--- title: Email Deliverability Monitoring: SPF & DMARC description: Email deliverability monitoring by WatchFor. Check your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records every hour and get alerted when one goes missing or your DMARC policy drops below the level you set, before your mail lands in spam. canonical: https://watchfor.io/email-monitoring --- # Email Deliverability Monitoring for SPF, DKIM & DMARC Find out about a broken SPF record, a missing DKIM key or a weakened DMARC policy before your mail lands in spam or someone spoofs your domain. [Get started for free](/auth/sign-up)[View pricing](/pricing) [Email round-trip monitoring](/email-round-trip-monitoring)[SMTP monitoring](/smtp-monitoring) ## Email Deliverability Monitoring Features What each check looks at in your email authentication ### SPF Record Checks We check that your SPF record exists and parses, show its mechanisms and how it ends (-all or ~all), and estimate the DNS lookups it needs. The estimate counts top-level mechanisms, so treat it as a minimum. ### DKIM Selector Checks Enter the selectors you sign with and each check looks up their key records. You see each selector's status, and the DKIM Record Missing rule fires when none of them returns a key. ### DMARC Policy Monitoring Verify your DMARC record is present and record its policy, subdomain policy, percentage, reporting addresses and alignment. The Weak DMARC Policy rule alerts when the policy drops below the minimum you set. ### MX Records via a DNS Monitor This monitor doesn't check MX records. Add a DNS monitor with record type MX to catch an empty or unexpected answer, and an SMTP monitor to check the mail server itself. ### Spoofing Protection Strong, correctly configured authentication stops attackers from sending phishing email as your brand. A missing SPF or DMARC record, or a policy weaker than you allow, is exactly what the rules flag. ### Rules You Choose SPF Record Missing and DMARC Record Missing are on by default at critical severity. Turn on the SPF lookup, weak policy and DKIM rules as you need them. ### Multi-Location Confirmation Failures are confirmed from several locations before an incident opens, so a single stale resolver never pages you with a false alarm. ### Raw Records Stored Every check stores the raw SPF and DMARC records it evaluated, so after a DNS change you can see exactly what the check saw. ## A closer look Alert on missing SPF, DMARC or DKIM, too many SPF lookups or a weak policy. Every check stores the raw SPF and DMARC records it evaluated. ## Why Choose Our Email Deliverability Monitoring? Email authentication is invisible until it breaks, and when it does, your messages quietly land in spam or your domain gets used for phishing. Our monitor checks SPF, DKIM and DMARC every hour, so you learn about a misconfiguration within about an hour instead of after customers stop receiving your mail. Failures are confirmed from several locations before anyone is paged. For MX records, add a DNS monitor next to it. [Start monitoring now](/auth/sign-up) SPF, DKIM and DMARC checked as often as every hour Catch a missing DMARC record, or a policy weaker than you allow Estimated SPF lookup count, with a too-many-lookups rule Status of every DKIM selector you sign with Raw SPF and DMARC records stored with every check Failures confirmed from several locations MX records covered by a DNS monitor alongside it Alerts on any of 16 channels, including email, Slack and PagerDuty ## How Email Deliverability Monitoring Works From domain to alert in four steps 1 ### Add Your Domain Enter the domain you send email from and the DKIM selectors you use. SPF and DMARC are looked up from the domain. 2 ### Set Your Expectations SPF and DMARC Record Missing are on by default. Turn on Weak DMARC Policy with the minimum you accept, the SPF lookup rule or DKIM Record Missing. 3 ### Monitor 24/7 Each check looks up your records, parses them and evaluates your rules, as often as every hour. 4 ### Get Alerts When a record goes missing or breaks a rule you've turned on, you're notified on your channels, and the check shows the raw record it saw. ## Email Deliverability Monitoring Use Cases Built for any team whose reputation depends on email reaching the inbox ### Transactional Email Reliability Password resets, receipts and order confirmations have to arrive. Monitoring catches an authentication failure before it quietly routes these messages to the spam folder. ### Marketing & Newsletter Delivery Broken SPF or DKIM sends campaigns to junk and drags down open rates. Regular checks protect the sender reputation your marketing relies on. ### Brand & Anti-Spoofing Protection A weak or missing DMARC policy lets attackers send phishing email as your brand. Monitoring alerts you when your domain's protection slips, before fraudsters exploit it. ### DNS Change Safety Net Records get edited, migrated or accidentally deleted during DNS changes. This monitor catches an authentication mistake within about an hour of a change instead of weeks later. ## Frequently asked questions Everything you need to know about email deliverability and authentication monitoring [All questions→](/faq)[Ask us directly](/contact) What is email deliverability monitoring? It checks the DNS records that prove your mail is legitimate: SPF, DMARC and DKIM. Instead of hearing from customers that your mail is landing in spam, you get an alert when a record goes missing or breaks a rule you've turned on. What are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC? Why does a DMARC policy of p=none matter? Does it check my MX records? How often are my records checked? Will I be alerted if a record breaks? Can I monitor multiple DKIM selectors? Does it catch the SPF 10-lookup limit? Does this fix my email problems automatically? ## From our blog Guides, deep-dives, and best practices from the WatchFor team [Email ### Email Authentication Explained: SPF, DKIM & DMARC Apr 25, 2026·4 min readRead article](/blog/spf-dkim-dmarc-explained)[Email ### How to Set Up DMARC (step by step) Nov 30, 2025·3 min readRead article](/blog/dmarc-setup-guide)[Email ### Why Your Emails Go to Spam (and how to fix it) Dec 02, 2025·3 min readRead article](/blog/why-emails-go-to-spam) ## Ready to Protect Your Email Deliverability? Email policy monitors are included from the Starter plan. Run the free email policy checker first, or sign up for free and upgrade when you add your first domain. [Get started for free](/auth/sign-up)[View documentation](/docs/monitors/email#email-policy-spf--dmarc--dkim) --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/email-monitoring · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt