Press kit — email infrastructure of the top 1M 2026

A daily, free-to-cite census of email infrastructure across the world's top 1 million websites, built from OpenINTEL DNS measurements. Everything below is cleared for reuse with attribution — the numbers refresh every day (latest: September 11, 2026).

Key facts

Fast facts (ready to quote)

Each sentence is self-contained and includes the snapshot date — quote as-is.

As of September 11, 2026, 666,213 of the world's top 1 million websites (Tranco list) publish MX records, 631,089 publish SPF, and 471,993 publish DMARC — per Live Direct Marketing's daily census.
Only 47.02% of DMARC-publishing domains in the top 1M actually enforce their policy (p=quarantine or p=reject); the other 50% sit at p=none, which monitors but blocks nothing.
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 together are the mailbox provider for 38.6% of top-1M domains with MX — yet self-hosting remains the single largest category.
Amazon SES is the most-used bulk-sending ESP in the top 1M (6.17% of SPF domains), ahead of SendGrid and Mailgun.
Over the last 30 days, Namecheap Forwarding lost the most mailbox share (-0.23 pp) while Microsoft 365 gained the most (+0.18 pp) — as of September 11, 2026.

Mailbox providers — share of top-1M MX domains

Self-Hosted
22.4%
Google Workspace
21.6%
Microsoft 365
17.0%
Unknown / Other
6.6%
Generic / unmatched (mx*.*)
2.5%
Generic / unmatched (mail.*)
1.9%

Bulk-sending ESPs — share of SPF domains

Amazon SES
6.2%
SendGrid (Twilio)
4.6%
Mailgun
4.0%
Zendesk
3.8%
Mailchimp
3.6%
Mandrill
3.2%

DMARC policy split

p=reject
24%
p=quarantine
25%
p=none (monitor only)
50%

Charts — free to embed or download

PNG (attach to email) and WebP (embed on web). Attribution + date are baked into each image. Please keep the source link when reusing.

Horizontal bar chart of mailbox-provider market share across the Tranco top 1 million websites, led by self-hosting, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
Mailbox-provider share across the Tranco top-1M, by domains publishing MX records (updated daily).
Horizontal bar chart of leading email service providers (ESPs) by share of SPF-publishing domains in the Tranco top 1 million, led by Amazon SES, SendGrid and Mailgun.
Top bulk-sending ESPs by share of SPF-publishing domains (updated daily).
Stacked bar chart of the DMARC policy split across the Tranco top 1 million: most domains publish DMARC but only about half enforce it with p=quarantine or p=reject.
DMARC policy split — publication versus enforcement across the Tranco top-1M (updated daily).
Diverging bar chart of the biggest 30-day gains and losses in email-provider share across the Tranco top 1 million websites.
Biggest 30-day movers in email-provider share across the Tranco top-1M (updated daily).
Funnel bar chart showing how many Tranco top-1M domains publish MX, then SPF, then DMARC, then actually enforce DMARC — a steep drop-off at each stage.
Email-authentication funnel: MX → SPF → DMARC → enforcement across the Tranco top-1M (updated daily).

Story angles

The DMARC enforcement gap

Most domains that 'have DMARC' don't actually enforce it. A ready-made hook for security and email-fraud coverage.

The Google/Microsoft duopoly — and the long tail it hides

Two vendors dominate business email, but a huge share of the internet still runs on self-hosted and regional infrastructure.

Who really sends the internet's email

The rise of developer-first ESPs (Amazon SES, SendGrid) versus classic marketing suites — measured, not guessed.

Monthly movers

Which providers are quietly gaining or losing the internet, updated daily.

Research and media coverage

Read the original research, its author’s adaptation, and reporting on the findings.

These publications discuss the same research; they are not independent measurement datasets. Article figures refer to their publication dates; the live report above uses the current snapshot.

How to cite

Please link to https://check.live-direct-marketing.online/email-stats/ and keep the snapshot date (shares move daily). Suggested citation:

“Email infrastructure of the Tranco top-1M,” Live Direct Marketing, 2026-09-11. https://check.live-direct-marketing.online/email-stats/

Data & downloads

Machine-readable: latest.json (KPIs + top-20 with deltas) · history.json (daily series since 2016) · ai-summary.md (prose facts) · llms.txt. Full report: email-stats home · guides: the blog.

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