April 12, 2026
Inbox Wars: Senders vs. Spam Gods
We have a 99% email reputation. Gmail disagrees
Internet split: 'don’t send junk' vs 'Google’s spam filter is chaos'
TLDR: Font Awesome says Gmail buried their Kickstarter emails despite a high sender score elsewhere, blaming infrequent sending and strict rules. Commenters split between “it’s unwanted promo spam” and “Gmail is flaky,” spotlighting the bigger fight over who really controls what reaches your inbox.
Font Awesome says their emails—backed by a shiny 99% score from email service SendGrid—vanished into Gmail’s spam abyss right as they tried to promote their new Build Awesome Kickstarter. Their vibe: Gmail plays by its own rules, and sending only occasional, respectful updates gets you punished because your address isn’t “warmed up” (translation: you don’t email often enough to be trusted). They even asked fans to fish messages out of spam and hit “Not Spam.”
The crowd? On fire. The top scorcher sneers that deliverability is simple: don’t send junk. Others pile on: did anyone even want these promos? Several point out that Kickstarter pitches are a giant red flag, and people forget why they subscribed if you email twice a year—so they smash “Spam.” Meanwhile, a defensive chorus says Gmail can be a hot mess: legit emails go to junk while obvious scams stroll right through. Another accusation: using a Font Awesome customer list to pump a different product reads like, well, spam.
Jokes flew like confetti: “sacrifice to the email gods,” “warm your sender like sourdough,” and callbacks to their own “possum into a vent” line. Bottom line: a small team tries to do low-noise email, gets burned, and the internet can’t agree if they’re victims—or the villains.
Key Points
- •Font Awesome found its announcement emails were being routed to Gmail spam despite a 99% SendGrid reputation.
- •The company says Gmail maintains an independent reputation system that can mark emails as spam even without bounces or errors.
- •About 90% of Font Awesome’s email list uses Gmail, magnifying the impact of deliverability issues.
- •Font Awesome prefers infrequent, high-value emails and claims this conflicts with keeping sending IPs “warm.”
- •They are mitigating by cleaning old addresses, slowing send rates, tightening compliance, and asking users to mark their emails as not spam.