TL;DR: MailOps didn’t get more complicated — it got less forgiving.
The 2026 State of MailOps Report reflects what operators are seeing right now: tighter provider enforcement, shrinking error margins, and tooling that hasn’t always kept pace with modern operational expectations. It’s based on real conversations with MailOps teams running email at scale, focused on where things are breaking down and how teams are adapting in practice.
MailOps has always required precision. What’s changed over the last 18–24 months is how quickly imprecision is punished.
The 2024–2025 provider policy shifts — around authentication, alignment, engagement signals, and enforcement thresholds — didn’t just raise the bar. They compressed timelines. Changes that once played out over weeks now happen in days or hours. For teams operating at scale, that shift fundamentally alters how email infrastructure has to be run.
The 2026 State of MailOps Report exists because that inflection point is already behind us.
In speaking with MailOps teams across industries, we heard the same thing repeatedly: the work didn’t suddenly get harder, but the cost of being slightly wrong increased dramatically. Legacy assumptions — about retries, reputation recovery, visibility, or “safe” defaults — no longer hold under current provider behavior.
This report captures what MailOps looks like after those shifts. It reflects how teams are adapting their infrastructure, processes, and expectations in response to a stricter, faster-moving ecosystem. You’ll see where things are breaking down, but also where operators are successfully adjusting — borrowing from DevOps practices, tightening configuration control, and demanding systems that behave predictably under pressure.
If you’re responsible for email delivery today, none of this will feel abstract. Our goal is simply to document the moment we’re in, while it’s still fresh — and before it becomes the new baseline everyone forgets was ever different.
You can download the free report here.