Sending gates and the waitlist
Why a send might not go out yet, and how to clear each gate.
New accounts start on a waitlist and cannot send until four things are true. Every message is checked against all four at send time, so a campaign can be built, scheduled, and still held.
The four gates
- Account approval. We review every new organization before sending is turned on. It keeps Pombo's sending reputation clean, which is a big part of why your email reaches the inbox. The review starts once you have verified a sending domain and added your mailing address, and we review within 2 business hours of that. We email your account's owners when you're approved. If it's taking longer, email us.
- Permission attestation. You confirmed at signup that you have permission to email your recipients. If that record is missing, sending is blocked.
- A verified sending domain. At least one domain with passing DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. See verify your sending domain, or test a domain with the email authentication checker.
- The weekly send cap. Free plan accounts can send up to 1,000 emails per week. Paid plans are unlimited. See the weekly send cap.
The free plan also caps how many subscribed contacts you can have (1,000). Unsubscribed, bounced and undeliverable contacts are free and don't count. That limit is enforced when you add a contact, not at send time, so it is not a fifth send gate: an import that would take you over is rejected up front.
What you'll see
A blocked send doesn't fail silently. Campaigns show a banner naming the gate that stopped them, and a queued transactional message records the reason. Clear the gate and the queued mail drains on its own.
Test sends
Sending yourself a test still counts against the weekly cap and still needs a verified domain. That's deliberate: an uncapped test send would be a way around the cap entirely. Preview a template first; test-send once it looks right.