Pre-Send Template Check

The Email Template Checker That Tests Where Sends Actually Fail.

Spam words and broken HTML weaken a template. Dead addresses kill the whole send. Verify every recipient on the 9-point engine our paid API runs, then test your email template against the pre-send checklist below. No signup, no card.

Trusted by 500,000+ leading GTM teams of all sizes

The recipient side

How the email template checker verifies your list

Three steps, no signup, no card on file. Paste any address your template will be sent to, watch the nine-check engine confirm the mailbox is real, read the verdict in two seconds.

001INPUT

Paste the address

Drop any email into the pill. Gmail, Outlook, custom domains, role aliases. Single address now, bulk CSV on signup.

002ENGINE

Run the 9-check engine

Nine checks fire in parallel. Syntax, DNS, SMTP, catch-all, disposable, role, age, auth, mailbox state. Verdict in about two seconds.

003VERDICT

Verdict in 2 seconds

Valid, invalid, or risky. Plus a confidence score, the per-check breakdown, and a recommended retry policy. Read on the page or via API.

The 9-point engine

Nine checks. One verdict.

The same nine-check engine our paid email verification API runs. Every email, every verification, every time.

  1. 01

    Syntax

    Every address runs a full RFC 5321 and RFC 5322 compliance pass before a single network call goes out. The engine catches what visual scanning misses, the double dot in alice@verifox..ai, the trailing period, the IDN homograph that looks valid but resolves to a different domain.

    Bundled typo suggestions let your form offer “did you mean alice@gmail.com?” instead of rejecting silently.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot holding a clay ink brush beside an unrolled clay scroll: a typo email address marked with a red X seal and the corrected address with a sage-green check seal.
  2. 02

    Domain & MX

    Once syntax passes, the engine resolves the domain. We confirm the DNS records exist, fetch the MX record priority list in order, and verify at least one mail-exchange server is actively accepting connections right now.

    Misspelled domains like gmial.com, expired domains, and parked-for-sale domains all fail this gate before the engine wastes a single SMTP roundtrip.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot beside a clay torii gate hung with glowing lanterns, representing the domain's prioritized mail-exchange (MX) servers.
  3. 03

    SMTP handshake

    The engine opens a TCP connection on port 25, performs the EHLO handshake, then negotiates MAIL FROM and RCPT TO. Every server response code (220, 250, 550, 552) is parsed deterministically against the IANA enhanced-status registry.

    This is the moment a mailbox proves it actually exists. No third-party guesses, no statistical heuristics, just the receiving server's own answer.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot watching a clay paper crane pass between two clay gateposts marked EHLO and 250 OK, representing the SMTP handshake.
  4. 04

    Catch-all detection

    Some domains accept every email regardless of whether the mailbox exists, a setup known as a catch-all configuration. The engine sends a deterministic probe to a deliberately fake address (zzz9k7q@domain.com); if the server returns the same 250 OK it returned for the real address, the domain is catch-all.

    The verdict isn't dropped, it's flagged RISKY so you know the deliverability signal is degraded.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot peeking into a clay box holding a real letter and a fake one sealed identically, with an amber question mark above, representing a catch-all domain.
  5. 05

    Disposable

    The engine maintains a curated registry of 10,247 disposable email providers, including Mailinator, Guerrilla Mail, 10MinuteMail, Tempmail, and the long tail of regional clones.

    Any address matching the blocklist is flagged INVALID. Deliverability to a mailbox that exists for 10 minutes and is never checked is functionally zero, regardless of whether the SMTP handshake passes.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot on a clay bank watching a labelled clay paper boat sink beneath a red X seal, representing a rejected disposable email address.
  6. 06

    Role address

    info@, support@, no-reply@, admin@, hello@, billing@, contact@. These are shared inboxes, not individuals.

    The engine extracts the local-part of every address, matches it against the known role-prefix registry, and tags the result with a reduced engagement score.

    You don't drop them automatically. The verdict tells you they're roles so you can decide whether they belong in your outbound.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot beside three clay envelopes each stamped with an amber ROLE seal, representing shared-inbox role addresses like info@ and support@.
  7. 07

    Domain age

    Fresh-spam domains registered hours ago are the single biggest source of inbound abuse. The engine queries WHOIS and RDAP for every unique domain, extracts the registration date, and flags anything under 30 days old with a “fresh” warning.

    Domains aged 5+ years pick up a corresponding trust signal. The same heuristic spam filters have been using since the early 2000s, ported into the verdict.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot between a sturdy clay tree showing growth rings (an aged, trusted domain) and a tiny clay sapling (a freshly-registered domain).
  8. 08

    Email authentication

    SPF, DKIM, and DMARC together prove the sender is authorised to send from that domain.

    The engine reads each policy via DNS, validates SPF includes recursively, scans six common DKIM selectors for a published key, and confirms DMARC alignment with the From: header.

    A failing DMARC policy means the sender can be spoofed, so the verdict warns you before you reply.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot holding the middle of three glowing clay seals labelled SPF, DKIM and DMARC, representing email authentication.
  9. 09

    Mailbox state

    Beyond “exists vs doesn't exist”, the engine extracts the precise mailbox state from the SMTP server's response. Full inbox (552 / 522 quota), disabled mailbox (550 5.1.1), out-of-office autoresponder, frozen account.

    Each state maps to a specific retry policy. Full inbox retries in 6 hours. Disabled drops permanently. The verdict tells you which bucket the bounce belongs in so your retry logic doesn't waste cycles.

    Claymation ninja-fox mascot peeking into three clay mailboxes, open and active, overstuffed and full, and shut and disabled, representing the precise mailbox state.

The template side

How to test an email template before sending

Six checks, in the order we run them on our own campaigns. The first five test the message. The sixth tests the list, and it is the one that decides whether the other five were worth doing.

01

Scan the copy for spam trigger words

Urgency and money phrases (act now, 100% free, risk-free), all-caps subjects, and stacked punctuation push filter scores up fast. Run the subject line and body through the spam content checker before every campaign, not just the first send.

02

Click-test every link in the template

Dead URLs and misfired tracking parameters waste clicks, and some filters follow links before your reader ever does. The email link checker confirms every href in the template resolves, including the unsubscribe link the law requires.

03

Watch render weight and image ratio

Image-only templates with thin text score poorly, and Gmail clips messages above roughly 102 KB, cutting off whatever sits at the bottom. Keep the HTML lean, compress images, and make sure the core message survives with images blocked.

04

Ship a plain-text part and alt text

A multipart message with a real text/plain version reads as legitimate mail to filters and as usable mail to anyone on a watch or a screen reader. Alt text on every image keeps the template coherent in clients that block images by default.

05

Confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC align

The prettiest template fails if the sending domain cannot prove it sent it. Check your authentication records with the DMARC, DKIM and SPF checker whenever you change sending tools or domains.

06

Verify the recipient list last, every time

20-40% of B2B lists fail at catch-all domains, the check most free tools skip. The email verification engine behind the tool above resolves them with an AI-confidence pass, so the finished template only goes to live mailboxes.

How we stack up

Verifox vs the alternatives

Same nine-check pipeline, the highest published accuracy, credits that never expire, and an MCP server no competitor offers. Head-to-head with the two providers our buyers shortlist.

Feature
Verifox
NeverBounce
ZeroBounce
Published accuracy claim99.99%99.0%99.6%
Credits expireNeverYesNever
Free credits on signup1,000–2,500 / one-time1,000 / monthly100 / monthly
Verify without signup
Catch-all resolutionAI confidenceFlagged onlyAI scoring
Real-time API
Bulk CSV upload
MCP server for AI agents
SOC 2 + GDPR + CCPA

What teams are saying

Built for the teams that ship outbound

Growth leads, marketers, and engineers running real campaigns on real lists. Specific numbers, specific tools they switched from, and a verified email address on every byline.

Thomas George, GTM Lead at Stripe

90% lower bill, 0.4% bounces

We were paying ZeroBounce a four-figure monthly bill and still landing 3% bounces on cold campaigns. Switched the pipeline to Verifox, dropped to 0.4% bounces, and cut the bill by more than 90%.
Thomas G.GTM Lead, Stripe
Brittany King, GTM Lead at HubSpot

Catch-all finally has a verdict

Other tools flag 30% of our B2B list as 'risky catch-all' and leave the call to us. Verifox returns a real verdict on those addresses, with a confidence score. We send more, we send safer.
Brittany K.GTM Lead, HubSpot
Dale Micallef, GTM Lead at Slack

Reputation rebuilt in 6 weeks

We had a Gmail spam-folder problem after a bad list import. Verifox cleaned the list and the warmup ran on the same engine. Back in primary inbox in six weeks. One vendor, half the cost.
Dale M.GTM Lead, Slack
Erica Kovalkoski, GTM Lead at Discord

0.7% bounce on 50k

Ran a 50,000-address outbound list through Verifox before our quarterly campaign. Bounces landed at 0.7%, sender reputation didn't move, replies were up 22% over last quarter.
Erica K.GTM Lead, Discord
Greg Lindsay, GTM Lead at OpenAI

MCP in 10 minutes

Their MCP server let me wire email verification directly into our internal Claude agent in about ten minutes. Zero glue code. No other vendor in this space has thought about that workflow.
Greg L.GTM Lead, OpenAI
Rini Vasana, Product Manager at Vercel

10k/min held under 400ms

Tested Verifox at 10,000 verifications per minute on a Tuesday morning. Latency held under 400ms median, no soft failures, no rate-limit walls. The vendor we benched throttled at 2,000/min.
Rini V.Product Manager, Vercel
Jonathan Aharon, GTM Lead at MongoDB

Hygiene that doesn't break pipeline

Our SDRs were enriching from three tools and 14% of the emails were invalid before they hit the sequencer. Verifox sits in the pipeline now and the team stopped seeing 'undeliverable' replies the next week.
Jonathan A.GTM Lead, MongoDB
Emma Fox, GTM Lead at Linear

Bulk that actually ships

Bulk upload, sorted CSV back in twenty minutes, plug into our growth stack. The half-day list-hygiene project per cohort turned into something the marketing intern runs on autopilot.
Emma F.GTM Lead, Linear
David Hare, GTM Lead at Snowflake

Scores you can act on

Verifox returns a 0-100 confidence score per address, not just a label. We thresholded at 75 for the cold sequencer, 60 for nurture, and our deliverability team finally has a knob they can tune.
David H.GTM Lead, Snowflake

Why this one

Template checking, without the blind spot

Most email template checkers grade the HTML and never look at who receives it. We pair the pre-send checklist with the full nine-check verification pipeline the paid plans use, capped only on volume.

Accuracy
99.99%accuracy

The same nine-check engine

The free tier runs the full nine-check pipeline from our email verification API, capped on volume and never on accuracy.

Friction
0signups to begin

No signup to start

Verify your first emails right here with no signup at all. Create a free account when you go past four checks a day.

Coverage
10kemails / minute

API and bulk, included

Your free plan unlocks the very same REST API, CSV upload, and bulk parallel processing that the paid plans run on.

Privacy
SOC 2GDPR · CCPA

Emails are never stored

Addresses are processed in memory and dropped on response, nothing stored and nothing sold. Read the privacy policy.

Beyond the HTML

What an email template checker actually tests

An email template checker, the way most people search for one, reviews the message itself. It scans the subject line and body for spam trigger phrases, flags HTML that popular mail clients mangle, follows every link to catch 404s and broken tracking parameters, and weighs the message, since heavy or image-only templates get clipped, down-ranked, or rendered as a gray rectangle when images are blocked. Each of those checks is worth running before every campaign, and the checklist above pairs every item with the tool that covers it, from the spam content checker for your copy to the email link checker for your URLs.

What almost no template tester will tell you is that the template is only half of what decides whether the send lands. The other half is the recipient list, and between 20 and 40% of B2B lists fail at catch-all domains alone. A flawless template mailed to dead addresses still hard-bounces, and mailbox providers read those bounces as a sender problem, not a template problem. That is why the working tool on this page checks addresses: paste any recipient and the same engine behind our email verification API runs syntax, MX, SMTP handshake, mailbox ping, catch-all resolution, and four more checks, with 99.99% accuracy on a 1,000-address benchmark.

The workflow that follows is short. Test the email template against the six checklist items, then verify the list, in bulk via the free email validator or one address at a time right here. Your first 1,000 verifications are free on signup, 2,500 with a work address, and credits never expire, so the pre-send check costs nothing to make a habit.

Trust & compliance

Enterprise-grade security and scale

Every layer of the stack carries a third-party attestation, so you can ship into regulated industries without rebuilding your compliance posture.

  • Claymation Japanese hanko seal in jade-green clay with a twisted shimenawa rope rim, the words SOC 2 TYPE II embossed in cream clay on its face.

    SOC 2 Type II

    Independently audited to the SOC 2 Type II standard.

  • Claymation Japanese hanko seal in cobalt-blue clay with a twisted shimenawa rope rim, the word GDPR embossed in cream clay on its face.

    GDPR

    Built for the EU with full GDPR data-subject rights.

  • Claymation Japanese hanko seal in rose-pink clay with a twisted shimenawa rope rim, the word CCPA embossed in cream clay on its face.

    CCPA

    California opt-out, do-not-sell, plus DSAR handling.

  • Claymation Japanese hanko seal in terracotta clay with a twisted shimenawa rope rim, the text ISO 27001 embossed in cream clay on its face.

    ISO 27001

    Information security held to the ISO 27001 standard.

  • Claymation Japanese hanko seal in lilac-purple clay with a twisted shimenawa rope rim, the text ISO 42001 embossed in cream clay on its face.

    ISO 42001

    AI governance aligned to the new ISO 42001 standard.

Common questions

Email template checking, answered

The questions we get from teams that land here with a finished template and a send button hovering, with the real numbers and real limits behind both halves of the check.

What does an email template checker test?

A complete template check covers two layers. The message layer: spam trigger words, broken links, malformed HTML, image-heavy layouts, and a missing plain-text part. The recipient layer: whether each address on the send list is real and live. The tool on this page covers the recipient layer with 9 checks per address; the pre-send checklist above walks the message layer, with the spam content checker handling your copy.

How do I test an email template before sending?

Run four passes. Scan the copy for trigger phrases with the spam check. Click-test every URL with the email link checker. Send the template to your own Gmail and Outlook inboxes to confirm it renders. Then verify the recipient list here, because a clean template mailed to dead addresses still bounces. The whole loop takes minutes.

What spam trigger words should an email template avoid?

Filters score patterns, not single words, but the classic offenders are pushy money and urgency phrases: act now, limited time, 100% free, risk-free, no obligation, plus all-caps subject lines and stacked exclamation marks. One trigger rarely sinks a send. Several together, inside a heavy HTML template aimed at a stale list, usually do. The spam content checker scores your copy line by line.

Does HTML affect email deliverability?

Yes. Mail clients and filters penalize broken markup, image-only messages with thin text, and oversized payloads. Gmail clips messages above roughly 102 KB, hiding whatever sits below the fold, unsubscribe link included. Keep templates lean, balance images with real text, ship a plain-text part, and pair the HTML work with an address-level deliverability test on the list itself.

Why verify recipient addresses if my template is clean?

Because 20 to 40% of B2B email lists fail at catch-all domains, the check most free tools skip. Every hard bounce tells mailbox providers your hygiene is poor, and that reputation damage follows every future send regardless of template quality. The email verification engine resolves catch-alls with an AI-confidence pass, so you only mail addresses that can actually receive the template.

Is this email template checker free?

Yes. The pre-send checklist is free to use forever, and you can verify 4 recipient addresses a day on this page with no account. Create a free account for 1,000 verifications, or 2,500 if you sign up with a work address. No card required, and paid credits never expire, with volume pricing shown for your region.

How accurate is the recipient verification?

99.99% on a 1,000-address benchmark list, catch-all domains included. The free check runs the identical 9-point engine as the paid API: syntax, domain and MX, SMTP handshake and mailbox ping, disposable and role detection, catch-all resolution with AI-confidence scoring, domain age, and SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication. The same engine powers the free email checker. The free tier caps volume, never accuracy.

Can I check a full send list before a template campaign?

Yes. Upload a CSV or call the API and bulk verification runs at roughly 10,000 emails per minute on the standard tier. Median single-address latency is about 380ms, sub-50ms when cached, so most pre-campaign list cleans finish before the template clears design review. The free email validator handles bulk uploads on the same engine.

Do you store the addresses I check?

No. Addresses are processed in memory and discarded the moment verification completes. Nothing stored, nothing logged, nothing sold. Verifox is SOC 2 Type II compliant, and the privacy policy spells out exactly what we touch and what we never keep. Your send list stays yours.

Can I automate template send checks in my own stack?

Yes. The REST API reference documents request and response shapes for every endpoint, so your campaign tool can verify recipients before each send. HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Brevo connect out of the box, and the native MCP server lets AI agents like Claude or Cursor run the check without glue code.

Before you hit send

Run the full check on your next template

The checklist covers the message. The verifier covers the list. Create a free account and you get 1,000 verification credits the moment you confirm your email, 2,500 if you sign up with a work address. No card, and credits never expire, so whatever this campaign does not use is still there for the next one.