Account Suspension
Altermail automatically monitors sending behaviour and may suspend or downgrade accounts that violate delivery health thresholds. There are four distinct enforcement actions.
Rate-based, not a lifetime count
Enforcement is based on a rolling rate over your recent sending activity (your last 500 sends, or the last 48 hours, whichever gives the larger sample), not a lifetime total. This means an established account with genuinely clean sending habits is never at risk from a handful of old issues, while a sudden spike in bad outcomes is caught quickly regardless of how clean your history has been. Rates are only evaluated once you have at least 50 sends in the window; below that, a small absolute-count floor applies instead so a brand-new account can't hide a genuinely bad pattern behind too small a sample. This enforcement window is tracked independently of your plan's delivery-log visibility period: even on the Free plan, where delivery logs are only visible for 24 hours, your recent sending history is still fully retained for enforcement purposes.
1. Hard-bounce rate suspension
Every permanent delivery failure is counted as a hard bounce. A hard bounce is triggered by:
- •An SMTP 5xx permanent rejection from the receiving mail server.
- •An EENVELOPE error: invalid sender or recipient envelope (e.g. non-existent address, sender verify failed).
If your hard-bounce rate exceeds 5% of your recent sends, you'll receive a warning email. If it exceeds 10%, the account is automatically suspended and all subsequent send attempts return 403 until the suspension is lifted by support.
Suspended account response
// HTTP 403
{ "message": "Your account has been suspended due to a high hard-bounce rate. Please contact support@altermail-console.com.ng to appeal." }Hard bounces almost always indicate a dirty mailing list; addresses that are invalid, mis-typed, or no longer exist. Clean your recipient list before contacting support to appeal. Continuing to send to bad addresses after reinstatement will trigger suspension again.
2. Content-rejection rate suspension
Recipient mail servers and security gateways (such as Mimecast, Barracuda, and Proofpoint) reject emails whose content appears abusive, deceptive, or in violation of anti-spam policies. Each such rejection is counted as a content rejection. Examples of email content that triggers this include:
- •Phishing: emails impersonating banks, government agencies, courier services, or toll operators to steal credentials or payment details.
- •Scam or fraud: fake invoices, lottery winnings, emergency fund requests, or advance-fee schemes.
- •Malware distribution: emails with links or attachments designed to install malicious software.
- •Unsolicited bulk email (spam): mass campaigns sent to recipients who have not opted in.
- •Brand impersonation: pretending to be a well-known company (PayPal, DHL, HMRC, etc.) to deceive recipients.
If your content-rejection rate exceeds 5% of your recent sends, you'll receive a warning email. At 10% the account is automatically suspended and all subsequent send attempts return 403.
Suspended account response
// HTTP 403
{ "message": "Your account has been suspended. Please contact support@altermail-console.com.ng to appeal." }Content abuse suspensions are taken seriously and are reviewed manually by our team. To appeal, contact support@altermail-console.com.ng with a clear explanation of your use case. Accounts found to be deliberately sending phishing or scam emails will not be reinstated.
3. Spam-complaint rate suspension
When a recipient marks your email as spam/junk in their inbox, their mail provider reports it back to us as a complaint. This is one of the strongest deliverability signals mailbox providers track, and Altermail enforces it at a lower absolute volume than bounces or content rejections since even a small number of complaints on a low-volume account is a serious signal.
If your complaint rate exceeds 5% of your recent sends, you'll receive a warning email. At 10% the account is automatically suspended and all subsequent send attempts return 403.
Suspended account response
// HTTP 403
{ "message": "Your account has been suspended. Please contact support@altermail-console.com.ng to appeal." }To avoid complaints, only send to recipients who have explicitly opted in, make unsubscribing easy and honor it immediately, and keep sending frequency reasonable. To appeal a suspension, contact support@altermail-console.com.ng.
4. Subscription downgrade (failed renewal)
When a paid subscription is due for renewal, Altermail attempts to charge the saved card automatically. If the charge fails 3 consecutive times, the account is downgraded to the Free plan.
This is not a full suspension; the account can still send email within Free plan limits (3,000 emails/month, 100/day) for a further 3 monthly periods, same as any new free account (see Quota & Billing). To restore a paid plan, re-subscribe from the Billing page.
Renewal failure response
// HTTP 402, renewal has failed and quota is exhausted
{ "message": "Subscription cycle has ended. Renewal charge is pending or failed.", "billing": { ... } }A notification email is sent after each failed attempt and again when the downgrade occurs. Keep your saved card up to date to avoid interruption.
How to stay in good standing
- ✓Only send to addresses you have explicit permission to contact.
- ✓Validate recipient addresses before sending; remove bounced addresses from your list immediately.
- ✓Monitor your delivery error log regularly; a rising hard-bounce rate is easier to fix before it crosses 5%.
- ✓Never send phishing, scam, impersonation, or unsolicited bulk email: a 10% content-rejection or complaint rate suspends your account.
- ✓Make unsubscribing easy and honor it immediately to keep your complaint rate low.
- ✓Keep your billing card up to date to avoid renewal failures. Use early renewal if you want to secure the next cycle in advance.