IT Services Outbound, Run Through QuickMail
Most MSPs and IT services firms grow on referrals — until referrals plateau. Cold email is how you fill the gaps, but the channel splits into two layers that live in different places. QuickMail is where your campaigns, inbox rotation, and reply handling happen. ColdRelay is the infrastructure underneath: the secondary domains, mailboxes, and dedicated IPs that QuickMail actually sends from.
This guide covers how IT services firms wire the two together — provisioning sending infrastructure on ColdRelay, importing it into QuickMail, and running geography-bounded campaigns that book assessments with local business owners without ever risking the domain your clients email you on.
Why Run QuickMail on ColdRelay Infrastructure
QuickMail is a sending and sequencing platform — it rotates sends across whatever inboxes you connect to it. It doesn't provision domains or guarantee the deliverability of the mailboxes themselves; that's the infrastructure layer's job.
That's where ColdRelay fits. Instead of buying Google Workspace seats and configuring DNS by hand, you order dedicated mailboxes on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs, fully DNS-configured (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and ready in about an hour. You connect those mailboxes to QuickMail's inbox rotation and start sending.
The pairing matters more for IT services than most industries. Your TAM is geography-bounded — there are only so many 20-200 seat businesses within your service radius — so you can't burn through a bad list and buy a new one. A 95%+ inbox placement rate means every contact on a hard-won local list actually gets your email, and QuickMail's rotation spreads the volume so no single sender ever looks like a blaster. ColdRelay is the infrastructure, QuickMail is the sender on top — additive, not competitive.
Visit QuickMail →Connecting ColdRelay Mailboxes to QuickMail
Provision mailboxes on ColdRelay
Pick secondary domains related to but separate from your primary firm domain — clients email you on the main one, so it never touches outbound. ColdRelay supports 100-150 mailboxes per domain, but most IT services firms start small: 10-30 mailboxes on one or two domains matches a local-list cadence. Everything provisions on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs in about an hour, with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC already configured.
Export the mailbox credentials
From the ColdRelay dashboard, export your mailbox list with SMTP/IMAP credentials. The CSV export matches the column layout sending platforms expect, so there's no manual reformatting before import.
Add the inboxes in QuickMail
In QuickMail, go to Settings → Inboxes → Add Inbox and connect each ColdRelay mailbox via SMTP/IMAP, or bulk-import the CSV. Group them into an inbox pool so QuickMail's inbox rotation can distribute sends across all of them automatically.
Set daily limits to match the ColdRelay budget
Set each inbox's daily sending limit in QuickMail to 2 outbound emails per day to mirror ColdRelay's per-mailbox budget — 4 sends/day total per mailbox, split 2 outbound + 2 warmup. ColdRelay's warmup runs continuously as part of that budget, so there's no separate warmup period before you launch and no need to double-warm inside QuickMail.
Build the campaign and launch
Create a campaign in QuickMail's campaign builder, attach the inbox pool, and add your steps — an opener, a value follow-up, and a breakup note works well for local SMB outreach. With 20 mailboxes you have 40 outbound sends/day, which is the right pace for a metro-area list you can't afford to exhaust.
The IT Services QuickMail Playbook
List quality beats volume — always
Your serviceable market is every business within driving distance, and that list is finite. Build it carefully (industry, headcount, stack signals like on-prem servers or compliance requirements) and verify it before it ever enters QuickMail. Ten precise sends to real local businesses outperform a hundred sprayed at a purchased national list — and they preserve a TAM you can't replace.
Write for the owner, not the CTO
At a 30-person accounting firm or dental group there is no CTO — the decision-maker is the owner or office manager who feels IT pain as downtime and surprise invoices. Skip the acronyms in your QuickMail steps. Lead with outcomes: response times when something breaks, predictable monthly cost, someone local who picks up the phone.
Sell the assessment, not the contract
Managed services deals are recurring, multi-year relationships — nobody signs one off a cold email. Make the CTA a free network assessment or a 20-minute IT cost review. The lifetime value of one MSP contract means a campaign that books two assessments a month is already paying for itself many times over.
Run cold email as the referral gap-filler
Referrals will still close most of your deals — cold email's job is keeping the pipeline full between them. Run QuickMail campaigns continuously at modest volume rather than in bursts, and lean on local proximity in your copy ("we support three other practices in [city]") so cold outreach reads like a neighborly introduction, not a blast.
Typical IT Services Outbound Benchmarks (QuickMail + ColdRelay)
| Metric | Benchmark | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Inbox placement rate | 95%+ | Dedicated IPs and isolated tenants outperform shared Google/Microsoft pools |
| Reply rate | 3-6% | Tight local lists and owner-level outreach beat national-list averages |
| Outbound capacity per mailbox | 2/day | 4 sends/day total per mailbox — 2 outbound + 2 warmup |
| Time to first campaign | Same day | ~60 minutes to provision, plus campaign setup in QuickMail |
| Assessments booked per 1,000 sends | 8-15 | Local proximity + a free-assessment CTA; varies by vertical and city density |
What It Costs: QuickMail + ColdRelay
You pay per mailbox per month for the infrastructure, with volume tiers that drop as you scale (see the table below). DNS, IPs, and isolated Azure tenants are included — a 10-30 mailbox starting footprint keeps the line item small for a local firm.
QuickMail is billed separately on its own subscription for campaigns, inbox rotation, and reply handling — priced per its current plans.
Infrastructure cost scales with mailbox count; QuickMail's cost scales with plan tier. The two stack cleanly — one bill for sending capacity, one for the sending software — and both stay modest at the volumes a geography-bounded list actually needs.
| Mailboxes | ColdRelay price / mailbox / month |
|---|---|
| 1–199 | $1.00 |
| 200–999 | $0.85 |
| 1,000–4,999 | $0.70 |
| 5,000+ | $0.55 |
Each mailbox sends 4 emails per day — 2 outbound to prospects + 2 warmup. ColdRelay provisions mailboxes on isolated Azure tenants with dedicated IPs; QuickMail handles the sending, sequencing, and inbox rotation on top.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does ColdRelay replace QuickMail?
No. They do different jobs. QuickMail handles campaigns, inbox rotation, and reply management. ColdRelay provides the underlying domains, mailboxes, and dedicated IPs that QuickMail sends from. You use them together — infrastructure underneath, sending software on top.
Will cold outreach hurt the domain my clients email me on?
Not when the mailboxes come from ColdRelay. Outbound runs on separate secondary domains, dedicated IPs, and isolated Azure tenants — completely walled off from your primary firm domain. Client tickets, invoices, and support email never share reputation with cold campaigns.
How many mailboxes does an MSP actually need?
Fewer than you'd think. At 2 outbound sends/day per mailbox, 20 mailboxes gives 40 sends/day — roughly 800-900 sends a month, which is the right cadence for a metro-area list you want to last. Firms covering multiple cities or verticals scale up from there; ColdRelay supports 100-150 mailboxes per domain when you do.
Do I need a warmup period before launching my first QuickMail campaign?
No separate warmup period. ColdRelay mailboxes warm continuously — 2 warmup sends/day per mailbox as part of the 4/day budget — so you can launch your first QuickMail campaign the same day you provision, and the warmup keeps running alongside outbound. Point QuickMail at outbound sending only.