Sign up, pick a plan, purchase or connect domains, create email mailboxes, export credentials to your sequencer, connect a warmup tool, and start sending in 2-4 weeks. This guide walks through each step.
Step 1: Choose Your Plan
Winnr offers two plans built for cold email at scale:
- Startup ($69/mo): 50 email mailboxes across up to 50 domains. Ideal for solo operators and small teams just getting started with outbound.
- Enterprise ($189/mo): 200 email mailboxes across up to 200 domains. For agencies and teams running high-volume campaigns across multiple clients.
Both plans include fully authenticated mailboxes (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), domain purchasing, CSV exports, Universal Inbox, and full API access. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time.
Sign up here to get started.
Step 2: Purchase or Connect Domains
Cold email best practice is to send from secondary domains — variations of your brand name — to protect your primary domain's reputation. For example, if your company is acme.com, you'd use domains like getacme.com, tryacme.io, or acmehq.com.
In Winnr, you have two options:
- Purchase domains directly: Search for available domains in the dashboard and purchase them with one click. Winnr handles all DNS configuration automatically — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records are set up instantly.
- Connect domains you already own: If you have domains registered elsewhere (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.), you can connect them by updating your nameservers. Winnr will configure all DNS records for you.
A good starting point is 3-5 mailboxes per domain. So if you want 50 mailboxes, you'd need about 10-15 domains. Start with 5-10 and scale from there. For a deep dive, see our domain strategy guide.
Step 3: Create Email Mailboxes
Once your domains are set up (usually takes a few minutes for purchased domains, or up to 48 hours for connected domains while DNS propagates), you can create email mailboxes.
Each mailbox is a fully authenticated email account. Winnr automatically configures:
- SPF — Authorizes your mailbox server to send on behalf of the domain
- DKIM — Adds cryptographic signatures to prove email authenticity
- DMARC — Ties SPF and DKIM together for maximum deliverability
You can create mailboxes one at a time or use bulk create to spin up dozens in seconds. Use professional-sounding names like john@getacme.com or sarah@tryacme.io.
Step 4: Export to Your Sending Tool
Winnr integrates with all major cold email sequencers. From the Email Users page, click Export to download a CSV with all SMTP and IMAP credentials pre-formatted for your tool:
- Instantly — Bulk upload via CSV import
- Smartlead — SMTP/IMAP credential import
- Apollo — Mailbox credentials import
- Any SMTP-compatible tool — Use the generic CSV export with SMTP host, port, username, and password
The SMTP settings for your mailboxes are: Port 587 with STARTTLS for sending, Port 993 with SSL/TLS for IMAP (receiving). The specific hostname is shown in your dashboard for each mailbox.
Step 5: Connect a Warmup Tool
This is the most important step. Do not skip warming.
Email providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) need to see that your mailboxes are legitimate before they'll deliver your emails to the inbox. Warming builds that trust by exchanging real, human-like emails between your accounts and a network of verified addresses.
- Warm for at least 2 weeks before sending any cold email. For brand-new domains, warm for a full 4 weeks.
- 15-25 warmup emails/day per mailbox is the sweet spot.
- Never stop warming. Keep it running alongside your cold campaigns.
We recommend Email Bison or Plusvibe for warming — they maintain the healthiest warmup pools. For a detailed comparison, see our warmup provider comparison.
Not all warmup providers are equal. Some (like Instantly's SMTP warmup pool) have extremely high bounce rates that actively damage your sender reputation. Choose a provider with a well-maintained, private warmup pool. See our warming guide for details.
Step 6: Start Sending
After warming for 2-4 weeks, you're ready to start cold campaigns. Ramp up gradually:
- Week 1 of sending: 5 emails/day per mailbox
- Week 2: 15-20 emails/day per mailbox
- Week 3+: 30-50 emails/day per mailbox (max)
Monitor your bounce rates, open rates, and spam complaints closely. If bounce rate exceeds 3% or you see spam complaints, pause and investigate.
What's Next?
Once you're up and running, here are some features to explore:
- Universal Inbox — See replies from all your mailboxes in one place. Enable it in Settings.
- API Access — Automate domain provisioning, mailbox creation, and credential exports. Read the API docs.
- Affiliate Program — Earn 40% recurring commission on every customer you refer. Enable it in Settings.
Need help? Reply to any Winnr email or reach out to info@winnr.app. We respond to every message.