Glossary
What is Sender Score?
Sender Score is a number from 0 to 100 that Validity gives a sending IP address to show how mailbox providers have treated its mail. Higher is better. It is built from data Validity gathers from a network of mailbox and security providers, and it is a useful signal, not a guarantee of inbox placement.
Published by Sellinger AI. Numbers and settings checked on 24 October 2026 against the fact register. Report an error.
What is Sender Score?
Validity's Sender Score FAQ describe Sender Score as a rating from 0 to 100, where zero is the worst and 100 is the best possible score. It ranks an IP address against other IPs, much like a percentile. Validity owns and runs it, and says Return Path launched the metric in 2005. Scores are usually based on a rolling 30 day average. Read 25 October 2026.
What goes into the score?
Validity's Sender Score FAQ say the score comes from a proprietary algorithm, not a simple average. The indices named are complaints, volume, external reputation, unknown users and rejections, and the formula also uses other data. The inputs come from the Validity Data Network, which the page describes as more than 80 mailbox and message security providers. Sender Score lists factors such as spam complaints, mail sent to unknown users, blocklist status, authentication setup, spam trap hits and sudden large changes in sending volume.
What do the bands mean?
| Band | Range | What the page says |
|---|---|---|
| Poor | 0 to 70 | Reputation needs repair; the IP has been flagged for risky sending |
| Fair | 70 to 80 | Reputation is fine but can improve |
| Good | 80 and above | A history of healthy sending |
The ranges on the page overlap at 70 and 80, and the FAQ page does not define bands, so treat the cut offs as approximate. Receivers set their own cut offs.
Sender Score is for IP addresses. If you send from a mailbox provider's shared servers, your own Sender Score is not something you control directly. Your domain's reputation and your sending behaviour still matter.
Is Sender Score what Gmail or Outlook uses?
No source we read says so. Validity's Sender Score FAQ say only that a higher score improves the chance of acceptance and that receivers set their own cut offs. Treat it as one outside view, next to the signals you can see yourself: bounces, complaints and replies. See sender reputation and email deliverability.
How do you improve it?
- Send only to people likely to want the mail, and remove addresses that bounce.
- Keep complaints low: make unsubscribing easy and honour it at once.
- Authenticate your mail with SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
- Avoid sudden jumps in volume; ramp up gradually.
- Do not send to old, unverified lists.
How Sellinger handles it
Sellinger sends from your own connected Gmail or Outlook mailbox, so it does not give you a Sender Score for your sending and does not monitor one. What it controls is sending behaviour: Every connected account has daily limits that the agent cannot exceed, set per account. LinkedIn defaults are 20 invitations a day and 150 a week. Email defaults to 50 sends a day per mailbox, with an optional warm up that starts at 5 a day and doubles every 3 days up to the limit.
It also handles opt outs: When a contact replies with an opt out such as STOP or unsubscribe, in English, Bulgarian or German among other forms, the contact goes on the team's suppression list, the agent stops and the lead is closed out. A weak or unclear phrase never writes the permanent record: the agent stops and a person decides.
Common questions
What is a good Sender Score?
Is Sender Score free to check?
Does Sender Score guarantee inbox placement?
How often does it change?
Sources and method
Validity, Sender Score (senderscore.org) and its FAQ (senderscore.org/faq), read 25 October 2026. Sellinger sending behaviour from the fact register, checked 25 October 2026.
Related: Sender reputation, Email deliverability, SPF record, DKIM, DMARC.
