Frequently Asked Questions

The problem: You own yourname.com for professional credibility, but your actual inbox is a free provider like Gmail. Standard forwarding breaks DMARC alignment, so newsletters, invoices, and client emails get flagged as spam or silently dropped.

How ARC-Relay helps: Point your domain's MX records to ARC-Relay. We ARC-seal every forwarded message, preserving the original authentication chain. Gmail, Outlook, and ProtonMail see a valid DMARC pass — your forwarded mail lands in the inbox, not spam.

The problem: Your company operates 10+ brands, each with its own domain. Maintaining separate mailboxes per domain is expensive, fragmented, and hard to manage. Forwarding everything to a central inbox causes DMARC failures across the board.

How ARC-Relay helps: Point all your domain MX records to ARC-Relay. Every brand's inbound mail is forwarded to your central inbox with full ARC authentication intact. The dashboard gives you one-pane visibility across all domains — forwards, delivery status, and compliance metrics in one place.

The problem: You set up email forwarding for clients, but their newsletters and transactional emails break DKIM/DMARC alignment downstream. The client blames your infrastructure when messages land in spam.

How ARC-Relay helps: SRS envelope rewriting plus ARC sealing means you can forward client mail without breaking sender reputation. Per-domain analytics in the dashboard let you prove deliverability to clients with real data — not promises.

The problem: Your organization routes inbound mail through spam filters, DLP, or archival systems. These gateways modify message headers during processing, breaking the original DKIM signatures. Downstream receivers see authentication failures and reject the mail.

How ARC-Relay helps: The ARC chain vouches for the original authentication results before the message was modified in transit. Receiving servers that support ARC — Gmail, Microsoft 365, Yahoo — trust the sealed chain and deliver the mail normally.

The problem: You own dozens of domains — legacy brands, typo-squats, future projects. You want to receive email sent to any of them, but provisioning and maintaining separate mailboxes is wasteful and expensive.

How ARC-Relay helps: Add each domain in 30 seconds — just point the MX records, no mailbox provisioning needed. Forward everything to a single address. The free tier covers 1 domain with 500 forwards/month; Pro gives unlimited domains.

ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) is an email authentication standard (RFC 8617) that preserves authentication results across intermediary hops. When an email is forwarded, the original DKIM signature often breaks because headers get modified in transit.

ARC solves this by having each intermediary server seal the authentication results it observed. Gmail, Microsoft 365, Yahoo, and other major providers check ARC seals when evaluating DMARC — if they trust the sealer, the email passes even though the original DKIM no longer validates.

SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) rewrites the envelope sender address so the forwarded message comes from ARC-Relay's domain rather than the original sender's domain. This means the receiving server checks SPF against arc-relay.com, which passes because ARC-Relay is the actual sending server.

Without SRS, the receiving server would check SPF against the original sender's domain, which would fail because ARC-Relay's IP isn't authorized for that domain. SRS is invisible to the end user — the displayed "From" address stays the same.

All plans preserve the original DKIM signature. Our ARC chain cryptographically proves DKIM passed before forwarding, so receivers still trust the message.

Pro and Business plans can optionally enable per-domain DKIM signing. This generates an RSA 2048-bit key for your domain and adds a DKIM-Signature header to every forwarded message. You add one DNS record and it activates automatically.

For most users, ARC sealing alone is enough. Per-domain DKIM is an extra layer for those who want full domain-level authentication on forwarded mail.

Three steps:

1. Add your domain in the dashboard
2. Set your MX record to 10 mx.arc-relay.com
3. Add the TXT verification record we provide

DNS changes usually propagate in under 5 minutes. Once verified, all email to your domain is forwarded with full ARC sealing automatically.

All major providers evaluate ARC seals when making DMARC decisions:

Yes. The free tier includes 1 domain and 500 forwards per month — enough for personal use. No credit card required to sign up. See all plans.

Incoming mail will be temporarily rejected with a retry code, so the sending server holds it in queue. No email is lost — the sender's server will retry. Upgrade your plan or wait for the monthly reset and forwarding resumes automatically.