Do I need to warm up and verify emails prior to my first send with Letterhead?

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No. All customers can start sending without warming up their lists — Letterhead sends from already-warm IP pools, so deliverability should be good from your very first send.

What happens on your first send

Every send automatically runs through recipient validation before going out, checking that addresses are real, unflagged, and unbounced. If your list has many dead emails you may see a high bounce count in your first newsletter’s metrics, but those bounces won’t hurt your sender reputation — most invalid addresses are filtered by the automatic validation.

Two caveats:

Validation doesn’t confirm that a person deliberately opted in. If you’re unsure about consent, make your first send a re-opt-in email so recipients can easily unsubscribe.
Pre-verifying your list inside Letterhead before a send isn’t currently possible; validation happens as part of sending.

Optional: a cautious warm-up strategy

If you suspect a high number of dead addresses, you can ramp up gradually — for example, daily sends of 10k, then 20k the following week, then 50k, until you reach your full list.

Optional: the pending opt-in approach

Import your subscribers with a Pending tag.
Create a segment — e.g. “Pending-Opt-in” — of subscribers with that tag.
Make your first send a re-opt-in email to that segment only, letting readers know they’re subscribed and can unsubscribe if they no longer want the email. Send it from your new Letterhead account so it comes from your new sending address.

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