What email volume justifies using a dedicated IP address?

Key findings

• Volume thresholds: Many industry experts suggest that a dedicated IP becomes beneficial when you send consistently high volumes, typically ranging from 100,000 to 250,000 emails per month, or around 150,000 to 200,000 emails per day. Sending less than this on a dedicated IP might not yield the expected benefits and could even make reputation management harder.
• Consistency is paramount: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) value consistent sending volume and patterns. Erratic sending, whether too low or with sudden spikes, can negatively impact your reputation on a dedicated IP. This consistency builds trust with mailbox providers.
• Reputation control: A dedicated IP gives you exclusive control over your sender reputation. Unlike a shared IP where other senders' practices can affect you, your reputation is solely based on your own sending behavior, list hygiene, and engagement metrics.
• IP warming is essential: New dedicated IP addresses require a careful warming-up process, gradually increasing sending volume over days or weeks to establish a positive sender reputation with ISPs. Skipping this can lead to deliverability issues.

Key considerations

• Sending patterns: Consider whether your sending consists of consistent daily emails or large, infrequent blasts. While a dedicated IP can handle blasts, daily consistency is vital for maintaining a strong reputation.
• Resource commitment: Managing a dedicated IP requires more active monitoring and management of your sender reputation, including careful list hygiene and engagement tracking. You can find more information on minimum send volume for dedicated IPs.
• ESP relationship: Engage with your Email Service Provider's (ESP) account managers or deliverability specialists. They can offer tailored advice based on your specific sending needs and their platform's capabilities.
• Risk tolerance: With a dedicated IP, your deliverability is entirely in your hands. This means you bear the full responsibility for maintaining a healthy sender reputation, including avoiding blocklists (or blacklists). Understanding what factors influence optimal email volume can help.
• ISP requirements: Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have explicit volume requirements to assign and maintain a dedicated IP. For instance, Mailjet suggests a minimum of 150,000 emails per month is often required.

Key opinions

• Volume benchmarks vary: Marketers frequently cite different numerical thresholds, such as 100,000 emails per hour or a range of 2.5 to 3 million emails per day, depending on the platform and specific sending strategy.
• Consistency over quantity: Many marketers emphasize that maintaining a steady, consistent sending volume daily is more crucial for deliverability on a dedicated IP than just hitting high numbers intermittently.
• Control and isolation: A common sentiment is that a dedicated IP offers better control and isolation from other senders, preventing their potentially poor practices from impacting your sender reputation.
• High volume benefits: Marketers generally agree that high-volume senders benefit significantly from dedicated IPs, even if they don't currently face deliverability issues, as it helps optimize and protect their reputation.

Key considerations

• Warm-up period: Marketers must commit to a proper IP warm-up process, starting with low volumes to engaged subscribers and gradually increasing. This ensures ISPs recognize your sending patterns positively.
• Reputation management resources: Using a dedicated IP implies having the internal resources and expertise to actively monitor and maintain your sender reputation. If resources are limited, a shared IP might be more forgiving. Consider whether a dedicated IP is suitable for low-volume senders.
• Consulting ESPs: It is crucial to engage with your Email Service Provider (ESP) to discuss your volume and consistency, as their recommendations can be tailored to their infrastructure and your specific account. Explore when to use a shared IP for comparison.
• Overall deliverability impact: A dedicated IP is most impactful when combined with excellent sending practices. It's not a magic bullet, as high-volume senders can benefit from it, but email content and list quality remain critical.

Key opinions

• Consistency is critical: Experts universally agree that consistent sending is paramount for a dedicated IP, as ISPs value predictable volume to build trust and assign a positive reputation.
• Volume thresholds are guidelines: While specific numbers like 100,000 to 250,000 emails monthly or 150,000-200,000 daily are cited, experts emphasize these are starting points, with actual justification depending on sender behavior.
• Control over reputation: A key benefit highlighted by experts is the complete control a dedicated IP provides over one's sending reputation, allowing for isolation from other senders' potentially problematic behavior.
• Risk and reward: Dedicated IPs offer greater rewards in terms of deliverability for consistent, high-quality sending, but also come with higher risks if sending practices are poor, as there's no shared reputation to buffer impact.

Key considerations

• Strategic decision: Choosing a dedicated IP is a strategic decision that goes beyond mere volume. It involves a commitment to best practices, robust list management, and continuous monitoring to maintain deliverability. You can learn more about safe maximum daily email volume.
• IP warming importance: Experts strongly advise proper IP warming, emphasizing that it's a gradual process critical for establishing a positive reputation. CloudKettle offers insights into the art of IP warming.
• Proactive management: Successful dedicated IP usage demands proactive monitoring of deliverability metrics, including open rates, click-through rates, bounces, and complaint rates, to quickly address any issues.
• Scalability: As your volume grows beyond what a single dedicated IP can consistently handle, experts advise considering additional IPs. Understanding how many dedicated IPs are needed is important for future planning.

Key findings

• Minimum volume requirements: Documentation often specifies minimum monthly or daily sending volumes for a dedicated IP to be effective, commonly citing ranges like 100,000 to 250,000 emails per month.
• Importance of IP warming: Technical documentation consistently highlights the necessity of a gradual 'warm-up' period for new dedicated IPs to build sender reputation.
• Reputation control: Documentation points out that dedicated IPs provide senders with full responsibility and control over their sender reputation, which is a double-edged sword.
• Consistency for ISPs: Official guides stress that ISPs prefer consistent sending patterns and volumes to properly assess and trust a dedicated IP's sending behavior.

Key considerations

• Long-term commitment: Documentation implicitly suggests that dedicated IPs are for senders committed to long-term, consistent email programs, not for sporadic or very low-volume sending. Consider minimum and maximum sending volumes for dedicated IPs.
• Monitoring requirements: Documentation often outlines the need for diligent monitoring of email performance metrics and quick response to any deliverability issues when using a dedicated IP.
• Technical setup: Dedicated IPs require proper configuration of authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to ensure emails are correctly authenticated and avoid being marked as spam. A practical guide to understanding domain reputation covers this.
• Risk of under-utilization: Sending too little on a dedicated IP can be detrimental, as it doesn't provide enough data for ISPs to build a consistent, positive reputation. Mailgun's cheat sheet on what you should know about dedicated IPs explains this.