Email research at ToolTrusted is original and independent — the real state of email, measured. We measure live data across large populations of domains — no vendor surveys, no marketing spin — and publish every dataset free to read, cite and build on. This is where our current and future studies, benchmarks and datasets live.
Our email research turns live DNS into email deliverability benchmarks — DMARC adoption statistics and broader email authentication statistics on SPF DKIM DMARC adoption, from a real 10,000-domain study measured against the DMARC standard in RFC 7489.
Current email authentication statistics & benchmarks
The State of Email Authentication 2026
A live-DNS measurement of the top 10,000 domains: who publishes SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT and BIMI — and, crucially, who actually enforces DMARC versus leaving it at monitoring only.
DMARC Adoption by TLD
The same population, cut by top-level domain. Which TLDs lead on DMARC enforcement and which lag — from .gov at the top to the widest publish-versus-enforce gaps — with the full per-TLD table.
How we measure
Every figure comes from live DNS lookups across a real population sample (the Majestic Million top domains), not self-reported surveys. The collector is reproducible and re-run on a cadence, so these become a time series — the part no competitor can backfill. Full method and scoring are documented on How We Test.
Free to cite & reuse
All ToolTrusted research is published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) licence. Journalists, researchers and vendors are welcome to cite the figures and charts — a link back to the study is all we ask. Each study carries a ready-to-use citation and machine-readable Dataset schema.
See how your domain compares
Run the free Email Health Check and score your domain against the population above.
All of our research is free to read and cite, and we update it as the data moves. Each release is drawn from live DNS across the top 10,000 domains, and feeds the population benchmarks you see inside the platform, alongside the free email tools.
Our email research method is deliberately simple and repeatable: we query live DNS for a large, fixed population, classify each domain’s SPF, DKIM and DMARC posture with the same deterministic rules the free tools use, and publish the aggregates. That means every figure is reproducible, and we refresh the datasets as adoption shifts so the benchmarks inside the platform stay current.
The clearest pattern in the data is the gap between publishing and enforcing: 76.6% of the top 10,000 domains publish a DMARC record, yet only 54% enforce one with a quarantine or reject policy. That 22-point publish-versus-enforce gap — widest on consumer TLDs and narrowest on .gov at 79% enforced — is the single most actionable finding, because a published record alone protects no one until the policy is moved past p=none.
Email research: frequently asked questions
How often is the research updated?
The authentication benchmark is designed to be re-collected on a recurring cadence, building a multi-quarter trend. As new snapshots land, this page gains period-over-period updates and new segmented cuts — so it grows into a living record rather than a single annual report.
Can I get the underlying data?
Each study publishes its aggregate figures, charts and a structured Dataset description inline, free to cite under CC-BY. For collaboration or a specific cut of the data, reach us via the contact page.
Explore the platform
- How it works — the full Email Health journey, from check to monitoring.
- Email Health Check — score your own domain against this data.
- Email Authentication — the SPF, DKIM and DMARC guides behind the numbers.