Deliverability briefing, Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Proofpoint is the gateway most likely to scan your email
No deliverability story cleared two outlets today, so the panel carries the news. Proofpoint remains the gateway in front of the largest share of companies measured, ahead of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, so it's often the software reading your cold email first.
Inbox Rules Index
499 of 499 companies checked, Wednesday, 2 September 2026
Every morning we look up the published email settings of the same 499 real companies, the kind you send cold email to. This is what they have set up, not a score on your own sending.
Today's panel measured 499 companies. 88.4% of them block mail that fakes their address, unchanged from yesterday and up 0.6 percentage points from the 10 August baseline. This tells you how seriously the people you email guard their own domain, not how your cold email will be treated.
What this means for your sending
Proofpoint screens more of these companies than anything else, at 33.9%, so it is the filter most of your cold email actually meets. 6.2% ask senders for an encrypted connection, so an expired or mismatched certificate on your sending server can stop mail reaching them at all. 2.4% cannot receive email at all, which is dead weight on any list that includes them. The rest is about how these companies stop others forging their address. It is a good sign of how seriously they run email security, but it is not what decides where your mail lands: that is judged against your own domain's records.
Whose spam filter your email meets
| Proofpoint | 33.9% | |
| Microsoft 365 | 26.1% | |
| Google Workspace | 18.8% | |
| Their own servers, or unknown | 9.6% | |
| Mimecast | 4% | |
| Cisco Secure Email | 3.8% |
Proofpoint screens about one in every 3 of these companies, more than any other filter. This is the software that reads your email before a person does, and it is the part of this briefing that most directly decides whether you land.
Which industries guard their name hardest (companies checked)
| Software (126) | 97.6% | |
| Finance (54) | 94.4% | |
| Services (28) | 92.9% | |
| Healthcare (47) | 89.4% | |
| Logistics (17) | 88.2% | |
| Retail (50) | 88% | |
| Travel (25) | 88% | |
| Energy (24) | 87.5% | |
| Media (26) | 84.6% | |
| Telecoms (30) | 80% | |
| Industrial (44) | 79.5% | |
| Schools and universities (28) | 57.1% |
Software guards its name hardest: 97.6% block mail faking their address. Schools and universities least, at 57.1%, a gap of 40.5 points. A high number means that industry runs email security tightly, so expect your own setup to be looked at more closely there.
All 499 of the 499 companies we check answered today. The same real companies every morning, looked up in public DNS. This is what the people you email have set up, not a score on your own sending.
What these numbers mean
What gateway is most likely to scan my cold email today?
Proofpoint fronts 33.9% of the companies measured today, ahead of Microsoft 365 at 26.1% and Google Workspace at 18.8%. Expect your message to pass through one of these three filters most often.
Did the number of companies blocking forged mail change overnight?
No. The enforcement rate held at 88.4%, unchanged from 2026-09-01, and it's up 0.6 percentage points from the 88% baseline recorded on 2026-08-10.
What industry has the most companies still not blocking forged mail?
Education lags furthest behind: only 57.1% of education companies measured today block forged mail, compared with 97.6% in SaaS and 94.4% in finance. If your prospects sit in education, don't expect this setting to say much about their gateway strength.
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