Start here: from sign-up to your first send

How to do it

1. Create your workspace. On the sign-up page fill in First name, Last name, Work email, Phone number and a Password (10+ characters), then click Continue. A 6-digit code is emailed to you; type it and click Verify & create workspace. The first account becomes the workspace owner and you land on Overview.
2. Connect your mailboxes. In the sidebar open Mailboxes and click Connect Mailbox — sign in with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 if they're listed — or click Import CSV, then Choose a CSV. The file can be a Smartlead mailbox export or the simple Email, SMTP Username, SMTP Password format (for Google, an email plus an App Password is enough). Each mailbox is verified automatically in the background; you can close the window and they turn Active on their own. To add a single mailbox, upload a one-row CSV. To test credentials first without saving anything, use Connect Mailbox → Any IMAP / SMTP (the connection tester).
3. Check DNS. On the Mailboxes page, the Domains tab shows whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC are found on each sending domain (Check DNS looks again). Missing SPF or DKIM will block a campaign from deploying; DMARC is recommended but not required. Fix records at your DNS host, then Final review re-checks them.
4. Turn on warmup. Flip the switch in a mailbox's Warmup column (or select several and click Turn On Warmup), or click a mailbox, choose the Warmup tab, switch on Email Warmup, set Warmup Emails Per Day, optionally Daily Ramp-Up (suggested 5 per day) and Randomise Daily Volume, set Reply Rate (30% is a good start), then click Save Changes. A mailbox switched on with no volume set starts at 20 a day. Warmup only runs on a verified, active mailbox with IMAP set up. Leave it running; it never uses email credits and does not count against the mailbox's daily limit.
5. Import leads. Open Leads and click Import CSV (or New list first to name a list). In the import dialog choose the file, choose which list under Add to (or Create a new list…), and map columns under Map columns — Email is the only required field; anything else can be First name, Last name, Company, Job title, Industry, Employee count, City, Country, Website, Phone, LinkedIn URL, Timezone, a Custom variable {{ }} or Don't import. Under Options decide whether to Merge into existing leads, then click Import. (A second option, Skip contacts already in another campaign, appears only when you import from inside a campaign.) The import runs on the server and finishes even if you close the window.
6. Create a campaign. Open Campaigns and click New campaign, type a Campaign name and click Create campaign. You land on the campaign's Leads step. (The sidebar's New campaign button also takes you to the Campaigns page.)
7. Add leads to the campaign. On the Leads step use Import a CSV, Paste emails (one per line or comma-separated) or From an existing list. Duplicates, unsubscribes, previously bounced and blocklisted addresses are removed automatically.
8. Write the sequence. Click Sequences in the stepper. A first step is pre-filled ('Quick question about {{company}}'). Edit the Subject and body, insert variables such as {{first_name}} and {{company}}, use Preview as lead to see it with a real lead's data, and Send test to email yourself a copy. Add follow-up steps from the Sequence panel; each new step has a Wait before this step in days and an empty subject keeps it in the same thread. Step types are Automated email, Manual email and Phone call. Changes autosave a few seconds after you stop typing; Save changes saves immediately.
9. Click Save changes.
10. Each check (Leads, Sequence, Mailboxes, DNS, Schedule, Tracking & protection) shows a green tick when it passes or a red ! when it is blocking, with an Edit link beside every row.
11. Work replies. Open Replies. New replies are collected from every connected mailbox about every 30 seconds (click Fetch New Replies to check right now). Open a conversation, click the reply bar and click Send Reply — it goes from the address they wrote to, in the same thread. Use Mark lead as to classify it (Won when it's a deal), Push To Campaign to start an automated follow-up, or More → Block Lead to stop every campaign for that person.

Good to know

• Sign-up code: expires after 10 minutes, allows 5 attempts, and Resend code waits 30 seconds between sends. No account exists until the code is verified.
• Every new workspace starts on a 7-day free trial with room for 2,000 leads and 10,000 email credits; the account menu (bottom of the sidebar) shows days left and both.
• New accounts start from the 7-day Basic trial on the pricing page: Stripe takes your card (nothing is charged for 7 days) and brings you back to sign up. Opening mailfleet.co/signup directly sends you to that checkout. Teammates join with an invite link from the workspace owner (Settings → Members → Invite a teammate); an invited address must sign up with exactly that address and joins the existing workspace as a Member.
• Imported mailboxes default to 30 messages per day with a 20-minute minimum gap; change these on the mailbox's General tab (Emails Per Day, Minimum Gap Between Emails), in Quick Settings (the pencil on its row) or in bulk with Bulk Edit.
• A mailbox's status is Unverified until its first successful connection test, then Active (Warming while its warmup — on, with IMAP and a volume above 0 — hasn't started or is still ramping up). A real credential failure shows Disconnected. You can pause one by hand (⋯ → Pause Sending) — no campaign, warmup or test email goes out from it (replies you write in Replies still do), while replies to it still arrive — and resume it later; if a connection check failed while it was paused, Resume marks it Disconnected instead. Verification is retried automatically in the background; Recheck Connections and Reconnect are on the Mailboxes page.
• Every warmup email that lands in your inbox contains your workspace's code word (shown in the Warmup Network strip on the Mailboxes page) so you can filter it out of a forwarded inbox. Warmup is capped at 100 emails per mailbox per day.
• Warmup does not block sending: a campaign will send from any Active mailbox whether or not warmup has run. The health score shows 80 for an Active mailbox and 100 once its first warmup email has gone out.
• Only new leads take room in your workspace; updates and skipped rows (duplicates, unsubscribed, bounced, blocklisted) take none. If your workspace fills up mid-import, the rest of the file is not imported and the summary tells you.
• One email credit is spent per campaign email sent. Warmup emails and replies you send from the Replies page do not spend credits.
• Waits between steps are counted in days from the previous send; if a wait ends outside the sending days or window, the email goes out when the window next opens.
• Any real reply stops that lead's sequence in every active campaign. A reply tagged Not interested (or that says unsubscribe) removes the person from every campaign. Out-of-office auto-replies do not count as replies; if the auto-reply gives a return date, the lead's next step (and any open task) is held until that day and then continues — without a date the sequence carries on as scheduled.
• Final review blocks Deploy when there are no leads, no step with a body, no active sender, or a sending domain missing SPF or DKIM. Missing DMARC only warns.
• Deploying sets the campaign to Sending. Pausing stops future sends; resuming picks up where each lead left off.
• Protection defaults: an unsubscribe line is appended to every email ('Not the right person? Reply "no thanks" and I'll stop.') and a one-click unsubscribe header is always sent. Bounce and rejection rates per sending domain are checked every hour; if a domain crosses the line you get a Deliverability notification (and email) with a one-click option to pause the affected domains — campaigns are not paused automatically.