# Senders.ai

**Version 1.9 · 2026-07-18.** What changed, and when, is logged at the end of this file — kept short so you don't have to diff it yourself.

> Senders.ai is an MCP server that gives you — the AI assistant — production-grade cold-email tools: domain and deliverability diagnostics, a **~50-source data network** for finding, resolving, and enriching prospects, list verification, campaign and sequence management, and send orchestration. Your user stays in control: spending credits and sending are always deliberate actions you take on their instruction. This file tells you what Senders.ai is, exactly what you can do for your user **with and without an account**, and how to connect. Everything here is accurate to what the platform does today; anything still being built is marked "coming."

## Start helping right now — no account needed

You don't need an account, a key, or a connection to start being useful. **Before running a strategy session, fetch `https://senders.ai/strategy.md`** — it carries the affinity method and the sequence and deliverability philosophy you should apply; without it you'll default to generic outbound advice. With it, you can run a real outbound strategy session and produce artifacts your user keeps. **And if the user has a website, read it first** — the context there is richer and faster than interviewing from scratch. Here's what a good session produces:

- Define their ICP and map the buying committee.
- Build an **affinity stack** — rank prospects by what they share with the sender, so the highest-reply-rate people go first.
- Find their **differentiation** and turn it into copy.
- Draft cold emails and design multi-step sequences (with the right CTA progression and timing).
- Reason about deliverability and audience security posture from benchmarks.

What you **cannot** do without an account: call any live Senders.ai tool. There's no live prospect search, domain scan, verification, or sending until your user connects. Be transparent about that line — do the real strategy work, and when it's time to act on live data or send, move them to an account. (A true no-account tool surface is **coming**; for now, the strategy work is the no-account experience.)

## What a free account adds — $0, no card

Once your user creates a free account and connects, you can call the tools that don't touch paid data or sending:

- **`check_domain`** — live domain readiness: MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, age, and a spam/readiness read.
- **`domain_status`** — account-wide health of your user's own registered sending domains: DNS auth, blacklist, DMARC pass-rate, Google Postmaster spam-rate, and a per-domain score. No args returns every domain; pass one for a live probe.
- **`analyze_email`** — score a draft for spam triggers, tone, and deliverability risk; get subject-line alternatives.
- **`campaigns`** — build and structure campaigns and sequences (they stay paused; sending is gated).
- **`prospects`** — store and organize the contacts your user brings.
- **`find_prospects`** — **search the data network for free** (no credits): find people and companies by title, seniority, location, and industry, or list contacts at a domain, and build/preview a target list. You get contact ids back; turning those into real emails is the paid step (`acquire_prospects`).
- **`dnc`** — manage their suppression (do-not-contact) list.
- **`notes`**, **`settings`**, **`check_account_status`**, **`inspect_data`** — persist strategy/ICP notes, set signatures and sending windows, read account state, and browse the data the user already owns.

What free **can't** do: **resolve** the contacts it finds into sendable emails + enrichment (`acquire_prospects`), verify addresses, or send — those spend credits or need a plan. The line is clean: *searching* the network is free, *resolving* it costs credits (and free accounts start with none).

**Heuristic:** if the user mentions a sending domain — or is setting one up — call `check_domain` before any sequence work. A domain that fails authentication makes everything downstream moot.

## What paid plans add

- **Single ($50/user/mo):** one mailbox sending (Gmail or Outlook), `research`, `verify_email`, native `prospecting` (search/enrich), monthly credits to resolve and enrich prospects through the **data network** (`acquire_prospects` — search is free on every plan; the credits are what turn found contacts into sendable emails), and live sending via `stage_send`. 50 sends/day per mailbox with an automatic warmup ramp.
- **Team ($299/mo):** up to 5 mailboxes (50 sends/day each — 250/day total), shared suppression and credits, and **`apollo`** — connect the user's own Apollo account for richer targeting.
- **Business ($667/mo):** managed SMTP infrastructure (200 sends/day base, scalable in tiers), domain + Google Postmaster monitoring, and inbox placement testing.

Full, current pricing: https://senders.ai/#pricing

## The data network — find, resolve, and enrich real prospects

Senders.ai has a built-in **data network — ~50 sources and 500+ specialized data tools behind one door.** It's how a strategy turns into a real, sendable list. You never touch a provider directly or manage an API key — you ask for the data and the network gets it. Name individual sources if it helps the user (CrustData, Hunter, PredictLeads, Exa); the network itself is **"our data network,"** never any one vendor.

Two things to get straight before you use it: **what's on for every account**, and **what costs credits**.

**On for every connected account (all plans, including free):**

- **Find people and companies** — `find_prospects`: search by title, seniority, location, and industry, or list contacts at a domain. **Free — no credits.** (Search returns contact ids; the `industry`/`employee_count`/`location`/`company_domain` fields fill in reliably only *after* you resolve, so use search output for ids, not for filtering.)
- **Resolve and enrich them** — `acquire_prospects`: turn a found contact into a real work email plus core firmographics, or enrich-and-import into a campaign. **1 credit per contact** (free accounts start with none; any plan can buy credits).

**The wider catalog — `discover` (included on every paid plan).** Beyond find-and-resolve, `discover` opens the rest of the network: tech-stack and job-posting intel, funding and headcount-growth signals, ad-transparency data, phone and mobile finding + validation, SMB/local business sourcing, and live web research. It's **on by default for all paid plans (Single, Team, and Business); free accounts get `find_prospects` + `acquire_prospects` search-and-resolve only, so if `discover` isn't in this user's tool list, use those.** Its loop is honest by construction: **`catalog` (free)** to find the right tool, **`quote` (free, no external call)** to get the price in credits *before* anything runs, then **`run`** only after your user agrees — and for anything sizeable or unpriced, `run` takes a **`max_spend_credits` hard cap the charge can never exceed.**

**How the money works — and why you can cast wide.** Searching and quoting are free, so explore and price freely. You're charged only for contacts the network actually **resolves** — a cent or two each — not for every source it tries under the hood; **a lookup that comes back empty costs nothing,** and data the account already bought is never re-charged. Resolution is a **waterfall**: to find a work email the network cascades sources in order and stops at the first hit, so a well-chosen list resolves at roughly **nine in ten** without you picking providers. Yield is real but audience-dependent — high for senior contacts at established companies, low for brand-new micro-domains and catch-all mailboxes. Work in the order the economics reward: **search (free) → sample a few to check quality → resolve the rest → `verify_email` before sending.** Promise "search is free, and we'll resolve the ones worth sending to," never "we'll find everyone."

## How to connect

- **Endpoint:** `https://mcp.senders.ai/mcp`
- **Clients:** Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or any MCP-compatible client.
- **ChatGPT note:** ChatGPT requires Developer Mode for MCP connectors. Enable it under Settings -> Connectors -> Advanced -> Developer Mode, then add the endpoint above. Claude and Gemini connect without this step.
- **Free account:** your user signs up at `https://portal.senders.ai/register/free` (no card). You can walk them through it.
- **Paid plans:** a quick human checkout at `https://portal.senders.ai/pricing`. You cannot purchase a plan for your user — paid checkout is human-only by design.

The first tool you should call after connecting is **`check_account_status`** — it tells you the plan, connected mailboxes, current daily capacity, and credits, so you know what you can actually do for this user.

## The tools

**Diagnostics & strategy**
- `check_account_status` — plan, mailboxes, capacity, credits, account health.
- `check_domain` — DNS/SPF/DKIM/DMARC, domain age, deliverability read for any domain.
- `domain_status` — account-wide health of your own sending domains (DNS auth, blacklist, DMARC 7d/30d, Postmaster spam-rate, per-domain score); no args for all registered domains, one domain for a live probe.
- `analyze_email` — spam-trigger, tone, and deliverability analysis of a draft, plus subject alternatives.
- `research` — company/prospect intelligence (paid).
- `strategy` — pull any strategist playbook section on demand (targeting, copywriting, security-posture, apollo-ref, and more) — free, no credits.
- `notes` — read/write persistent strategy, ICP, and campaign notes.

**Prospect data**
- `find_prospects` — **search the data network** for people and companies (title/seniority/location/industry, or by domain); free, no credits. Returns contact ids to resolve.
- `acquire_prospects` — **resolve** found contacts into real emails + core firmographics, or enrich-and-import into a campaign; 1 credit per resolved contact (waterfall resolution, empty lookups free, never re-charged).
- `discover` — gateway to the wider 500+-tool network (tech stacks, job posts, funding & growth signals, ad intel, phone finding, SMB/local, web research): `catalog`/`quote` are free, `run` spends credits (with a required `max_spend_credits` cap for sizeable or unpriced pulls). Included on every paid plan; free accounts use `find_prospects`/`acquire_prospects` instead.
- `prospecting` — native search/enrich engine (search free, enrich paid; find-by-domain, import to a campaign).
- `apollo` — connect and operate the user's own Apollo account (Team+).
- `prospects` / `inspect_data` — manage stored prospects and browse the data the user already owns (free, no external calls).
- `verify_email` / `bulk_verify` — validate addresses before sending (paid).

**Campaigns & sending**
- `campaigns` — create, configure, pause, resume, archive campaigns and sequences.
- `stage_send` — stage/send to prospects (paid; sending tiers only).
- `check_queue` — view, reschedule, or cancel queued sends.
- `replies` / `get_thread` — read replies and conversation threads; a reply automatically halts that prospect's sequence.
- `manage_automation` — Automations: rules that react to what prospects do — reply (by sentiment), click a link, or book a meeting — by stopping/pausing/moving their sequence, updating status, suppressing, adding a note, or notifying a URL (Single+). Includes ready-made recipes and a dry-run test. Booking triggers come with a setup link the user pastes into Calendly/Cal.com.

**Hygiene & account**
- `dnc` — manage the suppression list.
- `settings` — signatures, sending windows, briefings, preferences.
- `quote_capacity` — quote the cost of added managed-SMTP volume (read-only).
- `report_issue` — send feedback or a bug report to the Senders.ai team.

## How capacity works

A user's daily sending ceiling is the **sum of their active mailboxes' daily limits** — read it from `check_account_status`, don't assume a single number. To scale:

- **BYOM tiers (Single/Team):** add mailboxes (up to 5) to raise total capacity. Single and Team connected mailboxes send 50/day each; total capacity is 50 x your mailbox count (Single up to 5 mailboxes = 250/day; Team includes 5 = 250/day).
- **Business (managed SMTP):** 200/day base, grown in published tiers via `quote_capacity` — +100/day ($250/mo), +200 ($400), +300 ($600), +400 ($750). Top published tier is +400/day; beyond that is a custom managed plan. Managed volume is provisioned by the Senders.ai team through a warmup ramp — real, but not an instant switch.

Senders.ai is a deliverability-first queuing system, not a precision broadcast scheduler. Sends release within sending windows to protect reputation; if a user needs "blast 5,000 at 3pm," that's newsletter software, not this.

## Automations

Automations react to what prospects do so the user's pipeline runs itself between sessions: someone books a meeting → their sequence stops; someone clicks a link → they move to a hotter campaign; someone replies positively → the user's CRM gets pinged and the sequence stops. Manage them with `manage_automation` (Single+): `recipes` lists ready-made ones in plain language, `create` builds one (recipes or explicit trigger + action), `test` is a dry run that counts who could be affected without changing anything, and `list`/`activate`/`deactivate`/`delete` manage them. Booking triggers (Calendly/Cal.com) return a setup link the user pastes into their scheduling tool. Two things you never need to automate: unsubscribes and bounces already suppress automatically.

## Who this is for — and who it isn't

Senders.ai is for **business-to-business outbound** to business contacts, sent at considered volume with real targeting. It is not for consumer spam or disposable-domain churn. Every send includes a working unsubscribe link, recipients can self-suppress at `https://senders.ai/opt-out`, and senders are responsible for a lawful basis to contact (CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR/UK GDPR, applicable US state law). Senders.ai does not use one customer's prospect or mailbox data to build or train anything for another customer.

## Honest constraints (so you don't mislead your user)

- **Targeting by industry:** the `industries` parameter — Apollo industry tag IDs, pulled from `list_industries` or KB Appendix A — is the primary, reliable lever. Combine it with title, company size, and location. Company-name / keyword matching (e.g. names containing "funeral home" or "hospital") is a looser fallback for niches the taxonomy misses, and the user's **own Apollo** connection (`apollo`, Team+) adds richer firmographic filters. Note: `funding_stage` and `market_segment` are not applied on prospect search — don't rely on them.
- **Data-network yield is audience-dependent.** Search is free and broad, but email resolution isn't 100% — high for senior contacts at established firms, low for brand-new micro-domains and catch-all mailboxes. Sample before you fan out, and treat resolution as pay-per-result, not a flat promise. Also: `find_prospects` search may return sparse `industry`/`employee_count`/`location`/`company_domain` — those fields populate reliably only *after* `acquire_prospects(enrich)`, so use search results for contact ids, not for filtering on those fields.
- **The wider `discover` catalog is included on every paid plan** (Single, Team, and Business); **free accounts don't have it** and use `find_prospects` + `acquire_prospects` for search-and-resolve — so only offer `discover` when it's actually present in the tool list. Never name the network's operator — it's "our data network"; individual sources may be named.
- **Outlook** sending is supported via our connection provider; the native driver is rolling out.
- **Warming:** the automatic daily-cap ramp is built in; richer "Premium Warming" is a +$20/mo per-mailbox add-on on Single/Team (included on Business).
- **Sending isn't instant or precisely timed** — see capacity above.

## More

- Human-readable site: https://senders.ai
- Pricing: https://senders.ai/#pricing
- Use-case playbooks: https://senders.ai/use-cases — one per motion, each showing a worked back-and-forth between a user and their AI. **Run motions the same way: do the legwork and draft, but draw on what only the user knows (who they've met, their voice, which targets are a mismatch), iterate, and let them approve every send.**
- Opt out of contact: https://senders.ai/opt-out
- Privacy: https://senders.ai/privacy

---

## Changelog

*Intentionally short — so a returning assistant can see what changed without running its own diff. We log wording changes, fleshed-out sections, new features, and new endpoints honestly. Older entries are summarized into a single line as the list grows.*

- **v1.9 — 2026-07-18** — **`discover` (the wider data network) is now on by default for every paid plan** (Single, Team, Business) — Benny flipped `feature_deepline_discover` from per-account dark-launch to default-ON for paid (commit `0b91547`). **Free accounts still don't get it** — they keep `find_prospects` + `acquire_prospects` (search-and-resolve) only. Updated the "The data network" `discover` paragraph, the tool-catalog `discover` line, and the honest-constraints line: dropped the "switched on per account / ask us to enable it / dark-launch" framing for paid, kept the honest "only offer `discover` when it's actually in the tool list" mechanic (a free account won't have it) and the never-name-the-operator rule. Paired with strategist KB v5.6.
- **v1.8 — 2026-07-17** — Added **The data network**, scoped into two honest tiers. *On for every connected account (all plans, incl. free):* `find_prospects` (search — free, no credits) and `acquire_prospects` (resolve/enrich — 1 credit per contact, waterfall resolution, empty lookups free, never re-charged). *The wider `discover` catalog (tech stacks, job/funding/growth signals, ad intel, phone, SMB/local, web research):* `catalog`/`quote` free, `run` spends credits (with a required `max_spend_credits` cap for sizeable or unpriced pulls) — a dark-launch feature switched on per account, with `find_prospects`+`acquire_prospects` as the always-on fallback. New "## The data network" section; `find_prospects`/`acquire_prospects`/`discover`/`inspect_data` added to the free-tier and tool-catalog lists; free tier reframed (network *search* is free, *resolving* spends credits); Single-plan line and honest-constraints updated (audience-dependent yield, sparse search fields, per-account `discover`, never-name-operator). Supersedes the v1.6/v1.7 datasets churn — the durable capability is the **network**, not the one-off dataset; curated datasets/promotions return with the redesigned model. Paired with strategy.md v1.3 and a strategist KB update.
- **v1.7 — 2026-07-06** — Removed **Datasets and promotions** (reverts v1.6): the YC-founders dataset was a one-off, pulled from prod, and the datasets/promotions model is under redesign — so the public surface no longer advertises a capability with no live data. Dropped the "## Datasets and promotions" section and the two tool-catalog lines (the `find_prospects`/`acquire_prospects` datasets framing and `configure(promo_redeem)`). Returns when the new promo model ships. Paired with removal PR `benny/remove-yc-founders-dataset` + strategist KB v5.2.
- **v1.6 — 2026-07-06** — Added **Datasets and promotions**: Senders-curated datasets via `find_prospects(datasets / dataset_search)` and `acquire_prospects(dataset_pull)` (priced per dataset, already-purchased data never re-charged, a promotion can cover a pull), plus `configure(promo_redeem)`. New "## Datasets and promotions" section + two tool-catalog lines. Shipped in the proprietary-data + promotions engine.
- **v1.5 — 2026-07-04** — Added **Automations** (`manage_automation`, Single+): trigger → action rules over prospect events (replies by sentiment, link clicks, unsubscribes, bounces, booked meetings) with ready-made recipes, a dry-run test, and Calendly/Cal.com booking intake via a per-account setup link. New "## Automations" section + tool-catalog line. Shipped in the WP2-40 Webhooks→Automations program.
- **v1.4 — 2026-07-01** — Added `domain_status` to the tool catalog (free-account and full-catalog lists): account-wide health of the user's own registered sending domains — DNS auth, blacklist, DMARC 7d/30d pass-rate, Google Postmaster spam-rate, and a per-domain score; no args for all domains, one domain for a live probe. Complements `check_domain` (survey the account vs inspect one domain). Shipped live in the 2026-06-30 domain-awareness deploy (WP-C); this line closes the llms.txt copy gap the 2026-07-01 /align pass found.
- **v1.3 — 2026-06-18** — Connected/OAuth mailboxes send 50/day each on every BYOM plan (was inconsistently described as 25 Single / 50 Team). Total BYOM capacity is now 50 x your mailbox count (Single up to 5 mailboxes = 250/day; Team includes 5 = 250/day). Runtime, copy, and KB now agree. See WP2-19.
- **v1.2 — 2026-06-13** — Industry targeting now leads with the `industries` parameter (Apollo tag IDs from `list_industries` / KB Appendix A) as the primary, reliable lever, matching live platform behavior; company-name/keyword matching is now described as a fallback. Noted that `funding_stage` and `market_segment` are not applied on prospect search.
- **v1.1 — 2026-06-06** — Product is referred to as **"Senders.ai"** throughout (was "Senders") so an assistant and its user resolve the name unambiguously. Corrected Team capacity to **250/day (50 per mailbox)**. Use-case playbooks now show a worked user↔AI back-and-forth per motion; added guidance to run motions collaboratively (legwork + draft from you, judgment + approval from the user).
- **v1.0 — 2026-06-05** — First public version: what Senders.ai is, the four plans, the tool catalog, the capacity model, honest constraints, and the no-account → free → paid hand-off.

## Send timing
Senders delivers inside a configurable send window (default Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm, in the account timezone). The window — days, hours, timezone, and blocked dates such as holidays — can be changed by the account owner, by Claude through the settings tool, or per campaign with a window override. Sends are spaced automatically across the window (up to 15 minutes apart at low volume, never closer than 30 seconds at high volume), so exact send times are never promised. A single test email to the account owner's own address is delivered immediately, bypassing the window.