What is a Sender Score?
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Think of your IP address as having a reputation that follows it around. Every time you send email, that reputation either grows or shrinks depending on how recipients react. Sender Score is one way to see that reputation as a number.
Sender Score is a metric from Validity (formerly Return Path) that rates IP addresses on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher your score, the cleaner your IP reputation looks to the systems that check it.
Validity pulls data from a network of email providers and filtering partners to calculate your score. The main signals it watches are complaint rates, unknown user rates (emails sent to addresses that don't exist), and spam trap hits. Those three things are strong signals that your list hygiene or sending practices need attention.
The credit score analogy holds up pretty well here. A good Sender Score tells filtering systems at a glance that your IP has a clean history. A low one flags you for extra scrutiny. But just like a lender can still reject a good credit score or approve someone with a mediocre one, each mailbox provider ultimately makes its own filtering decision. Sender Score is one input, not a verdict.
It's also worth knowing that Sender Score measures your IP address specifically, not your sending domain. Those are related but different things. A shared IP on a marketing platform means you're sharing a Sender Score with everyone else on that IP, which is one reason some high-volume senders move to dedicated IPs.
Curious what your current score looks like? You can check it for free at Validity's SenderScore.org tool. If something looks off and you're not sure why, you can always ask us and we'll help you read what you're seeing.
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