Deliverability & the inbox
Dedicated IP
Also known as: dedicated sending IP
A sending IP address used by exactly one brand — the brand's send volume, engagement, and complaint rate entirely determine its reputation. Requires warm-up and typically only worth it at 100K+ sends per month.
A dedicated IP is a sending IP address used by a single brand. The brand's own send volume, engagement signals, and complaint rate entirely determine the IP's reputation — no other senders contribute noise to the score. Trade-off: dedicated IPs require warm-up (2-6 weeks of careful volume ramp) and continuous send volume to maintain reputation. A dedicated IP that sends below ~50K/month per mailbox provider produces unstable reputation scores because engagement sample sizes are too small. The operator-consensus threshold for "worth having a dedicated IP" is usually 100K+ sends per month in aggregate. Below that, a shared IP pool's averaged reputation is safer.
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Dedicated vs shared IP: the real decision
Every ESP sales conversation pitches the dedicated IP as an upgrade. For most lifecycle programs it isn't — it's a trade, and often a losing one. Here's the volume threshold that actually justifies dedicated, the risks most teams don't anticipate, and when the shared pool is genuinely the better call.
IP warm-up in Braze — the playbook that actually holds
A fresh dedicated IP has zero reputation on day one. Most warm-up guides fixate on ramp speed and ignore the harder question — which users get the send each day. Here's the schedule, the Random Bucket Number trick, and the day-10 mistake that ruins most of them.