> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://testdocs.clodura.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Email Warmup: Build and Protect Your Sender Reputation
> Automate your email warmup in Clodura AI to build sender reputation, improve inbox placement, and protect your mailbox from spam flags.
When you send email from a brand-new domain or a mailbox that has been idle for a long time, providers like Google and Microsoft have no history to evaluate — no reputation, no trust signal. Sending large volumes immediately from such a domain looks suspicious, and your messages will likely land in spam before your audience ever sees them. Email warmup solves this by gradually increasing your sending volume over time while building positive engagement signals, establishing the trust that inbox providers need to route your mail reliably.
## What Email Warmup Does
Clodura's Email Warmup feature automates the process of building your mailbox's sender reputation. It sends a controlled number of emails each day through a network of real email accounts, monitors where those messages land, and takes corrective action when they end up in spam — automatically moving them to the inbox and replying to a percentage of them. This creates authentic engagement signals that tell email providers your domain is legitimate and that recipients actually want your mail.
Running a proper warmup delivers three critical benefits:
* **Reach the inbox** — Warmup ensures your outreach lands in the primary inbox, not the junk folder, so your message actually gets seen.
* **Protect your domain** — A healthy warmup builds a domain reputation score that protects you from being flagged or blacklisted by major providers.
* **Boost campaign results** — Better inbox placement directly improves open rates, click-through rates, and replies across all your outreach cadences.
***
## Plan Availability
The Email Warmup feature is available to all users on Clodura's credit-based plans:
* **Free Forever**
* **Max**
* **Pay As You Go (PAYG)**
If you are on an older plan (such as Prospect Pro or Enterprise), you need to upgrade to a credit-based plan to access Email Warmup.
***
## Credit Cost
Warmup costs **200 credits per mailbox per month**.
Understanding exactly when credits are consumed helps you plan efficiently:
| Situation | Credits Consumed? |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------- |
| A new mailbox is added to Warmup for the first time in a month | ✅ Yes — 200 credits |
| A different mailbox is added to Warmup in the same month | ✅ Yes — 200 credits |
| A mailbox is removed and a **different** address is added in the same month | ✅ Yes — 200 credits |
| The **same** mailbox is disconnected and reconnected within the same month | ❌ No — no charge |
***
## How to Set Up Email Warmup
Log in to Clodura AI and click **Email Warmup** in the left navigation bar to open the warmup dashboard.
Click **Add Account** to connect the email address you want to warm up. If you have already connected an email account under Settings → Email Setup, Clodura automatically fetches it — no additional configuration is needed.
Choose the percentage of warmup emails that the system will automatically reply to on your behalf. We recommend **30%** — this mimics natural human behavior and builds credibility with email providers without looking artificially inflated. The maximum allowed is **50%**. Avoid going above 50%, as extremely high reply rates can appear unnatural.
You can send a maximum of **20 warmup emails per day**. Pick the strategy that fits your situation:
* **Progressive Ramp** *(Recommended)* — Set a starting volume (e.g., 2 emails/day) and a daily increment (e.g., 2 more per day). Clodura gradually increases sending volume each day until it reaches the daily maximum of 20. This is ideal for brand-new domains with zero history.
* **Steady** — Send a fixed number of emails each day without any ramp-up. Choose this if your domain has some existing history and you want to maintain a consistent warmup cadence.
Keep warmup running continuously, even during active campaigns. A consistently warmed mailbox is significantly more resilient than one that was warmed once and then left idle.
Select your warmup end condition:
* **Custom date** — pick a specific calendar date and warmup stops automatically on that day.
* **Run until manually stopped** — warmup continues indefinitely until you pause or delete it.
If you are preparing for a specific campaign, run warmup for **at least 30 days** before you begin sending at full volume.
Click **Start Warmup** to begin. Clodura starts sending warmup emails on the same day according to the schedule you configured.
***
## Managing an Active Warmup
From the warmup dashboard, you can manage each active warmup using the three-dot menu (⋮) next to any account entry:
| Action | Description |
| ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Settings** | Adjust your reply rate, daily volume strategy, or end date at any time. |
| **Pause** | Temporarily stop sending without deleting the warmup configuration. |
| **Delete** | Permanently remove the warmup for this mailbox. |
***
## Understanding Your Warmup Reports
Clodura provides two levels of reporting so you can track progress at a glance or dig into the details.
### Progress Report (Summary View)
The summary row for each warmup account shows:
* The email address being warmed up
* Current warmup **status** (Active, Paused, etc.)
* Chosen **strategy** (Progressive Ramp or Steady)
* Number of emails **sent today**
* Number of emails **rescued from spam** today
* Overall **deliverability score**
* **Start date** of the warmup
### Detailed Report
Click into any warmup account to see the full breakdown:
A composite score that shows how well your warmup is performing, broken down by major provider — Google Workspace and Microsoft. A rising index score indicates your reputation is building as expected.
A breakdown of exactly where your warmup emails are landing:
* **Inbox** — emails delivered to the primary inbox (this is the goal).
* **Spam** — emails that landed in spam (the warmup system rescues these).
* **Other** — emails that landed in secondary folders (Promotions, Social, etc.).
* **Replied** — warmup emails that received an automated reply.
* **Saved from Spam** — count of emails the system rescued by moving them from spam to inbox.
Use the time frame selector — **Month**, **Two Weeks**, or **Custom Date** — to view your sending activity and placement outcomes day by day. This helps you see whether your deliverability score is trending up over time and identify any days with unexpected spam spikes.
***
## Best Practices for New Domains
If you are warming up a completely new domain that has never sent email before, follow these additional recommendations:
Before starting warmup, configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your domain. Warmup builds reputation on top of authentication — without proper DNS records, you are building on an unstable foundation. See the [Email Deliverability Overview](/docs/deliverability/overview) for setup instructions.
Start at 2 emails per day with a 2-email daily increase. This is the most conservative and effective approach for a domain with zero history.
Thirty days of warmup gives major providers enough signal history to establish trust. For high-volume campaigns (over 100 emails/day), consider 45–60 days of warmup.
Avoid sending large cold outreach volumes from a mailbox that is still in the early stages of warmup. Your warmup reputation is still fragile at this point; a surge in cold-email spam complaints could erase progress quickly.
Run an [Inbox Placement test](/docs/deliverability/inbox-placement) after two weeks of warmup to verify your emails are landing in the inbox. Use those results to guide any content or DNS corrections before full-scale sending begins.