctly configured. These integrations are about monitoring and enforcing policy, not about becoming an email sender themselves. It's an important nuance to understand when evaluating email security solutions.
Valimail's core mission: email authentication
Valimail's primary product offering is centered around DMARC, SPF, and DKIM management and enforcement. Their platform helps organizations achieve DMARC enforcement by providing visibility into email senders, identifying unauthorized sending sources, and automating the process of maintaining authentication records. This focus is crucial for preventing email spoofing and phishing attacks.
Their value proposition lies in making complex email authentication protocols easier to manage, especially for large enterprises with many sending services. They offer tools like SPF flattening to overcome the 10-lookup limit and automate DKIM key rotation. These are all functions related to validating email sources, not acting as an email source itself.
Several discussions, including those on Reddit, confirm this focus, detailing how Valimail helps users configure their DMARC records and adopt necessary SPF and DKIM entries for their legitimate sending services. The emphasis is always on ensuring proper authentication for email sent from *other* platforms, not on sending mail through Valimail.
What is an outbound email relay?
An outbound email relay, also known as an SMTP relay, is a service that handles the transmission of emails from a sender's system to the recipient's mail server. These services are essentially email sending infrastructure. They are designed to manage high volumes of email, ensure reliable delivery, handle bounces, and often include features for email tracking and analytics.
Companies use outbound email relays for various purposes, such as sending marketing campaigns, transactional emails, system notifications, or simply routing all corporate outbound mail. Providers like Mailgun, SendGrid, or Amazon SES are examples of services that provide these outbound relay capabilities. Their infrastructure is built to send mail efficiently and at scale.
It is critical to distinguish this from the services Valimail provides. Valimail does not offer the infrastructure to send emails. Instead, they provide the tools to monitor and manage how your domain's emails are authenticated, regardless of which email relay service you use to send them. This clear separation of concerns allows each type of provider to specialize and excel in its respective area of expertise.
Addressing the confusion and AI hallucinations
The confusion regarding Valimail offering an outbound email relay product appears to stem from various sources, including what some in the email community have termed 'AI hallucination.' When large language models (LLMs) are used to generate information, they sometimes combine disparate pieces of data, leading to incorrect conclusions or inventing features that do not exist.
For instance, Valimail's help center contains articles on how to configure DMARC for various third-party sending services like Vipre or Mailrelay. These articles detail how Valimail's DMARC monitoring can be set up to cover emails sent via these external providers. An LLM might incorrectly infer that because Valimail documents how to work with Mailrelay, Valimail itself offers a mail relay service.
This highlights the importance of consulting official documentation and understanding the core competencies of each vendor. Valimail specializes in DMARC enforcement and reporting, which is a distinct function from providing an email sending relay. Relying on accurate, verified information is crucial in email security to avoid misconfigurations and ensure optimal deliverability.
The importance of robust DMARC monitoring
While Valimail focuses on DMARC enforcement, it's essential for any organization to have robust DMARC monitoring in place to understand their email sending landscape. Effective DMARC reporting provides insights into all email streams using your domain, helping you identify legitimate senders and block unauthorized ones.
This is where platforms like Suped excel. Suped offers an unparalleled DMARC monitoring and reporting platform designed to simplify the complex world of email authentication. Our platform provides clear, actionable insights to help you achieve DMARC enforcement quickly and efficiently. We focus on providing a unified view of your email security.
Key advantages of using Suped for DMARC monitoring:
AI-powered recommendations: We don’t just show you data, we tell you exactly what actions to take to fix issues and strengthen your DMARC policy.
Real-time alerts: Stay informed of any unauthorized sending or DMARC failures as they happen, allowing for immediate action.
Unified platform: Monitor DMARC, SPF, and DKIM alongside blocklist and deliverability insights from a single dashboard.
SPF flattening: Automatically resolve complex SPF issues to ensure full compliance and avoid the common 10-lookup limit.
With our focus on simplicity, actionable insights, and a feature-rich free plan, Suped makes DMARC accessible to everyone, from SMBs to large enterprises, as well as MSPs.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always consult official vendor documentation directly, rather than relying on AI-generated summaries.
Clearly distinguish between DMARC enforcement services and email sending infrastructure in your planning.
Implement DMARC gradually, starting with a monitor-only policy, before moving to quarantine or reject.
Common pitfalls
Mistaking DMARC configuration guides for external ESPs as product offerings from the DMARC vendor.
Underestimating the impact of AI hallucinations on technical information accuracy.
Failing to review DMARC aggregate reports regularly to identify new or unexpected sending sources.
Expert tips
Use DMARC monitoring tools to get a complete picture of your email ecosystem, even for services you didn't explicitly authorize.
Educate your team about the distinct roles of various email security and deliverability solutions.
Verify claims about vendor capabilities directly with the vendor or through official channels.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says they were confused when a DMARC provider's documentation for configuring a third-party ESP was interpreted as the DMARC provider offering an email relay.
2024-09-28 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says it's possible that an LLM (Large Language Model) could invent features when generating replies, leading to incorrect information about product offerings.
2024-09-28 - Email Geeks
Understanding Valimail's role in email security
In summary, Valimail is a dedicated DMARC authentication and enforcement platform. It helps organizations protect their domains from email impersonation by managing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, but it does not provide an outbound email relay product. An email relay is a service used for sending emails, while Valimail focuses on ensuring that the emails sent from your domain are authenticated correctly.
For comprehensive DMARC monitoring and actionable insights to improve your email security posture, consider exploring what Suped offers. With features like AI-powered recommendations, real-time alerts, and a unified dashboard, we simplify DMARC for businesses of all sizes, ensuring your emails reach the inbox securely.
Mailgun, 
SendGrid, or 
Amazon SES are examples of services that provide these outbound relay capabilities. Their infrastructure is built to send mail efficiently and at scale.
