# When is a mailbox ready to send?

> An EmailPal mailbox is ready for cold email when warming reports campaign-ready placement — not after a fixed number of days. Pre-warmed leases skip that wait and can send 15 emails a day as soon as you claim them.

Source: https://emailpal.io/help/when-is-a-mailbox-ready-to-send

## The short answer

- **Hosted or connected mailbox with warming on:** ready when the dashboard says **campaign-ready**. That is a measured inbox-placement rate, not "day 14 passed".
- **Pre-warmed lease:** ready as soon as the claim job finishes. Cap is 15 cold emails per day.
- **Fresh mailbox with warming off:** not ready. Do not send campaign volume.

Instantly's help center frames this as a health score and a two-week wait. Smartlead often frames pre-warmed as "skip warmup." EmailPal frames readiness as **placement evidence**. The underlying idea is the same: unknown senders get filtered, and a calendar is a weak substitute for knowing whether the mail inboxed.

## What "campaign-ready" means here

[Campaign-ready vs a number of days](/help/campaign-ready-placement) is the article for the metric. In one sentence: seed accounts at Gmail, Yahoo and AOL report where warming mail landed, and we only call the mailbox campaign-ready when that rate is good enough to send.

Typical waits — observations, not a contract:

- New domain we just registered: on the order of **14 days** of warming (standard profile, starts ~2/day)
- [Aged, unwarmed domain](/help/aged-unwarmed-domains): closer to **7 days** (accelerated profile, starts ~5/day)
- Pre-warmed inventory: the wait already happened on our side. Listed addresses already finished the ramp.

A mailbox can take longer than 14 days. If it is in **Slow-Ramp** or blocked, adding cold volume is how you train spam. [Troubleshooting failed warmup](/help/troubleshooting-failed-warmup).

Price of the ramp you run yourself: **$0.60/inbox/mo**. Pre-warmed includes it. [Email warming by EmailPal](/help/email-warming-by-emailpal).

## Checklist before you launch

1. SPF, DKIM and DMARC are green in the dashboard. See [How to set up DNS records](/help/how-to-set-up-dns-records-mx-spf-dkim-dmarc).
2. Warming is on and not paused. Pausing resets progress. See [Enable, pause or resume warming](/help/enable-pause-or-resume-warming).
3. Status is **campaign-ready** (or you claimed a pre-warmed inbox).
4. You verified the list. A bounce storm the first week undoes the ramp. See [How to verify an email list before sending](/help/how-to-verify-an-email-list-before-sending).
5. You will stay under the cap: **40/day** on plan mailboxes, **15/day** on pre-warmed. See [Sending limits per mailbox](/help/sending-limits-per-mailbox).
6. Copy is plain on the first mail. No attachments, no three tracking links. Open tracking off.

The wider version of this list: [Cold email deliverability guide](/help/cold-email-deliverability-guide).

## Pre-warmed: ready means ready, with a ceiling

They are listed only after the ramp finished. Treat them as ready the minute the claim job rotates passwords — usually minutes, not hours.

Ready does not mean 50/day. The 15/day cap is how the measurement survives contact with a campaign. [What "pre-warmed" means](/help/what-pre-warmed-means).

## FAQs

### Can I send a few emails before campaign-ready?

A handful of highly engaged messages is less risky than a blast, but EmailPal's product advice is to wait. The warming network is already sending. Adding cold volume on top of a mailbox that is still landing in spam trains the wrong signal.

### Why is my health still low after a week?

Early warming often lands in spam while providers learn the domain. That is expected. Watch the trend, not a single day. If warming is [failed or disabled](/help/troubleshooting-failed-warmup), fix that first. A [warmup bounce](/help/warmup-bounce-and-disabled-warmup) is a different problem — credentials or authentication, not patience.

### Do pre-warmed inboxes show campaign-ready?

They are listed only after the ramp finished. Treat them as ready, with the 15/day cap. The listing's inbox rate is the measurement that already happened.

### Does "day 14" on another tool match EmailPal?

Other tools often graduate on elapsed days. EmailPal graduates on placement. If a competitor says ready and our dashboard does not, believe the dashboard you are sending from.

### Do warmup emails count toward the 40/day cap?

No. [Do warmup emails count toward sending limits?](/help/do-warmup-emails-count-toward-sending-limits).

## Need more help?

[Email warming by EmailPal](/help/email-warming-by-emailpal), [What is email warmup and how it works](/help/what-is-email-warm-up), or [open a ticket](/help/open-a-support-ticket).