You publish one DNS record. Receivers such as Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft then send reports about mail that uses your domain, usually within a day or two, depending on how much mail you send. MonitorBase reads those reports, names every service that sends as you, and tells you when it's safe to tighten your policy.
1. Publish the record MonitorBase gives you
When you add a domain, the reporting card in the app shows whether reports reach MonitorBase. If they don't yet, it writes the exact DNS record to publish, built from the record you have today. You copy it into your DNS host: one.com, Simply, GoDaddy, Cloudflare or wherever your domain lives.
For a domain with no DMARC record yet, it looks like this:
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[the report address MonitorBase shows you]
p=none asks receivers to change nothing while you learn who sends as you. rua= tells them where to send the reports.
rua= part changes, and MonitorBase writes the new record from your current one, so nothing else moves.On Basic and up you can let MonitorBase host the record instead. That's managed DMARC: one CNAME on _dmarc pointing to us, and from then on you change the policy in the app.
The same card also covers failure reports (ruf=) and TLS reports (TLS-RPT), with the exact record for each. You can add those later.
2. Reports start arriving
Each receiver sends an aggregate report, usually once a day, for every domain it saw mail from. The report lists which servers sent mail as your domain, how many messages, and whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC passed.
How soon the first ones come depends on your mail. A shop that sends order confirmations all day sees reports within a day or two. A small office that sends a few dozen mails a week may wait longer, and some days bring no report at all. Both are normal.
3. Your sending sources fill up
MonitorBase turns the reports into one table of sending sources. Each row has a name (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Mailchimp, e-conomic, your webshop) or "unknown, logged for identification", the IP addresses, the messages reported by receivers, and the share that passed DMARC.
A daily chart shows passing and failing volume. You can look back as far as your plan's history reaches: 14 days on Free, 180 days on Basic, about 18 months on Pro. Free reads about 1,000 report messages a month, Basic 250,000.
A small business usually has a handful: the mailbox provider, a newsletter tool, the invoicing system, the webshop, maybe a booking or CRM tool. Each one needs to pass before you tighten the policy.
4. Approve or reject each sender (Basic)
Every sender seen in the reports lands in the sender register, on every plan. On Basic and up, you decide for each one:
- Approve the services you use. MonitorBase then checks that your DNS lets them pass.
- Reject the ones you don't recognise or no longer use. MonitorBase checks that your DNS doesn't let them pass, and tells you if one does.
The suspicious sources card lists sources with 10 or more messages and less than half of them passing, so the ones worth a look come first.
5. Alerts when something changes (Basic)
On Basic and up, MonitorBase re-checks your domain every day and e-mails you when something changes: a new sending source, a DMARC record removed or weakened, a check that starts failing, a new blacklist hit, a drop in passing mail, a volume spike, TLS report failures, DNSSEC trouble, or a domain about to expire. Each alert names the cause, and clears itself once it's fixed.
Every Monday morning, Basic and up also gets the weekly report by e-mail: the last 7 days per domain, with the senders reported, passed and failed, forwarding and mailing lists explained, and one next action.
Pro adds Slack, Teams and webhooks. Free monitoring is for personal and hobby domains: it checks weekly and sends no alert e-mails, so you review new senders in your dashboard.
6. The next policy step card (Basic)
On Basic and up, every DMARC domain in the app has a next policy step card. It suggests moving from p=none to p=quarantine (first at pct=25, then for all mail), and later to p=reject, only when the reports back it up: 500 or more messages over at least 14 days of reports, with 98% passing to leave p=none and 99% for the later steps.
Until then it says it's collecting data. It recommends; you make the change when it suits you, in your own DNS or, with managed DMARC, in the app.
How long does it all take?
It depends on how much mail your domain sends and how many services send for you. There is no fixed timeline. This is what decides the pace:
| Stage | What you do | What decides how long it takes |
|---|---|---|
| First reports | Publish the record | How much mail you send, and to how many receivers |
| Sources complete | Approve or reject each sender | Tools that send rarely, such as a monthly newsletter or yearly reminders |
| Ready for quarantine | Fix senders that fail | 500+ messages, 14+ days, 98% passing |
| Ready for reject | Watch quarantine, fix stragglers | The same volume, 99% passing |
Sources
- MonitorBase plans and features: DMARC Monitor pricing (13 Nov 2026).
- Further reading: Your road to p=reject, step by step and How to read DMARC aggregate reports.