ImprovMX — free email forwarding

Why ImprovMX?

The moment you buy a domain, you want an email address on it. hello@yourdomain.com looks legit. yourname@gmail.com in the footer of a launch page does not.

The traditional answer is Google Workspace at $7/user/month. For a side project where nobody is actually logging in to that mailbox, that's absurd. ImprovMX forwards any you@yourdomain.com address straight to your existing Gmail — free, unlimited aliases, done in ten minutes.

Resend vs ImprovMX — which do I need?

They solve opposite halves of the same problem. You almost always want both:

• Resend sends email from your domain (transactional, magic links, form submissions). Outbound only.
• ImprovMX receives email to your domain and forwards it to your real inbox. Inbound only.

Put a contact form on your site: Resend sends the submission notification, and when someone replies to that email, ImprovMX routes it back to you.

Setup, step by step

1. Sign up at improvmx.com (no credit card)
2. Add your domain
3. Copy the two MX records into your domain registrar's DNS:
   • mx1.improvmx.com (priority 10)
   • mx2.improvmx.com (priority 20)
4. Add the SPF record — a TXT record with v=spf1 include:spf.improvmx.com ~all
5. Set up your aliases: hello@, press@, *@ (catch-all) — all forwarding to your Gmail
6. Wait ~5 min for DNS to propagate, hit verify, send a test

Sending from your domain in Gmail

Forwarding is one direction. To reply from hello@yourdomain.com inside Gmail, add it as a "Send mail as" address. ImprovMX's dashboard has a one-click setup that generates the SMTP credentials for you. Free plan allows 25 outbound/day via SMTP, which is plenty for personal replies.

For anything programmatic (forms, notifications, transactional email), use Resend instead. Don't burn ImprovMX's SMTP on that.

Pricing

• Free: unlimited aliases on 1 domain, 25 SMTP sends/day
• Premium ($9/mo): multiple domains, custom logo on SMTP, priority support

The free tier is genuinely enough for most indie projects. I've been on it for years across a handful of domains (one at a time).

Common gotchas

• Cloudflare proxy breaks MX. If your DNS lives at Cloudflare, make sure the MX and SPF records are set to "DNS only" (grey cloud), not proxied.
• Mail goes to spam in Gmail. First forwarded email often lands in spam. Mark as "not spam" once and Gmail learns.
• Replies show your Gmail address unless you set up "Send mail as" with the SMTP credentials from the ImprovMX dashboard. Easy to miss on first setup.

Related guides

Pair this with the Resend guide for the full email setup (inbound + outbound), and the Domains guide for where the DNS records actually go.