Getting set up to send
The four setup steps — connect a domain, confirm it's yours, add an inbox and create a sending address — and what to do when one won't complete.
Everything happens on one screen: Settings → Email sending in your CRM. A Get started card sits at the top listing the steps and how many are done; it disappears on its own once you're ready to send.
The four steps
1. Connect your domain
Your emails need a domain to be sent from. Domains are managed in Genesis — add yours under Domains, and it appears here automatically.
Until a domain is connected, this page can't show you anything else, so it's replaced by a small wizard that names this one step and links straight to Genesis.
2. Confirm the domain is yours
Mailbox providers won't trust mail from a domain that hasn't proven it sent it. Without this step, most of what you send lands in spam.
Click Authenticate domain in the Domain authentication card. If ESTAGE manages your domain's DNS, the records are written for you; if not, you get a table to copy across. Details: Authenticating your domain.
3. Let people reply
This one is recommended, not required — you can send without it, but nobody can write back.
Sending from hello@yourdomain.com and receiving at it are two different things: replies need
an inbox on the domain. The step is marked done once your domain has one. There are two ways to
get it.
If your domain is registered or transferred through ESTAGE, ESTAGE hosts the inbox — no
separate email provider. Open Domains, pick the domain, go to the Email tab and create a
mailbox such as hello@. ESTAGE adds the mail records itself. See
Email on your domain.
If you already pay for email elsewhere, or the domain is registered somewhere else:
- Add your domain to your email provider.
- Copy the DNS records it gives you.
- Add them in Genesis under Domains → DNS records, on that domain.
The card links to the instructions for Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho Mail, Fastmail and Proton Mail.
Caution
If your domain already had email on it before you moved it to ESTAGE, its MX records need to exist in Genesis's DNS too — see the warning in Adding a custom domain. A domain whose MX records were left behind will show this step as unfinished, because the inbox really is gone.
4. Create a sending address
The address your email goes out from, and the one people reply to. You enter the mailbox part —
hello, hi, news — and ESTAGE appends your domain.
This card only appears once step 2 is done: an address on an unauthenticated domain can't send. See Sending addresses.
One more thing you'll need
A sending allowance — how many emails you're allowed to send — isn't a setup step, because there's nothing to configure: you buy it. But nothing goes out without one, however well the four steps above went.
Check it under Sending volume in the Deliverability card on the same page; the link there takes you to Genesis → Account → Allocation & credits. See Your sending allowance.
Checking your progress
The Get started card counts finished steps and explains each outstanding one. Two buttons matter while you wait:
- Re-check (in the wizard) — re-reads your setup after you've changed something elsewhere.
- The refresh icon in Domain authentication — re-reads the domain's status.
DNS changes usually take a few minutes, occasionally longer. Nothing is lost while you wait; the page catches up when the records resolve.
Sending a test
Once every required step is done, each verified From address gets a Test button. It opens a dialog prefilled with that address — change the recipient if you like, and send.
Note
A test is a real email and uses your allowance like any other send. It also needs setup to be complete: the Test button stays disabled until then, with the reason in its tooltip.
When a step won't finish
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| "We couldn't check your email setup just now" | A temporary read failure — press Retry. |
| "We couldn't check yourdomain.com just now" on the reply step | The inbox lookup failed. That's a glitch, not proof you have no inbox. |
| DKIM PENDING for a long time | The DNS records aren't resolving yet — see Authenticating your domain. |
| "No domain connected to this project yet" | Step 1 isn't done. Add the domain in Genesis. |