Counting the 7 Days: How to Track Your Gmail Spam Rate Back Under 0.3% After a Spike

Write down the Postmaster Tools spam rate for every day since the spike, then count back from the latest day: each consecutive day below 0.3% adds one, and the count stops at the first day at 0.3% or more, or the first day with no number. At 7, a bulk sender is eligible for mitigation again.

The Postmaster spam rate tracker does the count from pasted daily values and gives the date the streak reaches 7. Sources, read 2 November 2026: Google's email sender guidelines, sender guidelines FAQ and Postmaster Tools dashboards help.

The rule, in Google's terms

Point	What Google says
Target	Spam rate below 0.1%
Limit	Never reach 0.3% or higher
Mitigation	Bulk senders at 0.3% or more are ineligible; eligible again after 7 consecutive days below 0.3%
Recovery time	After fixing the cause, wait up to 7 days for a compliant level
Data timing	Calculated daily, usually updated within 24 hours, in UTC
Gaps	Low-volume days may be left out to protect privacy

Logging and counting

1. Open Postmaster Tools, choose the domain, and read the daily spam rate for the last two to four weeks.
2. Write one line per day: 2026-10-27, 0.41%. Use UTC dates, which is what the dashboard uses.
3. Mark each day: under 0.1%, between 0.1% and 0.3%, or 0.3% and above.
4. Count the streak from the latest day backwards. Stop at a day at 0.3% or above, or at a missing day.
5. Repeat each morning when the new day appears. The tracker keeps the arithmetic straight; a spreadsheet works too.

Why missing days break the streak

Postmaster omits days without enough volume to report. If you cut volume hard after a spike, you may get several blank days, and a blank isn't evidence of a rate under 0.3%. Counting only days that have a value under 0.3% is the cautious reading. If blanks keep breaking the streak, you're sending too little to Gmail to measure; keep mailing your most engaged recipients at a steady volume instead of stopping entirely. The sending recovery plan post shows one way to set that volume.

While you're counting

• Don't mail the list that caused the spike. One send to people who didn't expect it can undo the week. See Postmaster spam rate spike after a bad list.
• Find the campaign if you can. A Feedback-ID header lets Postmaster show spam rate per campaign identifier.
• Check one-click unsubscribe works; a hidden link sends people to the spam button. See one-click unsubscribe.
• Read the rate alongside Compliance status. A falling rate can mean more of your mail is going to spam, not fewer complaints.

Limits

A streak of 7 makes you eligible to request mitigation; it doesn't restore inbox placement by itself. The count only covers DKIM-authenticated mail to Gmail recipients, and only what you log. For how the whole dashboard works, see reading Google Postmaster Tools.

Where SimpleVerifier fits

Complaints come from real people, so verification can't fix them directly. What it does is stop the list that caused the spike from bouncing too when it's used again: upload it at /verify to remove dead and disposable addresses before any re-permission email. The first 100 checks are free with a Google sign-in. Pro is $39 a month with the first 100,000 checks a month at full speed, then slower, never cut off. See pricing.