Why Outlook Sends Your Transactional Emails to Junk (And Why That’s a Bigger Problem Than You Think)
If your app sends account confirmations, password resets, or receipts, those emails are supposed to be sacred.
They’re expected. They’re wanted. Yet somehow, Outlook and Hotmail keep burying them in spam folders.
The easy explanation is deliverability. The harder truth is perception. When your transactional emails don’t show up in the inbox, it doesn’t just impact your delivery rate. It impacts your brand.
Imagine this from your user’s point of view.
They sign up for your product. They wait for that confirmation email. Nothing comes. They check their junk folder and find your message sandwiched between a cryptocurrency scam and a fake Amazon alert.
That’s the moment your company stops looking legit. You’ve just been grouped with scammers, and they haven’t even used your product yet.
This is what happens when your infrastructure doesn't match Microsoft's inbox standards. Outlook is notoriously picky.
Even if you’ve got SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up, that doesn’t mean your emails are getting through. Especially if you're on a shared IP or using a bulk email service that prioritizes marketing emails over transactional ones.
Most email platforms treat transactional and marketing emails the same. But Outlook doesn’t. It sees a large volume of similar-looking messages and raises a flag.
It checks sender history and looks for patterns. And if your IP was used for a campaign that even slightly tripped the alarm system, your password reset might end up in the same folder as Viagra promos.
This is why Lemon Email exists.
It’s an email service built with one purpose: get your important emails into the inbox, especially on Outlook and Hotmail.
Not just “delivered” but actually seen. It uses smart IP routing and clean infrastructure, tailored for applications that send critical one-to-one messages. It avoids the traps that generic ESPs fall into.
When you're sending transactional emails, you’re not just moving data. You’re shaping trust. And if you show up in spam, you break that trust before the relationship even starts.
Outlook may not give you second chances. Users definitely don’t.
It’s not enough to blame Microsoft or adjust your copy. You need infrastructure that understands the inbox politics of Outlook and plays by its rules.
Use Lemon Email, and stop getting treated like a scammer. Your product deserves better.
