How to Set Up Postmark, Step by Step (Non-Developers)
How to set up Postmark step by step: verify your sender or domain, copy your server API token, add it with Claude Code, send a test and get approved.
Quick answer
Here’s how to set up Postmark: create a free account, then verify your from address or your whole domain. Copy the server API token from your server’s API Tokens tab, ask Claude Code to store it safely and add the sending code, send yourself a test, then ask Postmark to approve your account.
Last checked: October 2026
On this page
- How to set up Postmark: what you need first
- Step 1: Create a Postmark account
- Step 2: Add a sender signature or verify your domain
- Step 3: Find your Postmark server API token
- Step 4: Add the token to your project with Claude Code
- Step 5: Send a test email
- Step 6: Request approval so you can email anyone
- What is working with Postmark like day to day?
- How is SimpleSends different for people who don’t code?
Claude Code has suggested Postmark for your project’s emails. This guide shows how to set up Postmark from start to finish, in the order the steps need to happen, including one step that catches a lot of people: account approval.
It’s written for people who build with Claude Code but don’t write code. Every step happens on a website, in your domain settings or in a plain-English message to Claude Code. Postmark is a transactional email service: it sends the automatic, one-to-one emails your project needs, like welcome emails, password resets and receipts.
How to set up Postmark: what you need first
You need three things: an email address or domain you own, a project in Claude Code, and about 30 minutes plus some waiting time while your domain settings update and Postmark reviews your account.
| What you need | Why |
|---|---|
| A domain you own (yourcompany.com) | Postmark sends from addresses on domains you control and checks that you own them. |
| Access to your domain’s DNS settings | You’ll add two records there. DNS is the address book that tells the internet how your domain works. |
| Your project open in Claude Code | Claude Code adds the sending code to your project. |
Postmark’s free plan includes 100 emails a month and never expires, but it doesn’t allow any overage. Paid plans start at $15 a month for 10,000 emails (Basic), with Pro at $16.50 and Platform at $18 for the same volume (prices checked October 2026).
Step 1: Create a Postmark account
Go to account.postmarkapp.com/sign_up and create an account. No credit card is needed for the free plan.
When you sign up, Postmark asks you to confirm you won’t send bulk email or spam. It then creates your first server for you. In Postmark, a server keeps one project’s emails, settings and keys together.
Each server has message streams, which keep different kinds of email apart. Welcome emails, password resets and receipts belong in the transactional stream, which Postmark keeps apart from bulk email.
Step 2: Add a sender signature or verify your domain
Before Postmark sends anything, it needs proof you own the address your emails come from. You have two ways to give it:
| Option | What it covers | How you prove it |
|---|---|---|
| Sender signature | One from address, such as hello@yourcompany.com | Click a confirmation link Postmark emails to that address |
| Domain verification | Every address on the domain | Add a DKIM record to your DNS settings |
Right after sign-up, Postmark emails a confirmation link to the address you signed up with. Click it, and that address becomes your first sender signature.
For a project that will grow, verify the whole domain so you can send from any address on it without more confirmations. Our guide to choosing your sending domain and from address helps you pick which domain and address to use.
- In Postmark, open Sender Signatures.
- Under your domain, choose DNS Settings or Add a DKIM DNS record.
- In a new tab, log in where your domain’s DNS is managed (usually your registrar or hosting company).
- Add each record exactly as Postmark shows it.
- Back in Postmark, click Verify next to each record.
| Type | Name | Value | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| TXT | Copy from Postmark | Copy from Postmark | DKIM: a signature that shows inboxes the email is really from you |
| CNAME | Copy from Postmark | pm.mtasv.net | Return-Path: where bounce reports go, and how your emails pass SPF checks |
Only the DKIM record is required, but Postmark strongly recommends the Return-Path record too, so add both. Copy names and values exactly: one missing character stops verification.
Postmark says records show as verified within 48 hours, and the Verify button runs a check sooner. Adding these records doesn’t change your other DNS records. Once both are verified, Postmark suggests adding a DMARC record too, an extra rule that helps stop others pretending to be you. For a fuller walkthrough, see how to verify a domain for sending email.
Step 3: Find your Postmark server API token
Postmark calls its secret key a server API token. Like any API key, it’s a long secret code your project uses to prove it’s allowed to send email through your account. Treat it like a password.
- In Postmark, open Servers and choose your server.
- Open the API Tokens tab.
- Copy the server API token shown there.
Each server can have up to three tokens. Postmark also has an account API token on a separate page, which can create servers and add domains. Your project doesn’t need that one, so leave it where it is.
Step 4: Add the token to your project with Claude Code
Your project needs the token stored somewhere safe, plus a small piece of sending code. Claude Code writes the code; your job is to give it the token in a safe way.
The safe place is an environment variable: a setting your project reads when it runs, kept outside your code. On your computer that’s usually a .env file. On your hosting platform it’s a settings page. Our guide on where to put API keys explains both.
I’ve set up Postmark for this project’s emails and copied my server API token. Please set up a .env file for the token, make sure it never gets saved with my code, and tell me exactly where to paste it. Then add what the project needs to send transactional emails through Postmark from hello@yourcompany.com.
Claude Code will create the file, tell you where to paste the token, and add the sending code. When you publish your project, add the same token to your hosting platform’s environment variable settings too. Ask Claude Code which name to use.
Step 5: Send a test email
A test confirms that your sender, token and code all work together.
Please send a test email through Postmark to my own address, from hello@yourcompany.com, with the subject "Postmark test". Then tell me whether Postmark accepted it.
Within a minute or two, the email should land in your inbox. Send it to an address on your own verified domain: until Step 6 is done, Postmark won’t deliver to anyone else.
If nothing arrives, open your server’s activity in Postmark to see whether the email was sent, then share any error with Claude Code. Our guide to checking whether an email actually sent covers what to look for.
Step 6: Request approval so you can email anyone
New Postmark accounts can only send to addresses on domains you’ve added and verified. To email your real users, Postmark has to approve your account first. It reviews every new account by hand to protect its sending reputation.
- Log in as the account owner. Only the owner can ask for approval.
- Find the option to request approval in your account and fill it in.
- Describe the emails you’ll send, such as sign-up confirmations, password resets and receipts.
Postmark says reviews take under 24 hours on weekdays, and a little longer at weekends. It emails you either way. While you wait, you can keep building and testing. Link tracking only switches on after approval.
What is working with Postmark like day to day?
Once it’s set up and approved, Postmark sends every email your live project triggers. Claude Code isn’t involved at that point; your project talks to Postmark directly.
Postmark is built for developers, and it shows in a good way: clear documentation, separate streams for different kinds of email, and detailed activity history. Day to day, much of the work lives in its dashboard. You check activity when a user says a message never arrived, manage tokens and streams per server, and handle sender signatures and domains there.
Postmark also offers an official MCP server, which lets AI tools work with your Postmark account. It has 24 tools, including sending emails, managing templates and diagnosing why an email didn’t arrive. You set it up by adding a snippet and your token to a configuration file, a route written with developers in mind.
That suits people who write code or want to edit code themselves. For a side-by-side look at Postmark and another popular option, see Resend vs Postmark vs SendGrid.
How is SimpleSends different for people who don’t code?
SimpleSends is a transactional email service built for people who build with Claude Code but aren’t developers. Setup covers the same ground: an account, a verified domain, a key and sending code. The difference is who it’s built for and what working with it feels like afterwards.
- Plain English throughout. Sign-up, connecting and help are written without developer jargon.
- Day-to-day work happens in the chat. After sign-up, you don’t need a dashboard. You brief Claude Code the way you’d brief a person.
- Claude Code does the email work. It designs, writes, builds and changes your welcome, password reset and receipt emails. "Set up all my transactional emails" is a fair brief.
- Problems get sorted in plain English. Claude Code reads your send logs through SimpleSends, so "a user says they never got their reset email" is a question you ask in the chat.
Connecting takes four steps:
- Sign up on the SimpleSends website and follow the steps there to set up the email address you’ll send from. To send from your own domain, this includes adding a few DNS records where your domain is registered.
- In Claude Code, open Customize, then Connectors. Click Add, then choose Custom, then Web to add a custom connector. Use the name SimpleSends and the MCP server URL https://mcp.simplesends.com/mcp.
- When Claude prompts you to connect, log in to SimpleSends.
- Back in the chat, tell Claude Code what you’ve done.
I’ve connected SimpleSends for all transactional email.
Claude Code takes it from there, including adding what your project needs to send email. For more on how this works, see transactional email for non-developers.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I go over 100 emails on Postmark’s free plan?
Postmark’s free plan doesn’t allow overages, so you can’t send past 100 emails in a month on it. To send more, move to a paid plan. Basic starts at $15 a month for 10,000 emails. Prices checked October 2026 on Postmark’s pricing page.
What’s the difference between the server API token and the account API token?
The server API token is the one your project uses to send email. The account API token is for account-wide jobs, like creating servers or adding domains, and only account owners and admins can use it. Your project doesn’t need it, so keep it out of your project.
Will adding Postmark’s DNS records break my existing email?
No. Postmark says adding its DKIM and Return-Path records doesn’t change any of your other DNS records, and doesn’t affect email you send from the same domain through other services. Add them alongside what’s already there and leave the rest alone.
Can I test Postmark without using a real inbox?
Yes. Postmark provides test@blackhole.postmarkapp.com. Emails sent there are accepted and then dropped, but they still show up in your Postmark activity, so you can see whether the send worked. You can use it before your account is approved.
What if Postmark doesn’t approve my account?
If you think the decision was a mistake, email support@postmarkapp.com with examples of the emails you plan to send, such as your welcome and password reset emails. Postmark says it will take a second look.
Sources (7)
- Getting started with Postmark(checked October 5, 2026)
- How do I verify a domain?(checked October 5, 2026)
- What are the Account and Server API Tokens, and SMTP Tokens?(checked October 5, 2026)
- How does the account approval process work?(checked October 5, 2026)
- Pricing(checked October 5, 2026)
- Connect your AI agents to Postmark (MCP server)(checked October 5, 2026)
- Use connectors to extend Claude’s capabilities (Anthropic)(checked October 5, 2026)
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