IP pool management for high-volume sending

At volumes above 100,000 emails per day, a single sending IP becomes both a performance bottleneck and a single point of reputation failure. A block on one IP stops all sending until it is manually removed and replaced — a process that can take hours. IP pool management distributes sending load across multiple IPs and allows the system to automatically exclude a blocked or high-bounce IP and continue sending through healthy ones, without downtime or engineering intervention. Reputation-weighted or least-used selection also prevents one IP from absorbing a disproportionate share of sends while warm-up periods complete on others.

Store sending IPs in the database with per-IP health and warm-up metadata, then select from the pool based on health and current load:

export async function selectSendingIp(): Promise<string> {
  const candidates = await db.sendingIp.findMany({
    where: { active: true },
    orderBy: { sentToday: 'asc' }  // Prefer least-used
  })

  if (candidates.length === 0) {
    throw new Error('No available sending IPs')
  }

  // Exclude IPs with bounce rates above 5% — they are reputation-damaged
  const healthy = candidates.filter(ip => ip.hourlyBounceRate < 0.05)

  // Fall back to any active IP if all are bouncing above threshold
  return (healthy[0] ?? candidates[0]).ipAddress
}

Add an active boolean column to the SendingIp table so a damaged IP can be removed from rotation by setting active = false — no code deployment required. Pair with the warmup schedule check from deliverability-engineering.warmup-reputation.automated-warmup-schedule so IPs in early warm-up are not selected for full-volume sends.

• ID: deliverability-engineering.domain-ip-strategy.ip-pool-management

• Severity: low

• What to look for: Count all sending IPs configured and enumerate the selection logic. For high-volume senders (>100k/day), check whether the codebase manages multiple sending IPs in a pool. Look for IP rotation logic, IP health tracking (per-IP bounce rate, per-IP reputation), and the ability to remove a damaged IP from the pool without downtime. Also check whether the code balances load across IPs in the pool using round-robin, least-used, or reputation-weighted selection.

• Pass criteria: At least 2 sending IPs are configured and managed. The system selects IPs from the pool with awareness of each IP's health and warm-up status. An IP can be removed from rotation without code changes.

• Fail criteria: A single sending IP is used with no pool management, or multiple IPs are used but selected randomly without regard to health or warm-up status.

• Skip (N/A) when: Sending volume is below 50,000 emails/day where a single dedicated IP is sufficient, or the ESP manages IP pool selection transparently.

• Detail on fail: "Single IP used for all sending — no IP pool management or rotation logic found" or "Multiple IPs configured but selected randomly without health checks — a damaged IP remains in rotation"

• Remediation: Implement IP pool selection with health awareness:

  export async function selectSendingIp(): Promise<string> {
    const availableIps = await db.sendingIp.findMany({
      where: {
        active: true,
        // Exclude IPs in warm-up phase that would exceed daily limit
        // (Use the canSendMore function from warmup logic)
      },
      orderBy: { sentToday: 'asc' }  // Round-robin: prefer least-used
    })
  
    if (availableIps.length === 0) {
      throw new Error('No available sending IPs — all pools at capacity or in cool-down')
    }
  
    // Prefer IPs with lowest current bounce rate
    const ranked = availableIps
      .filter(ip => ip.hourlyBounceRate < 0.05)  // Exclude high-bounce IPs
      .sort((a, b) => a.sentToday - b.sentToday)
  
    return ranked[0]?.ipAddress ?? availableIps[0].ipAddress
  }