How HostRepute works
This page explains how blocklist monitoring works in HostRepute: what belongs to a team, how a domain or IP is scanned and what the results mean, when credits are used, how the reputation score is built, and how alerts reach you. The terms used here appear throughout the portal and the rest of these docs.
Teams, domains and IPs
Section titled “Teams, domains and IPs”- A team holds everything you monitor: its domains and IPs, check profiles, alert channels and delivery hours, members, API tokens, plan and credits. Each member has one role in a team: Owner, Admin, Manager, Developer or Viewer. You can belong to several teams and switch between them in the team menu.
- A domain or IP is one entry in Domains & IPs: a domain name, an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address. Each one you monitor counts once toward your plan’s limit. One whose Keep checking it switch is off is paused: it isn’t scanned and doesn’t count. Add and manage domains and IPs shows how to add, pause and delete them.
Check profiles and blocklists
Section titled “Check profiles and blocklists”- A blocklist, or DNS-based blocklist (DNSBL), is a list that mail servers and spam filters query to decide whether to trust a domain or IP. HostRepute groups the blocklists it checks into IPv4, IPv6, URI and DNS security lists, plus premium sources. Blocklists HostRepute checks lists every one.
- A check profile decides which blocklists, and which email authentication checks, apply to a domain or IP. Each domain or IP uses one profile. A new team starts with a profile named “Default”, and you can add more in Check profiles, for example one with only IPv4 lists for your sending IPs. The checks a profile can run are listed in Email authentication checks.
A scan asks every blocklist in a domain or IP’s check profile whether it lists that domain or IP. A scan starts in one of three ways: on the team’s schedule, by hand, or through the API.
Scheduled scans
Section titled “Scheduled scans”Scheduled scans are the core of monitoring, and they never use credits:
- Every 30 minutes, HostRepute looks for teams whose next scan is due.
- For each team that is due, it scans the monitored domains and IPs, up to the plan’s limit, oldest first.
- Each blocklist answers, or doesn’t answer in time. A blocklist’s answer for the same domain or IP is reused for up to an hour, by every scan.
- When the check profile has Check email authentication with every scan turned on, the email authentication checks run as well.
- When the scan finishes, HostRepute compares it with the previous result. If the domain or IP went from clean to listed, or from listed to clean, your alert channels get a blocklist alert.
One setting, Settings, then Team settings, then How often we check, sets the interval for all of a team’s domains and IPs (choose how often we check). Your plan sets the default interval and the fastest one you can choose; compare them in Plans and limits. A domain or IP you add with Start checking it right away turned on gets its first scan straight away, also without credits.
Manual scans
Section titled “Manual scans”Manual scan, then Scan now scans one domain or IP right away, for 1 credit. If no blocklist answers, the scan fails and the credit is refunded. A manual scan updates the listing state of a domain or IP you monitor, but it never sends a blocklist alert. You can also scan a domain or IP that isn’t in your team yet: HostRepute keeps it as a temporary entry for 30 days, and Monitor adds it to monitoring. Run a manual scan walks through it.
Scans through the API
Section titled “Scans through the API”Developers can start a blocklist scan through the REST API with a team API token
that has the blacklist:check ability. It costs 1 credit, like a manual scan.
API token abilities lists what each ability allows.
Results
Section titled “Results”Each blocklist in a scan ends with one of these results:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Listed | This blocklist answered and lists the domain or IP. The row shows how to ask for removal and the raw response. |
| Clean | This blocklist answered and doesn't list it. |
| Didn’t answer | The lookup failed, for example it timed out. It counts as neither listed nor clean and is left out of the blocklist score; a scan only fails when no blocklist answered. |
A domain or IP shows the state of its latest scan in Domains & IPs:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not scanned yet | No blocklist scan has run for it yet. A monitored domain or IP gets its first scan shortly after you add it; a paused one isn't scanned. |
| Checking | A scan is running; its page says Scanning now until it finishes. A domain or IP that is already listed keeps showing Listed while it's rescanned. |
| Clean | The latest scan finished and none of the blocklists in its check profile lists it. It only shows after a completed scan, never before the first one. The dashboard's recent list shows it as No listings. |
| Listed | At least one blocklist in its check profile lists it. It stays listed until a later scan comes back clean from the blocklists that listed it, so a failed or partial rescan doesn't clear it. The On a blocklist filter shows these. |
| Scan failed | The latest scan didn't finish because no blocklist answered, usually for a moment. This is a warning, not a listing: it says nothing about reputation, and HostRepute tries again on the next scheduled check. |
| Paused | Monitoring is turned off for it, so it isn't scanned and keeps its last result next to this badge. The dashboard shows it as Monitoring off unless it's listed. |
What a scan finds explains how the results add up to the scan’s own result. Every other status the portal shows is explained in Statuses and what they mean.
Credits
Section titled “Credits”Credits pay for work you start yourself. They belong to the team, never expire, and the team Owner buys them in Settings, then Plans & billing, then Credits. These are the costs:
| Action | Credits |
|---|---|
| Blocklist scan you start (Manual scan, the API or MCP) | 1 |
| Certificate check you start (portal, API or MCP) | 1 |
| One-off email authentication check | 1 |
| Campaign preflight | 1 |
| AI assistant chat message | 2 |
| AI summary | 5 |
| AI playbook | 10 |
Scheduled scans and scheduled email authentication checks never use credits. The Owner can also turn on Email a payment link when credits run low: HostRepute then emails a payment link when the balance runs low, and nothing is charged automatically. Packages are listed in Credit costs.
The reputation score
Section titled “The reputation score”The reputation score sums up the signals for one domain or IP as a number from 0 to 100. Blocklists weigh most (45), then email authentication (25), certificates (15), and Google Postmaster Tools data for a domain or Microsoft SNDS data for an IP (10). While a domain or IP is listed on any blocklist, its score is capped at 49. A signal without data lowers how confident the score is, not the score itself. The Overview shows the average of your scored domains and IPs as the team’s score.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | There's no completed blocklist scan yet, so there's no number. The score card reads Waiting for results. |
| Listed | At least one blocklist lists it in the latest completed scan. The score is capped at 49 while it's listed; on the dashboard, any listed domain or IP makes the overall tier Listed even when the average is higher. |
| Critical | Below 50 with no listing: other signals, such as email authentication or certificates, pull the score down. |
| Review | 50 to 74 with no listing. |
| Good | 75 to 89 with no listing. |
| Excellent | 90 to 100 with no listing. |
Alert channels and delivery hours
Section titled “Alert channels and delivery hours”- An alert channel is where alerts go: an email address, Slack, Telegram, Discord, PagerDuty, Pushover or your own webhook. For blocklists, each channel sends either Listed and removed, when a domain or IP is listed and when it’s removed, or Only when listed, which sends nothing on removal. Channels also get alerts about certificates, uptime, domain expiry and inbox providers. Which channels each plan includes is in the FAQ.
- Delivery hours are a weekly schedule in a timezone that decides when a channel may deliver. A channel without delivery hours gets alerts at any time. While all of a channel’s hours are closed, the portal puts it this way: “Blocklist alerts are held and go out when the hours next open.” and “Other alerts (certificates, uptime, domain expiry, inbox providers) are dropped: a channel whose delivery hours are all closed doesn’t get them, and they aren’t sent later.”
- A new team gets delivery hours named Default Contacts with no schedule, so they’re open at any time until you set one.
Defaults and limits
Section titled “Defaults and limits”These defaults apply to every scan, on every plan:
| Setting | Default | How to change |
|---|---|---|
| How often HostRepute looks for domains and IPs that are due a scheduled scan | Every 30 minutes | Fixed. How often each domain or IP is scanned is set in team settings, within the plan's limits |
| First scan of a domain or IP you add | Starts right away when it's monitored and within the plan's limit, without using credits | Fixed |
| A blocklist's answer for the same domain or IP | Reused for up to 1 hour, by every scan | Fixed |
| A scan that is still checking | Marked as failed after 15 minutes | Fixed |
| How often HostRepute sends blocklist alerts for the changes scheduled scans found | Every 5 minutes | Fixed. Delivery hours can hold an alert until they open |
How many domains and IPs a team can monitor, and how often, depends on the plan: read Plans and limits. Every other limit is in Limits and defaults.
When to change them
Section titled “When to change them”- Scan more often when a listing would cost you a lot of mail, for example on the IPs that send most of your volume. The interval is one team setting, so every domain and IP follows it.
- Add a check profile when some domains or IPs need different blocklists or email authentication checks than the rest.
- Choose Only when listed for a channel that pages people, and keep Listed and removed for email or Slack, so the team also hears when a listing ends.
- Set delivery hours on channels that reach people’s phones. Because other alerts are dropped while the hours are closed, keep at least one channel without delivery hours if you need every alert.
- Wait an hour before you rescan after a blocklist confirms a removal, because a blocklist’s answer is reused for up to an hour.