In this guide, you will set up Adapty Mail and launch your first email flow.

The setup has nine parts:

1. Choose your account type
2. Connect your data
3. Set up your brand
4. Set up your sending domain
5. Add your company address
6. Create a web paywall
7. Generate a campaign with AI
8. Launch a flow
9. Start sending

Adapty Mail tracks your progress in the onboarding checklist and hides it once every step is done.

Before you start

Make sure these are in place before you start:

• DNS access: You can add records to your root domain.
• Payments: You have a Stripe account with your subscription products configured. To use a different provider, host the checkout yourself — see Set up checkout.

1. Choose your account type

The account type determines what your Adapty Mail project can do:

	Adapty-linked (recommended)	Standalone
Sign up	Sign in with your Adapty account and open Mail. Adapty creates a project linked to your app. The data exchange between Adapty Mail and the SDK is disabled until the final step of the setup. You don’t have to move your purchases to Adapty: the easy-to-setup observer mode, which only reports your transactions, is enough.	Sign up for Adapty Mail only with an email address and a password. No Adapty account and nothing to install in your app — you bring the data yourself, through FunnelFox or the API.
Checkout page (Step 6)	Generate with AI — a hosted checkout page built around your brand, with Stripe payments wired in — or your own hosted paywall	Your own hosted paywall
Segments	Import from Adapty, or build in Mail	Build in Mail
Brand — what your emails are generated from: name, logo, colors, and tone (Step 3)	Built from your app’s store listing before you arrive, if it has one	Built from a store URL you paste
Purchase data (Step 2)	One click in Settings > Project; FunnelFox and the API also work	Secret key pasted into the Adapty dashboard or FunnelFox, or the API
Team	Teammates join when they open Mail from your Adapty company; email invites too	Email invites

2. Connect your data

Before Adapty Mail can email a user, it needs:

• Their email address: The destination for your emails.
• Their customer user ID: The unique identifier for the user. Adapty stores it in the user’s profile so the same person is recognized across devices. Without one, Adapty creates a new profile every time they reinstall your app or log out.
• Their subscription events feed: Trials, renewals, cancellations, and refunds, as they happen. These allow you to target users based on their behavior, and tie revenue back to the email that drove the purchase. Without the event feed, the only sequence a user can receive is the one for people who never purchased.

Follow the instructions to create an entry point for this data:

• Adapty: Use this if your app already runs the Adapty SDK. Adapty forwards profiles, emails, and subscription events for you, so you need no server of your own. In your app, add user identification and email collection. See Connect Adapty to Adapty Mail.
• Adapty Mail API: Use this if you already run a backend that holds this data, if your app has no Adapty SDK, or if you import subscribers from somewhere else. You post profiles and transaction events yourself. The secret key on Settings > Project authenticates the requests. See Send emails and transactions via the Adapty Mail API.
• FunnelFox: Use this if you acquire and charge users through FunnelFox web funnels. FunnelFox already holds their emails, purchases, and subscription events, and forwards them to Adapty Mail on its own — no SDK work, and no requests to write. See the FunnelFox integration guide.
• A combination: You can use more than one entry point at once. Adapty Mail matches incoming user data on customer_user_id and email address.

Adapty Mail starts sending emails once the rest of the setup is in place.

3. Set up your brand

Adapty Mail can’t generate emails or web paywalls without a brand. Your brand stores the information Adapty Mail needs to match your app’s look and voice — name, logo, colors, fonts, tone of voice, features, and reviews. You supply the store listing, and Adapty Mail builds the brand from it.

1. In Adapty Mail, open Brand.
2. If the page shows a filled-in brand, review it and move on. If it shows the Set up your brand screen, continue below.
3. Under Store, pick App Store or Google Play, then paste your listing URL.
   Note

   The setup screen takes an App Store or Google Play listing and nothing else. If your app has no store listing — a web-to-app funnel, for example — contact Adapty support before you continue.

4. Click Build my brand. Adapty Mail fetches the page, parses reviews, and infers your brand voice. It usually finishes in under a minute.
5. To review sections, edit them by hand, or add landing-page and social sources, see Brand.

4. Set up your sending domain

Adapty Mail sends emails from your private domain. You add DNS records once, and every campaign uses the same verified domain.

To register your first domain, in Adapty Mail go to Settings > DNS > the Email domains section.

1. In the Domain field, type your root domain (for example, yourapp.com). Only apex domains are accepted — subdomains like app.yourapp.com are rejected at input.

2. In the Sending subdomain field, type the prefix your emails go out from, or leave it empty to use mail. Emails then come from hello@mail.yourapp.com.

3. Click Add domain.

   

4. In your domain registrar, add every DNS record the new domain card lists. They come in three groups: your sending subdomain’s DKIM and MAIL FROM records, the records for the mailbox that warms the domain up, and the records for go.yourapp.com, which serves images and tracked links. For what each group authenticates, see Which records you add. To take them all at once, click Export.

5. Optionally, add the suggested DMARC TXT record on your root domain (recommended).

6. Click Check to verify immediately, or leave the card and let Adapty Mail poll DNS.

   

Verification timing at a glance:

• Automatic polling: The first check runs 1 minute after you add the domain, then intervals double up to once per hour until the records are found.
• Manual check: Click Check any time to trigger an immediate check.
• DNS propagation: Usually minutes, up to 48 hours in rare cases.
• Verification window: 7 days. If it lapses, your DNS records stay in place — add your domain again in Settings > DNS to start a new window.

One verified domain is enough to start using Adapty Mail. A project can hold up to five domains, and you can add the rest later.

For details on each record type and domain warm-up, see Set up your sending domain.

5. Add your company address

Anti-spam laws require a physical postal address in every marketing email. Adapty Mail puts yours in the footer of every campaign email, and blocks campaign generation until you fill it in.

1. In Adapty Mail, go to Settings > Company.
2. In the Company address section, fill in Legal company name, Address line 1, City, Postal code, and Country. Address line 2 and State / Region are optional.
3. Click Save.

6. Create a web paywall

When a recipient clicks a CTA in your email, they land on a web paywall — a checkout page in the browser. Every campaign links to one, and Adapty Mail rejects a campaign without it. This isn’t your in-app paywall: a purchase made there is a web payment, not an App Store or Google Play transaction.

You have two options:

• Generate with AI: Generate a paywall with the built-in builder, powered by FunnelFox. The generated paywall uses Stripe to process payments.
• Use your own hosted paywall: Point Adapty Mail at a page you already host, with whatever provider you use. Adapty Mail redirects the user to your paywall, with user details pre-filled in the URL. A self-hosted paywall can use any payment provider.

To start, in Adapty Mail go to Web Paywalls > Create.

Option A: Generate with AI

The page shows a prerequisites checklist with inline buttons — work through it in order, then come back and generate. The checklist covers logging in to the paywall builder, connecting Stripe, adding products, and reviewing the result. See Set up checkout for the full walkthrough. If you finish a prerequisite in another tab, click Refresh on the checklist to sync its status.

When every prerequisite is green, click Proceed to generation. In the Choose plans dialog:

1. Pick 1–3 plans, all in one currency. Each plan is one offer the generated paywall presents at checkout. Click Add plan for a second and a third.
2. For each plan, choose a production price, its sandbox counterpart, or both. A production and a sandbox price in the same row count as one plan.
3. Click Generate paywall.

Fill a column for every plan or leave that column empty for all of them — a partly filled column blocks generation. Without sandbox prices, test emails link to the production paywall and test purchases don’t work.

Option B: Use your own hosted paywall

1. Select Enter URL manually.

2. Paste the URL of your hosted paywall with placeholders as query parameters. Adapty Mail substitutes them per recipient so the checkout page can identify the visitor. Example:

   https://example.com/paywall?email={email}&adapty_profile_id={adapty.external_profile_id}

   The Create page lists the placeholders you can use. See Set up checkout for what each one resolves to.

3. Save and publish.

For checkout funnel anatomy and how personalization works, see Set up checkout.

7. Generate a campaign with AI

A campaign is a sequence of up to 15 emails that one recipient receives over time. AI writes the whole sequence from the brand you set up in Step 3: copy, design, hero images, and personalized checkout links.

1. In Adapty Mail, go to Campaigns and click Create.

2. Set the campaign name.

3. In the Web paywall dropdown, select the web paywall you added on the previous step.

   

4. Click Generate emails.

5. Fill out the generation dialog — tone, language, an optional custom prompt (up to 2,000 characters), and the number of emails (1–15, default 4). See Create a campaign for what each field does.

   

6. Click Generate. Generation usually takes a few minutes. The system times out after 5 minutes if it can’t complete — retry if that happens.

7. Preview each email. The preview header has a Theme toggle (Auto, Light, Dark) that controls how the preview renders — generated content is identical across modes. You can regenerate individual emails, edit the copy, or open the HTML editor for fine-grained control.

8. Click Create to save the campaign.

The campaign saves as a draft and isn’t sending yet — campaigns go live only when attached to a flow (next step). There’s no separate “publish” action in the campaign editor.

8. Launch a flow

Adapty Mail includes its own flows. A flow connects triggers (subscription events) with campaigns (email sequences). Each of the five triggers — a subscription expiring, a payment failing, and so on — has its own flow. A flow can send one campaign to everyone who hits the trigger, or use segments to send different groups different campaigns.

1. In Adapty Mail, go to Flows, then open the trigger you want to configure:

   • Never purchased — users who signed up but haven’t made a purchase yet.
   • Renewal cancelled — users who turned off auto-renewal but still have an active subscription.
   • Billing issue — payment failed, declined or expired card, or grace period.
   • Expired — subscription has lapsed and access is gone.
   • Refunded — users who requested a refund after purchase.

   See Flows for the goal and tone guidance behind each trigger.

2. Click Create to open the dialog.

   

3. In the dialog:

   • Pick a Segment. All Users targets everyone who hits this trigger, and it’s enough to launch. To narrow the audience later, create a different segment — a filtered subsection of your users, based on their country, age, or subscription state.
   • Set content type to Campaign (the A/B Test option is covered in A/B testing).
   • Select the Campaign you saved in Step 7.

4. Click Save.

The flow goes live immediately — there’s no separate launch step. From this point on, users who match the segment will start receiving the campaign as soon as they hit the trigger event.

9. Start sending

Your campaign is wired up but not firing yet — no user data is reaching Adapty Mail. Start the data flowing through the entry point you chose. Whether your project is linked to Adapty (Step 1) changes only how you switch the Adapty feed on, not what arrives:

Your data comes from	Your Mail project is linked to an Adapty app	What to do
The Adapty SDK	Yes	In Adapty Mail, go to Settings > Project and click Enable Adapty integration. The button stays disabled until you have a flow (Step 8).
The Adapty SDK	No	Adapty can feed a project it isn’t linked to — it only needs the key. Copy the secret key from Settings > Project and paste it in the Adapty dashboard under Integrations > Adapty Mail.
Your backend, via the Adapty Mail API	Either	Start posting profiles and transaction events. Profiles you send before finishing this setup never receive anything, which is why this step comes last.
FunnelFox	Either	Copy the secret key from Settings > Project and paste it in FunnelFox under Integrations > Adapty Mail. Data starts arriving within about a minute.

From here, users who match your segment receive the campaign as soon as they hit the trigger. Before you let real users in, test the whole chain with one test user.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Generate emails is greyed out	Your brand or company address is missing. The button’s tooltip names which. See Step 3 and Step 5
Paywall generation is blocked	The panel names the cause: no brand, no connected Stripe account, or no Stripe products with prices. Fix it, then Refresh the checklist
Campaign won’t save	Every campaign needs a web paywall. Create one in Step 6
Enable Adapty integration is greyed out	Adapty Mail needs at least one flow first. See Step 8
DNS records won’t verify	Check that they match exactly — no trailing dots, correct CNAME targets, one value per record. DNS can take up to 48 hours to propagate
Verification window expired	Add the domain again in Settings > DNS to start a new window. The records at your registrar still apply — nothing to re-add there
Email generation timed out	Generation stops after 5 minutes. Retry, and contact Adapty support if it keeps failing

For errors outside initial setup, see the troubleshooting sections in Set up your sending domain and Set up checkout.

Learn more

• Test your flow: Run a test user through the whole chain before you launch.
• Connect Adapty to Adapty Mail: SDK setup, and strategies for getting email coverage if your app doesn’t collect them yet.
• Set up your sending domain: DNS record details, warm-up tiers, and troubleshooting.
• Set up checkout: Checkout funnel anatomy and personalization.
• Campaign analytics: Track delivery, engagement, and revenue.
• A/B testing: Test multiple sequence versions.