Customers not receiving emails

When customers aren't getting your emails, it usually comes down to one of four things: bad email credentials, spam filtering, bounces you can't see, or a problem with how Suprata reads incoming replies. Here's how to figure out which one.

Updated 16 hours ago 3 views email smtp deliverability troubleshooting imap

Customers not receiving emails

A customer says they didn't get the invoice you sent. You sent it; Suprata says it was delivered. Now what?

Email is the trickiest part of running any business platform because there are a lot of places it can quietly go wrong. Suprata sends the email, your mail provider accepts it, and then the message disappears into the customer's spam folder, gets rejected at their end, or just gets dropped. Suprata can only see what happens up to the moment it hands the email off — after that, you're at the mercy of the broader email world.

This article covers the four most common causes and the order to work through them.

When you'd care

  • A specific customer says they didn't get something. One-off problem, narrow scope.
  • Nobody is getting email from you. System-wide problem, urgent.
  • A new customer or new domain isn't getting email — could be deliverability for that domain specifically.
  • Inbound email (replies, IMAP) isn't appearing in Suprata. Different problem; same area.

How email actually moves

Suprata → your email provider → the customer's email provider → their inbox / spam / trash / rejected
                                                                       ↑
                                                                you can't see in here

Suprata sends through whatever email account you've connected — Gmail, Outlook, a transactional service like SendGrid, or your own mail server. See Setting up email SMTP. Your provider then forwards the message to the customer's email provider, which decides what to do with it.

You can see the first two steps. After that, you're partly blind unless you've set things up to capture bounce notifications.

How to diagnose it

Work through these in order. Most problems are caught in the first two.

Step 1: Did Suprata actually send it?

Open the email settings page:

Email settings — your email connection and the recent-sends log

Look at the recent-sends log (or the customer's email history). Three possibilities:

  • The email shows as sent. Suprata did its part. The problem is downstream. Continue to Step 2.
  • The email is "queued" or "pending." It hasn't actually been sent yet. See Step 4.
  • There's no record of it at all. It was never queued. Either nobody clicked Send, or whatever should have triggered the email failed. Try sending it again.

Step 2: Did your email provider accept it?

If Suprata's record shows "delivered" or "accepted," your email provider took the message. If it shows "rejected" or "bounce," the provider refused it. Common reasons:

  • Bad email password. You changed your email password (or it expired) and Suprata still has the old one. Reconnect the email account.
  • Sign-in method has changed. Gmail and Microsoft 365 increasingly require app-specific passwords or special sign-in methods rather than your regular password. If you've been using your regular password, you'll need to switch to an app password.
  • You hit a sending limit. Free Gmail caps you at 500 emails per day; Microsoft 365 at 10,000. Once you hit the cap, sends stop until it resets. If you send in volume, use a real email service like SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark instead.
  • Your "from" address isn't authorized. You're trying to send as invoices@yourcompany.com but your email account isn't set up to allow that. Either change the from address or fix the email account settings.
  • The connection security setting is wrong. Your provider requires a secure connection but Suprata is set up for an unsecured one (or vice versa). Update the email settings.

If Step 1 says sent and Step 2 shows it was accepted, continue.

Step 3: Did the customer actually receive it?

This is where you lose visibility. Things to check:

  • Their spam or junk folder. First and most likely. Have the customer check.
  • A typo in the email address. Double-check the address you have on file.
  • Their email provider rejected it. If Suprata is set up to capture bounces (through the inbound email setup), check the bounce log. If not, you have no easy way to see bounces.
  • Your domain's email reputation. If you're sending from a new domain, or from a shared service, the customer's email provider may be filtering you aggressively. The fix is having your domain set up properly with the standard email-authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). Your IT person or whoever manages your domain's DNS can do this — it's a one-time setup that helps your emails land in inboxes for years afterward.
  • The customer's email service is overzealous. Some corporate filters flag any unfamiliar sender. Ask the customer to add your address to their contacts.

The first three catch about 80% of cases.

Step 4: Is the email queue moving?

Some emails (especially scheduled ones or large batches) wait in a queue and get sent in the background. Check the system status:

System status — confirms the background email sending is running

If the background process is stuck, queued emails will sit waiting. This is usually something Suprata support needs to fix on their end — but knowing this is the cause means you can call support instead of spending an hour wondering why nothing is sending.

Step 5: Replies aren't appearing in Suprata

If outbound emails are working but customer replies aren't showing up in Suprata, that's a different problem — Suprata reads incoming email through a separate connection. If that's broken:

  • Check the inbound email password. Same as outbound — passwords rotate.
  • Check that the mailbox is actually getting mail. Log into the inbox directly through webmail and confirm replies are arriving there.
  • Inbound mail isn't real-time. Suprata checks the mailbox every few minutes, not the instant a reply arrives. So small delays are normal.
  • Replies that can't be matched to a customer record end up in an "unmatched" area rather than getting attached to the right job or invoice. Check there.

Common root causes by symptom

"One specific customer doesn't get our emails"

Usually:

  1. Bad email address on file (typo).
  2. Their mail provider is filtering you to spam.
  3. They've blocked or unsubscribed (some email systems track unsubscribes silently).

Try sending a manual email from your own personal account to the same address. If your manual email also doesn't arrive, it's their end. If yours arrives but Suprata's doesn't, it's a sender-reputation or template issue.

"Some customers do, some don't"

Usually a deliverability issue:

  • Your sending domain has weak DNS reputation.
  • Specific recipient domains (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook) filter you more aggressively than others.
  • Your email content is triggering spam filters (too many links, too few words, certain trigger phrases).

Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your domain (your IT person or your DNS host can do this). Within a week, deliverability typically improves.

"Nobody is getting email from us"

Usually:

  • SMTP credentials are wrong or expired.
  • You hit a sending limit on your provider.
  • Your sending domain is on a blocklist.
  • A background sending process is stalled.

Start with Step 1 (did Suprata send?) and Step 2 (did SMTP accept?).

"Replies aren't showing up"

That's the inbound email side, not the outbound side. See Step 5.

Common mistakes

  • Assuming "sent" means "received." Suprata can't confirm receipt — only that it handed the email off. When in doubt, confirm with the customer.
  • Using a personal Gmail account for business email. Free Gmail has low sending limits, gets filtered more aggressively, and isn't designed for business volume. Use a business email service or a real transactional email service.
  • Not setting up email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) on your domain. Without these, big email providers like Gmail and Outlook filter your messages aggressively. It's a one-time setup with your domain provider — your IT person can do it in 15 minutes.
  • Ignoring bounces. If you don't have inbound email set up to capture bounce notices, you don't know which addresses on file are bad. Set this up early.
  • Sending from an unverified address. "From: noreply@gmail.com" can't really be tied to your business — and recipients (and their filters) notice. Use a real address on your own domain.
  • Treating spam-folder filtering as a Suprata problem. It's an email-world problem. The fix is on your domain's email reputation, not in Suprata's settings.
  • Not testing after a settings change. Send yourself a test invoice every time you change email settings, templates, or sender info.

Prevention

  • For volume, use a real email service (Postmark, SendGrid, Mailgun, AWS SES). They land in inboxes more reliably than personal Gmail or Outlook.
  • Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your sending domain.
  • Set up inbound email so bounces get captured — otherwise bad addresses sit silently on your customer records.
  • Send yourself a test email after every email settings change.
  • Once a month, scan for customers who haven't opened any of your emails — their address on file might be wrong.

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