If your workspace sends email to spam trap addresses or breaches other thresholds of good sending performance, Intercom may restrict your email sending to protect both Intercom's and your sending reputation.

You'll see a banner in your workspace with this warning:

A limited workspace can send email to users and leads who have:

Users and leads who satisfy one of these criteria will receive email. Those who show no activity at all will not receive emails.

This restriction exists to protect both your and Intercom's sending reputation.

We restrict sending when spam trap hit rate has exceeded our thresholds or when open rates are sufficiently low to raise concern. Additionally, restrictions may be applied when bounce rates exceed the recommended healthy rate. High bounce rates can negatively impact deliverability for all users since Intercom uses a shared sending infrastructure. Additionally, restrictions may also be enforced if your emails contain malicious URLs or if they are sent from domains that have been blocklisted. It is important to review the links included in your messages to avoid malicious URL issues, as well as to regularly monitor and update your domain status to ensure it is not blocklisted.

A bounce rate within the range of 0% to 3% is considered healthy. Persistent bounce rates above this range can indicate significant issues and may result in restrictions on your email sending. High bounce rates primarily occur due to invalid email addresses within a mailing list. This is a significant contributor to email restrictions, emphasizing the importance of list hygiene.

Spam traps are addresses that aren't real and don't belong to real humans, however unlike a bounce, they are administered by organizations and email service providers to identify spammers. Sending to these addresses damages both your and Intercom's sending reputation. To prevent issues with pristine spam traps, consider implementing a double opt-in process during user signup and regularly auditing your email audience to remove unverified or inactive addresses. These traps are often disguised among legitimate-looking email addresses, making it crucial to maintain a clean and verified list at all times.

Additionally, validating email addresses during registration with tools can minimize the risk of sending to invalid addresses and improve the overall quality of your email list.

Equally low open rates over an extended period might indicate sending reputation issues and your messages may be going to spam folders. Another potential cause of workspace flagging is the inclusion of malicious URLs in your emails. To avoid this, you can substitute 'http' with 'hxxp' in suspicious links or bracket periods in URLs, ensuring they are not flagged by mail providers. High spam complaint rates can also lead to reputation issues. Ensure you implement opt-in consent, prioritize active users in your email campaigns, and make sure email content aligns with recipient expectations to prevent unnecessary complaints.

New applications on the platform require manual approval to ensure compliance with Intercom's Email Sending Guidelines. This review process is an important step in maintaining high deliverability standards across the platform.

Spam traps are secret addresses which exist to catch spammers and cause blocklisting events. These addresses are by their very nature secret and administrated by organizations and email service providers. This means we can't tell you which of the users in your workspace have caused this issue.

If your email sending has been restricted, full-permission admins on your workspace who have at some point used the Messages product will be notified by email. New teammates can be added to the list of those who get notified using the setting under [Settings > Channels > Email > Email Settings].

We have written up the steps you can take to prevent spam trap hits in your workspace in our article: How do I avoid spam traps?

We have also written up the steps you can take to improve your open rate in our article: Improve your open rate and email deliverability

I've fixed it, how do I get restrictions removed? Once you believe you have made sufficient changes to prevent spam trap hits and/or improve your open rate in your workspace, please respond to the email message we sent your admins about this issue or talk to us in our Messenger. Detail the actions you have taken and our deliverability team will review and assess whether we can remove the sending restrictions from your workspace.

To have email sending restrictions lifted, you'll need to provide:

This happens when Intercom detects potential compliance, deliverability, or email performance issues. Restrictions are enforced to protect sender reputation and ensure compliance with email standards.

Emails marked as delivered by Intercom may still be filtered or moved to spam folders by recipient email servers. Check your audience targeting and ensure emails are verified and active.

Implement and test a double opt-in process and ensure all email addresses in your lists are verified.