Overview

On August 19th, we'll be changing how emails are sent to improve delivery reliability. This article covers why emails now default to sending from a Clear Estimates address instead of your own, and how to switch back to your own email if you'd prefer that. 

What changes

When you send an email to a customer through Clear Estimates, the email now comes from estimate@clearestimates.com by default, instead of your own email address. Any reply your customer sends still goes straight to your inbox - we just changed the "From" address, not where responses end up.

Why we're making this change

Email providers have gotten stricter about verifying who's actually allowed to send mail "from" a given address. When Clear Estimates sends an email on your behalf using your personal or business email address, some mail servers - especially business domains hosted through Microsoft 365/Outlook - don't recognize Clear Estimates as an authorized sender for that address. 

Depending on how strict their settings are, they'll either send the email straight to spam or block it from arriving at all, and neither you nor your customer gets a clear signal that it happened.

Clear Estimates' own domain (clearestimates.com) is fully authenticated with the major email providers, so email sent from estimate@clearestimates.com reliably lands in the inbox. Sending from that address by default is the fix for this.

What this means for you 

• Your customer can still reply to you directly. Replies are routed to your registered email address, not to Clear Estimates.
• You don't need to change anything unless you specifically want emails to go out under your own email address.
• This does not affect anything else in your account - it's specific to how emails are sent.

If you want to send “from” your own email 

Some people prefer their customers to see their own email address in the "From" field, and that's fine - you can turn it back on with the checkbox mentioned below. 

If your email domain isn't set up to authorize Clear Estimates as a sender, your emails may be marked as spam or fail to arrive, exactly the problem this change was meant to solve.

If you'd rather send from your own email address, you'll find a setting under Tools > Options. 

There you'll find a checkbox labeled “Use my registered email as the “from” address" Check it, and click Save at the bottom right. Emails will go out from your address instead: 

A few things worth knowing before you send from your own email: 

• Personal webmail addresses (Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, etc.) are usually the least likely to run into this problem.
• Business or company domains - particularly ones hosted on Microsoft 365/Outlook - are the most likely to flag or block these emails, unless your IT provider has specifically authorized Clear Estimates to send on your domain's behalf.
• If you're not sure whether your domain is set up correctly, the safest option is to leave this box unchecked and let emails send from estimate@clearestimates.com. Your customer will still be able to reply directly to you.
• If you turn this on and a customer tells you they never received an email, ask them to check their spam/junk folder first. If it's there, that's a sign your domain isn't authorized to send through our system, and you should either uncheck the box or have your IT provider look into adding the necessary email authentication records.

See this article for more info on how to configure your own email for Clear Estimates. 

FAQ

Will my customer know the email came from Clear Estimates instead of me? 

The "From" address will show estimate@clearestimates.com, but any reply goes straight to your own inbox, so the conversation continues normally.

Do I need to do anything to keep using the new default? 

No - this is already the default behavior for your account. No action needed unless you want to switch to sending from your own address.

I turned on "Send email from my registered email" a while ago and emails seem to be missing sometimes. What should I do? 

This is the most common cause of "my customer never got the email." Try unchecking the box so emails send from estimate@clearestimates.com instead. 

If you'd still like to send from your own address, talk to whoever manages your company's email or IT to ask about authorizing Clear Estimates as a sender for your domain.

Where do I find this setting? 

Look for the "Use my registered email as the “from” address" checkbox under Tools > Options.  Be sure to click save (bottom right) to update your settings.