How to Verify Your Domain for Sending Email, in Plain English

Your email service has given you a list of DNS records and asked you to verify your domain. This step happens outside Claude Code, at the company that manages your domain, so it's where setup often stalls.

This guide covers how to verify a domain for email: what the records do, where they go, how to check them and how to fix the usual snags. It applies to every transactional email service (the kind that sends sign-up confirmations, password resets and receipts from your project), SimpleSends included.

What is domain verification for email?

Domain verification is how you prove to an email service that you control the domain you want to send from, such as yourcompany.com. You add a few records to your domain's DNS, and the service checks that they're there.

DNS (the Domain Name System) is the internet's public directory. It says where your website lives and which services may send email in your name. Each entry is called a record.

Most email services ask for some mix of these:

What matters is copying every record exactly as your service shows it. Resend, for example, says its records must match exactly what it generated (checked October 2026).

If you haven't picked your sending address yet, read how to choose your sending domain and from address first. Many services, Resend included, suggest a subdomain (a prefix on your domain, such as mail.yourcompany.com) so your product emails are kept separate from your main domain.

Where do your DNS settings live?

Your DNS settings live with your DNS host. That's usually, but not always, the company you bought the domain from (your registrar). Records only count if you add them at the DNS host that's actually in charge.

To find it:

1. Log in where you bought the domain and open its DNS settings. If you can see your existing records and add new ones, you're in the right place.
2. If the page says the domain uses custom nameservers, or nameservers from another company, that other company is your DNS host. Nameservers are the setting that decides which company answers DNS questions for your domain.
3. If you can't remember where you bought it, search for the domain on ICANN Lookup, the free public lookup from the organization that coordinates domain names. It shows your registrar and nameservers.

A common setup: you bought the domain at Namecheap or GoDaddy, then pointed it at Cloudflare or Vercel for hosting. The records then go in Cloudflare or Vercel.

How to verify a domain for email: adding the records

To verify a domain for email, copy each record from your email service into a new record at your DNS host, save, then ask the service to check. Partway through a specific provider? See our guides to setting up Resend, SendGrid and Postmark.

1. In your email service, open the domain setup page and keep the list of records on screen.
2. In another tab, open your DNS host's records page (see the table below).
3. Choose to add a new record.
4. Pick the Type your service shows: TXT, CNAME or MX.
5. Fill in Name (some hosts say Host) and Value (some say Content, Data or Target). Use your service's copy button rather than typing.
6. For MX records, add the Priority number your service gives.
7. Leave TTL on the default unless your service says otherwise. TTL (Time to Live) is how long other computers remember a record before checking it again.
8. Save, and repeat for each record.
9. Go back to your email service and ask it to check, usually with a Verify button.

The Name field causes the most failed verifications. Most DNS hosts add your domain for you, so type only the part before it:

GoDaddy, Namecheap and Vercel all say to leave your domain name out of this field.

Where to add records at popular DNS hosts (checked October 2026):

If the labels don't line up, Claude Code can translate.

I'm adding DNS records for my email service at Namecheap. Here are the records it gave me: (paste the records here). For each one, tell me exactly what to enter in Type, Host and Value on Namecheap's Advanced DNS page, and the order to add them in.

You'll get each record laid out field by field, ready to copy.

How do you check it worked?

The quickest check is your email service's own status: once it finds every record, it marks the domain as verified. If it's still pending, look the records up yourself.

Google Admin Toolbox Dig is a free lookup page for this. Enter the full record name (for example, mail.yourcompany.com), choose the record type and compare the result with what your service asked for. If it matches, give the service time to notice. If nothing shows, the record isn't public yet or sits at a company that isn't your DNS host. If it differs, edit it to match exactly.

Timing varies by host (see the table above). Resend, for example, says domains often verify within 15 minutes but DNS changes can take up to 72 hours.

If you're stuck, give Claude Code both sides to compare.

My email service still says my domain isn't verified. Here's what it asked me to add, and here's what Google's Dig tool shows for those names: (paste both). What doesn't match, and what should I change at my DNS host?

You'll get the specific difference, such as a doubled domain name, and the fix.

Common snags and how to fix them

• Your domain appears twice. The record ends up as mail.yourcompany.com.yourcompany.com because the full name went into the Name field. Edit it so Name holds only the prefix.
• Two SPF records. The SPF standard allows only one SPF record per name; a second one makes the check fail. If one already exists (say, for a work inbox on yourcompany.com), merge the new service into it. Claude Code can write the merged line. A subdomain avoids this clash.
• Records at the wrong company. If your nameservers point somewhere else, records at your registrar are ignored. Add them at the DNS host your nameservers name.
• Cloudflare's proxy is on. Switch the CNAME record to DNS only.
• Copying errors. A missing character or extra space or quote mark breaks long DKIM values. Paste again with the copy button.
• Changed MX records by accident. MX records on your main domain control where incoming email goes. Add only what your service lists, and don't delete existing MX records.
• Moved DNS hosts later. Records at your old DNS host stop counting once you change nameservers. Copy every email record across first, as Vercel's docs advise.

Verifying your domain with SimpleSends

SimpleSends needs this same step, like every email service. You follow the steps on the SimpleSends website, which include adding a few DNS records where your domain is managed.

You then add SimpleSends to Claude Code as a connector: a link that lets Claude Code work with an outside service while you build, using MCP (Model Context Protocol, a shared standard for linking AI tools to services). The full setup takes four steps:

1. 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. You can't sign up inside the Claude Code chat.

2. In Claude Code, open Customize, then Connectors, choose Add, then Add custom connector. Use these settings:

   Field	What to enter
   Name	SimpleSends
   MCP server URL	https://mcp.simplesends.com/mcp

3. When Claude prompts you to connect, log in to SimpleSends.

4. Back in the Claude Code chat, tell Claude Code: "I've connected SimpleSends for all transactional email." It takes it from there, including adding what your project needs to send email.

Our guide to connecting an MCP server to Claude Code walks through those screens.

After that, the rest happens in the chat, in plain English. Claude Code designs, writes, builds and changes your welcome, password reset and receipt emails. If a customer says an email never arrived, Claude Code can read your SimpleSends send logs and check whether it was sent.