Deliverability
MailCraft's Free Email Tools, and Why We Built Them
An SPF checker, a DKIM/DMARC checker and an MX lookup — no signup required — because half of deliverability problems start before you ever send an email.
MailCraft Team · September 13, 2026 · 5 min read
A large share of the deliverability support requests we'd expect to get aren't about MailCraft at all — they're a missing DNS record, a DMARC policy that was copy-pasted wrong, or an SPF record with too many lookups. None of that requires an account to diagnose, so we put the diagnostic tools in front of the signup wall instead of behind it.
What the free tools actually check
The SPF checker resolves your domain's SPF record, walks every include and redirect it references, and flags the two failure modes that break real sends: exceeding the 10 DNS lookup limit the SPF spec allows, and a record that doesn't end in a clear -all or ~all qualifier. The DKIM/DMARC checker looks up your DMARC policy and reports whether it's none, quarantine or reject, and separately checks whether a DKIM selector actually has a published key. The MX lookup shows the mail servers a domain will actually route to, in priority order — useful for confirming a migration actually pointed where you think it did.
Why this is free instead of gated
A signup wall in front of a DNS lookup doesn't protect anything valuable — the same information is one dig command away for anyone who knows to run it. What it does do is add friction for the person who's two minutes from realizing their sending problem isn't MailCraft-shaped at all, it's a DNS record they set up eighteen months ago and forgot about. Free tools with no login get that answer faster, for our customers and for people who'll never sign up for anything.
They're also just good deliverability hygiene
SPF, DKIM and DMARC all degrade silently. A record that validated correctly when you set it up can break months later because an included third-party sender changed their own SPF record, or because a DMARC policy someone tightened for a different reason now rejects your own campaigns too. Running these checks isn't a one-time setup step — it's worth revisiting whenever deliverability numbers move without an obvious cause.
Where MailCraft picks up from there
Once a domain is verified inside MailCraft, we handle DKIM signing and give you the exact DNS records to add for SPF and DMARC alignment — the same checks the free tools run, built into domain setup so you're not guessing whether it worked. The free tools exist for the diagnosis; the platform exists for what happens once the diagnosis is done.
Put it into practice
Start on MailCraft's free plan — 3,000 emails a month, no credit card required.
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