As IT admins it is our job to monitor our infrastructure and services. Our business depends on us to keep all operations running smoothly.

Staying on top of monitoring email deliverability for your business is answering the question: can email be sent and received from your domain? One way to answer this question is through round-trip SMTP monitoring.

Round-trip monitoring of SMTP servers works by continuously sending test emails to an email address you specify in your domain. Your SMTP server is then configured to automatically respond to those test emails as they are received. If any of those responses fail to come back to our monitoring endpoints, we will alert you based on thresholds you set. We also keep a transaction log of all test emails sent and received, helping you diagnose any mail routing issues or blacklisting issues.

Sending and receiving email requires a handful of components to be working. Round-trip monitoring will provide you insight into the availability of these components together. It checks that:

1. The MX records for your domain are correctly configured for your SMTP servers
2. Your SMTP servers are up and running
3. Your SMTP relay software is up and running
4. Your Internet connection is active (if you host your SMTP servers or co-locate them in someone's data center)
5. Your email spam filter service provider is not delaying your email delivery

Round-trip SMTP monitoring stays on top of that complex system by continuously testing your systems, day and night, and alerts you when any disruptions happen.

You have full-control over who gets alerted and how they get alerted... you can configure alerts to send via email (perhaps through a secondary mail service), SMS, or automated-voice call. You can also configure alerts to send through popular paging services, such as Pager Duty.

To help you check in on your infrastructure, you can view the status of your monitors and alerts through a web browser on both desktop and mobile devices.

What comes with SMTP round-trip e-mail monitoring?

• Reliable, distributed monitoring from several US locations
• Configurable monitoring frequency (up to every minute)
• Many alerts per monitor— you choose how you'd like to be notified
• HTTP API— supporting integrations with on-premise monitoring frameworks
• Unlimited alerts delivered via e-mail
• 250 alerts delivered via SMS or voice call, per monitor
• Unlimited account users
• Real-time dashboard with desktop and mobile device support
• Weekly and monthly PDF reports delivered via e-mail
• Unlimited support

Built for Business

We've built this monitoring service to be your IT team's trusted partner. Contact us by e-mail or phone for support— we're happy to help.

Get 30-days of Free Monitoring

Try us out. We offer 30-days of free monitoring to get you started.

There are no restrictions or limitations. You'll be able to test the full capabilities of the monitoring service.

There are no obligations or commitments. If you haven't found round-trip monitoring valuable, you can just let your trial expire.

It takes less than 10 minutes to get started:

1. Sign up for an account.
2. Configure an auto-responding e-mail address on your SMTP server.
3. Configure your round-trip monitor using the Knowledge Front web dashboard.
4. Configure alerts so you know when mail flow problems happen.

Ten minutes of upfront work for peace of mind.

Miss this critical step and find yourself caught by surprise when e-mail delivery problems happen.