The Founder's Guide to Email Deliverability for Pakistani SaaS Products

For a Pakistani SaaS founder, email is not just a communication channel — it is the lifeline of your product. Password resets, OTPs, payment receipts, trial expiry notices, onboarding sequences, and billing alerts all travel via email. When these emails fail to reach inboxes, your SaaS product breaks from the user's perspective even when the code is functioning perfectly.

Pakistani SaaS companies face specific deliverability challenges that global guides do not address: shared IP reputation tied to Pakistani IP ranges, billing friction that pushes teams toward free tiers with poor deliverability infrastructure, and growing Pakistani corporate users whose email providers use aggressive spam filters.

This guide covers the complete deliverability stack for a Pakistani SaaS product — from DNS authentication records through IP selection, warm-up protocols, and ongoing monitoring.

Why Pakistani SaaS Emails Fail

Problem 1: Shared IP Ranges with Poor Reputation

Most Pakistani SaaS products at the early stage are hosted on shared hosting or a basic VPS, sending email from the same IP range as hundreds of other services. IP reputation is partially inherited from neighbours. Pakistani IP ranges in the 202.x.x.x and 119.x.x.x blocks have historically carried moderate spam reputation scores because of other senders on those ranges.

When you send transactional email from a Pakistani-range IP without proper authentication, Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft 365 inboxes treat it with heightened suspicion.

Problem 2: Missing Email Authentication

Email authentication is not optional in 2026. Gmail and Yahoo announced in 2024 that bulk senders (>5,000 emails/day) must have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in place or face delivery failure. For SaaS products, every transactional email is effectively bulk sending at volume.

Surveys of Pakistani web agencies' client email configurations in 2025 found that fewer than 30% had fully valid DMARC records — not the policy, but any record at all.

Problem 3: Sending Domain Conflation

Many Pakistani SaaS founders send all email — marketing newsletters, transactional OTPs, system alerts — from the same info@saasproduct.pk address. This is a deliverability disaster waiting to happen:

If a newsletter campaign generates unsubscribes and spam complaints, it damages the domain reputation
That damaged reputation then affects the deliverability of time-critical OTPs and password resets
Users stop receiving authentication emails and churn, blaming the product

The Full Email Authentication Stack

Layer 1: SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

SPF declares which servers are authorised to send email from your domain:

# DNS TXT record at yoursaas.pk
v=spf1 include:_spf.yourESP.com ~all

# If using multiple sending services (common for SaaS):
v=spf1 include:_spf.sendgrid.net include:_spf.mailgun.org -all

# SPF hard limit: 10 DNS lookups
# If you exceed this, use SPF flattening tools
# e.g., AutoSPF, MxToolbox SPF Flattener

Critical: Finish with -all (hard fail) not ~all (soft fail) for maximum inbox trust signals. Use ~all during initial testing only.

Layer 2: DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to every email your SaaS sends. Gmail's spam filter weights DKIM-verified emails significantly higher:

# In your ESP (SendGrid, Postmark, etc.),
# generate a DKIM key pair for your domain.
# Add the public key as a DNS TXT record:

# Record name: s1._domainkey.yoursaas.pk
# Value: v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNA...

# Use 2048-bit keys (not 1024-bit, which some older guides recommend)
# Rotate DKIM keys annually as a security practice

Layer 3: DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication)

DMARC tells receiving mail servers what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM, and reports back to you:

# DNS TXT record at _dmarc.yoursaas.pk

# Phase 1: Monitor only (start here)
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yoursaas.pk; pct=100

# Phase 2: Quarantine failing mail (after 2 weeks of clean reports)
v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yoursaas.pk; pct=25

# Phase 3: Full enforcement (after another 2 weeks)
v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yoursaas.pk; pct=100

For Pakistani SaaS founders: Use a DMARC report analyser (dmarcdigest.com is free) to read aggregate reports. They arrive as XML. The human-readable dashboards show you exactly which emails are passing or failing authentication and from which sending sources.

Layer 4: BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification)

BIMI is the newest layer. It displays your brand logo in Gmail, Yahoo, and Apple Mail inboxes beside emails from your domain. For a Pakistani SaaS, this is a trust signal that increases open rates:

# Requires p=quarantine or p=reject DMARC policy first
# Requires a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) from DigiCert or Entrust
# (VMC costs USD 1,300/year — only for serious SaaS)

# DNS TXT record at default._bimi.yoursaas.pk:
v=BIMI1; l=https://yoursaas.pk/bimi-logo.svg; a=https://yoursaas.pk/bimi-vmc.pem

# SVG logo must meet strict BIMI specifications:
# - Square format, no text, solid background
# - Inline SVG, not referencing external resources

Sending Domain Separation

For a Pakistani SaaS product in production, use separate domains or subdomains for different email streams:

Sending Domain Architecture:
──────────────────────────────────────────────
Transactional email:                Sending subdomain
  OTPs, password resets             noreply.yoursaas.pk (Postmark)
  Payment receipts
  Account alerts
  Trial expiry notices

Marketing email:                    Separate sending subdomain
  Newsletters                       mail.yoursaas.pk (Mailchimp/Brevo)
  Feature announcements
  Activation campaigns
  Win-back sequences

System/operational email:           Another subdomain
  Error alerts (to your team)       ops.yoursaas.pk (Simple SMTP)
  Backup notifications
  Uptime alerts
──────────────────────────────────────────────
Why this matters:
If your marketing campaign generates spam complaints,
only mail.yoursaas.pk reputation is affected.
Your OTP deliverability on noreply.yoursaas.pk is protected.

Choosing the Right ESP for Pakistani SaaS

Transactional Email (OTPs, receipts, system emails)

| Provider | Cost | Deliverability | PKR-friendly? | Best For | |----------|------|---------------|--------------|----------| | Postmark | USD 15/month (10K emails) | Excellent | Card payment | Premium deliverability | | Amazon SES | USD 0.10/1K emails | Good | Card payment | Volume at low cost | | SendGrid (Basic) | USD 20/month (50K emails) | Good | Card payment | Mid-size SaaS | | Brevo (Sendinblue) | Free up to 300/day | Decent | Card payment | Early-stage bootstrap |

Recommendation for Pakistani SaaS: Amazon SES + your own warm IP is the most cost-effective at volume. Postmark is worth the premium for a bootstrapped early-stage SaaS where delivery reliability of OTPs is existential.

Payment note: All major ESPs require a credit card. For Pakistani founders without US/UK cards, use Wise (formerly TransferWise) with a Wise USD card, or a virtual USD card from Nayapay or SadaPay.

Marketing Email

| Provider | Free Tier | PKR? | Notes | |----------|----------|------|-------| | Brevo | 300/day | No | Good EU-friendly GDPR option | | Mailchimp | 1,000/month | No | Best for beginners, expensive at scale | | Resend | Limited free | No | Developer-friendly, modern API |

IP Warm-Up for Pakistani SaaS

If you are using a dedicated IP (available from Amazon SES or Postmark), you must warm it up before sending at full volume. Inbox providers watch for IPs that suddenly appear and send thousands of emails on day 1:

Week-by-Week Warm-Up Schedule:
──────────────────────────────────────────────
Week 1: 500 emails/day — most engaged users only
Week 2: 2,000 emails/day — recent active users
Week 3: 8,000 emails/day — active users (last 30 days)
Week 4: 25,000 emails/day — all active users
Week 5+: Full volume — all subscribers

During warm-up, monitor:
  • Bounce rate (target < 2%)
  • Spam complaint rate (target < 0.1%)
  • Open rate (healthy: > 20%)
  • Postmaster Tools (Gmail) reputation: Green

Pakistani-Specific Edge Cases

JazzCash and Easypaisa Transaction Confirmation Emails

Many Pakistani SaaS products rely on JazzCash/Easypaisa webhook confirmations to trigger payment receipt emails. These are time-critical. A customer who pays and receives no receipt loses trust immediately in a Pakistani market where digital payment fraud anxiety is high.

Ensure your payment confirmation transactional email deploys from your highest-deliverability sending domain (Postmark recommended) and fires within 30 seconds of payment webhook receipt.

OTP Delivery: Email vs. SMS for Pakistan

For Pakistani businesses, SMS OTP is more reliable than email OTP for initial user authentication, because:

Many Pakistani users' primary email is a shared family account
Phone numbers are unique and verified at SIM registration (CNIC-linked)
SMS delivery rates are > 99% for registered Pakistani numbers

For your SaaS, consider: email OTP for desktop/work contexts, SMS OTP (via Telenor/Jazz APIs or MSG91 for Pakistan routing) for mobile-first flows.

Email Deliverability Audit Checklist

Run this monthly on your SaaS sending domains:

✔ SPF record exists and has < 10 lookups (mxtoolbox.com/spf)
✔ DKIM record exists and validates (mail-tester.com)
✔ DMARC is at p=quarantine or p=reject
✔ DMARC reports monitored in dmarcdigest.com or valimail.com
✔ Bounce rate < 2% (check ESP dashboard)
✔ Spam complaint rate < 0.1% (Google Postmaster Tools)
✔ IP not blocklisted (check MXToolbox Blacklist Check)
✔ Transactional sending from separate subdomain to marketing
✔ Unsubscribe link in all marketing emails
✔ List hygiene: remove hard bounces immediately
✔ Test monthly: mail-tester.com score > 9/10

Conclusion

Email deliverability is infrastructure, not marketing. For a Pakistani SaaS product, a broken deliverability stack means users cannot reset passwords, cannot receive OTPs, and cannot confirm payments — all of which generate immediate churn and negative reviews that are hard to recover from.

The investment to do this correctly is modest: 2–3 hours of DNS configuration, USD 15–20/month for a reliable transactional ESP, and 30 minutes per month of monitoring. The consequence of not doing it is a slow product death by a thousand unanswered support tickets blaming "I never received the email."

Host your Pakistani SaaS on infrastructure built for reliability: (/hosting) includes server configurations optimised for transactional email delivery, with Pakistani support for DNS and email setup.