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What a sending path is
Why Inbox Decay scores each route your email travels separately, and why one tool can be healthy while another quietly fails.
Last updated 18 July 2026
A sending path is one discovered route your email takes to the world: the combination of sending IP, server hostname, bounce domain, and the domain and selector that signed the message. Every tool you send with creates its own path, and each path is scored on its own.
The reason for the per-path model is simple: "my email" is not one thing. Your newsletter goes out through Kit. Password resets go through whatever your developer wired up. Your day-to-day replies go through Google Workspace. Three tools, three completely different routes, three separate reputations in the eyes of mailbox providers.
Averaging those into one number would hide exactly what you need to see. The common real-world situation is one healthy path and one failing one: your Google Workspace mail is fine while the newsletter tool was never authenticated, or the other way round. Per-path scores make that visible in one glance.
Where paths come from
You never define a path by hand. Send an email from a tool to your test address and the path is discovered from the delivered message's headers: which IP handed it over, which domain vouched for it, how authentication went. Send again through the same route and the path's evidence deepens; send from a new tool and a new path appears.
We also recognize the infrastructure of about 35 major email providers by their DNS fingerprints, so a path usually carries a familiar name rather than a bare hostname.
Reading a path's report
The path report lists every path-level check: the authentication results receivers computed, the sending IP's reverse DNS and blocklist status, the health of the bounce domain riding along in the headers, transport encryption, and the compliance headers Gmail and Yahoo now require of bulk senders.
Two things about path scores that surprise people:
- They can change without you changing anything. Shared ESP infrastructure means shared reputation; an IP you've never heard of getting blocklisted can drop a path overnight. That's not unfair, it's how the system works, and it's the argument for continuous monitoring rather than one-off tests.
- A domain can pass while its path fails. DNS describes intent, delivered mail shows the outcome. When the two disagree, the path is telling the truth.
If you've imported ESP performance data, it shows up on the matching path's report, so open rates and infrastructure health sit side by side for the same route.
Still stuck?
A human reads every message: support@inboxdecay.com. Include your workspace email and the domain in question and you'll usually have an answer within a business day.