How to set up DFY cold email infrastructure

Taras Mykhailenko

2 days ago

Besides connecting your existing accounts, Snov.io offers done-for-you (DFY) domains and mailboxes.

Using this option, you can buy domains and create email senders in bulk directly from your dashboard.

Every account is set up with all the essential deliverability settings (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, tracking domains) right out of the box. This helps you avoid complicated DNS configuration and guarantees you get better deliverability.

Create email domains

Define email infrastructure size

Create mailboxes

Complete your order

What to do after purchasing DFY accounts

To get started, open the Email Accounts section.

Click Add email account and choose the Done-for-you mailboxes option.

Step 1. Create email domains

First, you’ll need domains to create email accounts on.

Create multiple domains for your cold outreach in bulk. These domains are treated as separate by email providers, so your main domain stays safe.

Choose your domain names:

In the Find domain field, enter your company domain name as a reference. The system will suggest domain variations you can use.

If you want to create a domain with your exact domain name (and with a specific TLD extension), type the full name you want — the first suggestion in the list will match what you’ve entered.

Which domains Snov.io supports:

Snov.io provides a wide range of domains available for setup. See the full list of the domain TLDs we support.

Which domain extension (TLD) to use:

Not all TLDs perform equally well for cold outreach. Create domains with trusted extensions.

Use extensions .com, .io, or .org — these are generally the most reliable.
Use country-based domains like .ca, .fr, or .co.uk for outreach targeted to that region.
Avoid TLDs such as .biz, .online, .xyz, .digital - they are often seen as spammy and emails from these domains are more likely to land in spam.

How many domains do you need?

It depends on your planned daily sending limit.

We recommend having at least 2–3 domains, with one domain and a few senders kept as a backup. If one of the active senders faces issues, you’ll always have a ready-to-use sender to replace it.

For best deliverability, plan your sending system around these limits.

Domains: 2-3 active (+1-2 backups)

Mailboxes: 3–5 per domain

Daily sending limit:

--> 20-30 emails/day (optimal recommended)

--> 50 emails/day (maximum recommended)

Recommended limits for domains and mailboxes

To scale your total volume safely, add more domains and mailboxes instead of raising daily limits per mailbox.

In Snov.io, your sending system can scale infinitely — add as many accounts as you need to cover your outreach goals.

Domains	Max. volume (recommended)	Mailboxes	Sending limit
1 active + 1 backup	150–200 emails/day	3–4 mailboxes on the active domain (4–5 per domain)	At the start: 3–4 senders × 20–30 daily limit = 60–120 emails/day When scaled: 3–4 senders × 50 daily limit = 150–200 emails/day
2 active + 1 backup	400–500 emails/day	8–10 mailboxes on 2 domains	At the start: 8–10 senders × 20–30 daily limit = 160–300 emails/day When scaled: 8–10 senders × 50 daily limit = 400–500 emails/day
3 active + 1 backup	600–750 emails/day	12–15 mailboxes on 3 domains	At the start: 12–15 senders × 20–30 daily limit = 240–450 emails/day When scaled: 12–15 senders × 50 daily limit = 600–750 emails/day
3–4 active + 2 backup	750–1000 emails/day	15–20 mailboxes on 3–4 domains	At the start: 15–20 senders × 20–30 daily limit = 300–600 emails/day When scaled: 15–20 senders × 50 daily limit = 750–1000 emails/day
6 active + 2 backup	1200–1500 emails/day	24–30 mailboxes on 6 domains	At the start: 24–30 senders × 20–30 daily limit = 480–900 emails/day When scaled: 24–30 senders × 50 daily limit = 1200–1500 emails/day

Step 2. Create mailboxes

Create mailboxes on a single domain or distribute them across multiple domains.

The account names you set here will appear as the sender name in account settings. You can edit them later if needed.

First name + Last name: Sender name shown in the Email From field.
Username: The first part of the email address, before @
Domain: Choose the domain where the account will be created.

Distribute accounts across domains:

We recommend 3–5 mailboxes per domain as the best balance of scalability and the costs for maintenance. The minimum purchase is 3 mailboxes.

Adding more than 5 mailboxes to one domain is possible, but not recommended. Providers may treat such domains as spammy, which can hurt deliverability.

Step 3. Complete your order

Before making a payment, double-check your order and make sure everything is distributed the way you want — this cannot be changed later.

Domains and mailboxes are non-refundable. Once the purchase is completed, it can’t be reversed.

DFY accounts are subscription-based. At the end of each billing period, they renew automatically.

Domains are active for one year from the date of purchase and renew annually. You’ll be charged a few days in advance to secure the payment and provide backup time in case of issues with your payment method.
Mailboxes have a 30-day billing cycle and renew every 30 days.

What to do after purchasing DFY accounts

After your payment is complete, we’ll create the domains with all the necessary settings. The setup may take about 15 minutes.

You’ll see your domains in the Domains tab, and the new mailboxes will appear in your Email Accounts list.

From there, you can edit the settings for each account: change the Email from (sender) name, adjust the daily sending limit, and add a forwarding domain.

Set up forwarding

You can add a forwarding domain to each of your domains in Snov.io.

Normally, forwarding requires DNS changes, but Snov.io sets it up for you automatically. You only need to update the redirect domain in your account settings.

Forwarding ensures your prospects end up on your main website when they click a link in your email. If a prospect opens one of your outreach domains, they’ll be automatically redirected to your primary company domain (your website).

For example, if one of your domains is getcompany.com and your main website is company.com, any recipient who opens getcompany.com will be redirected to company.com.

Warm-up accounts

DFY domains and mailboxes are optimized for deliverability, but don’t have any sending history yet.

To protect your reputation and get the best results, don’t launch campaigns right away. First, run a proper warm-up period. Skipping this step or rushing sending will almost always hurt deliverability.

Enable warm-up on every new mailbox right from the Email Accounts list.

Warm-up for accounts requires slots. On any Pro or Ultra plan, you get unlimited warm-up slots. On other plans, the number of slots depends on your plan — see warm-up limits.

Recommended warm-up settings

Warm-up period:

Make sure the warm-up period for your senders is long enough. Building a strong sender reputation takes months. Email warm-up speeds up the process, but still takes time to see the best possible effect.

Make your warm-up period and daily limit close to the number of emails you plan to send in campaigns.

For low-volume outreach (10–30 emails/day), warm up for 2–3 weeks
For higher volumes (30–50 emails/day), extend the warm-up to 4-6 weeks or longer

Warm-up daily limit:

The warm-up of new accounts works best with the Progressive strategy, where you increase sending step by step until you reach your target limit.

Set 2-5 emails/day as starting point in the warm-up settings
Choose a progressive strategy with 30 emails as a daily warm-up goal

Warm-up together with active campaigns

When your accounts are in the initial warm-up period after setup, we don’t recommend launching campaigns yet.

Starting campaigns too early—while the accounts are still new—can lead to poor performance in both warm-up and campaign sending.

Once the initial warm-up is complete, you can use it alongside campaigns to your advantage. However, it’s important to control your total sending volume to stay within safe limits.

The total number of emails sent from each account (campaigns + warm-up) should be 30–50 emails per day.

For example:

If you send about 40–45 campaign emails per day, keep your warm-up at 5–10 emails per day.

While campaigns are active, adjust your limits dynamically:

If campaigns perform well, you can pause warm-up and re-enable it during inactive periods.
If performance drops, reduce campaign limit and increase warm-up until your sender reputation improves.

Note: Warm-up emails are not counted toward the daily sending limit in your account settings. Only campaign emails are controlled by that limit — warm-up emails continue separately. Keep this in mind when estimating your total sending volume per mailbox.

Warming up backup accounts:

Start the warm-up for any backup domains you’ve created.

While your main domains are in use, keep your sender accounts on backup domains warming up in the background. This way, you’ll always have ready-to-use accounts when you need to scale your sending or replace blocked senders.

Add custom tracking domains

DFY accounts come with custom tracking domains already set up.

We recommend to limit the use of open and click tracking, as it can negatively impact your deliverability. Use tracking only when necessary for sequence conditions or tracking metrics in Reports.

For accounts on which you need to use it, enable custom tracking domain warm-up.

Set daily sending limits

Before you start campaigns, adjust the daily sending limit for each email account in its settings.

Start outreach at the optimal daily limit and gradually grow toward the recommended maximum to manage risks safely. This way, you increase volume while maintaining deliverability and steadily building sender reputation.

20-30 emails/day (optimal recommended)
50 emails/day (the default daily limit for email accounts in Snov.io)

In DFY accounts, the maximum daily limit is 100 emails/day. Using it is risky and not recommended, especially right after setup.

Safe sending timeline example:

Day 1: Start with 2–4 emails/day
First weeks: Increase by 2–4 emails/day until you reach 20–30 emails/day
After 1 month: Send 20-30 emails/day and monitor your stats. Activate warm-up when campaigns are inactive or in prep
After a few months: increase to 50 emails day/per mailbox and monitor your campaign reports. If deliverability metrics stay stable, keep this limit. If you see any issues, lower the limit back to a safer level.