Configure outgoing email settings

Hi <<First name>>!

Flex comes with a built-in white label email system that allows your marketplace to send email notifications with no additional cost. Once you have an active Flex subscription, these emails are sent from your domain.

With the latest Flex update, you can easily configure the outgoing email address in Console and change it any time. In addition, it's now possible to use your own SendGrid account instead of Sharetribe's built-in system, if you need more visibility over the emails that are sent from your marketplace.

Configure outgoing email address

To configure your white label outgoing email address, you first need to sign up for a paid plan of Flex. After that, a production environment is set up for you. In your production environment, you can see the configuration settings for outgoing email in your general settings in Console. You are then prompted to configure your DNS settings and validate them.

You should then follow these instructions to set up your DNS settings. Once you've validated the DNS settings, this status is shown in Console.

If you already have a production environment set up and have validated your DNS settings earlier using the old manual approach, you should see the text "Your domain has been validated" in your outgoing email settings. If that is the case, there's no need to take any additional actions at this point. If you don't see this text, there might be an issue with your current DNS configuration. In that case, contact Sharetribe support.

Use your own SendGrid account

In some situations it might be important for you to have more control over your email sending. As an alternative to the managed, white label email sending, Flex supports integrating directly with your own SendGrid account and sending all email notifications through it. Some reasons why you might want to do this are:

• You want to see exactly what emails are sent from your marketplace, and fix problems (like bounces) with users' email addresses.

• You want to see open rates and other statistics about the email notifications that were sent.

• You are also using SendGrid for your newsletters and other marketing emails, and want to have all your email-related data in one place.

• You want to use your own IP address for email sending and reputation.

If you'd prefer to get access to such features and statistics, this is possible by connecting your own SendGrid account to Flex. Just remember that doing this means you'd be subject to SendGrid's standard pricing for all outgoing emails.

To use your own SendGrid account from Outgoing email settings. If you have already had a production environment for a while, you can just click edit and select the advanced settings for entering your own Sendgrid API key. If you are in the middle of setting up your production marketplace, Console prompts you to choose between the default setup or advanced setup using your own SendgGrid account. See the documentation for more information.

What do you think about this latest Flex update? Are there other email-related improvements you'd like to see in Flex? Let us know by answering this email!