SparkPost monitors customer traffic sent through our service in a number of ways. These monitoring checks are built in such a way to stop potential issues which can damage the reputation of our IP pools or the platform itself. These systems are in place for the protection of our entire customer base, and accounts can be suspended and/or terminated if particular criteria are met.
SparkPost will have the right to immediately suspend your account, in whole or in part without prior notice, for any reason and/or time that is reasonable under the circumstances, including, without limitation, your failure to timely pay fees or a suspected data security breach. During such suspension period: (i) you and all of your user’s access to your account and the services will be suspended; (ii) your obligations pursuant to this agreement will continue to accrue and all payments will be made in accordance with your order and this agreement; (iii) if you are in breach of this agreement, all fees will continue to accrue; and (iv) unless SparkPost deems your account and/or any of your content to be potentially harmful in any way or potentially in violation of any applicable law, SparkPost will maintain your account and not take action to intentionally delete or remove any or your content stored on or within the service. SparkPost will cease billing for the service if your account is terminated or downgraded to a free account.
Some of the ways that can cause your account to be suspended and/or terminated are:
- A violation of our messaging policy
- A violation of our terms of use
- High hard bounce percentages
- High complaint rates
- Content that is abusive, harmful, or is identified as spam
- Failure to collect payment for the service
If your account is suspended, you will receive an email outlining the reason at your registered email address. You can reply to that email to open a dialogue with support to determine how you can correct the reason for the suspension. SparkPost can reinstate your account if we feel that sufficient steps have been taken to address the cause of suspension. You and any users you have created in your account will not be able to access the account until the suspension is lifted.
Billing suspensions will be issued if we fail to collect payment. If this occurs, an email is sent from billing@sparkpost.com once each day for three days to the user email address. If no payment is received after three days, a suspension will be placed on your account.
If you’re transitioning to SparkPost from another Email Service Provider, one possible cause for suspension is that your previous provider built a suppression list out of your bounces and FBL complaints, which prevents you from sending to addresses which can damage your reputation. When you switch over to us, that list doesn’t come with you automatically - you’ll need to either remove those suppressions from your current customer lists, or copy the suppression list and upload it to SparkPost. Otherwise, you’ll be sending to everyone who had bounced or complained over the years, which is likely to cause your account to be suspended.
You can learn about SparkPost suppression lists here.