Red Sift OnDMARC: A leading alternative to Sendmarc

Last updated: November 2025

Looking for a Sendmarc alternative that helps you take control of email authentication faster and with greater confidence? Red Sift OnDMARC is built to help organizations detect and stop unauthorized use of their domains efficiently and safely. Here’s how the two applications compare.

Red Sift OnDMARC is a cloud-based, automated DMARC product that simplifies the deployment and management of DMARC, SPF, DKIM, and MTA-STS records. It eliminates guesswork, accelerates setup, and resolves configuration issues in real time, helping organizations reach full enforcement in as little as 6–8 weeks.

Distinctive capabilities include:

• Integrated BIMI with Verified Mark Certificate (VMC) provisioning
• An embedded LLM assistant (Radar) for instant troubleshooting
• DNS monitoring (DNS Guardian) to detect dangling records and subdomain hijacking

OnDMARC is trusted by brands like Capgemini, Domino’s, Wise, and ZoomInfo, and is embedded within Cisco’s Domain Protection offering.

Sendmarc helps organizations configure and monitor DMARC, SPF, DKIM, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT, and BIMI. It’s popular among MSPs for its multi-tenant and white-label capabilities and has strong adoption in South Africa, with about 80% of its early customers being South African companies. A free trial is available. 

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how these two applications compare 👇

DMARC can be a complicated and error-prone security protocol to understand and implement. This makes effective technology and robust provisioning all the more important.

OnDMARC delivers a guided onboarding flow that takes users from signup to protection in just a few steps. Upon activation, the My Domains dashboard surfaces each domain’s protocol status—DMARC, SPF, MTA-STS, and BIMI—so teams can see their authentication posture at a glance.

Users can deploy via Dynamic Services, which replaces manual DNS edits with hosted smart records, or configure policies manually if preferred. Dynamic Services reduces setup friction and minimizes human error by generating a small number of intelligent records.

Once records are active, DMARC reports begin flowing into the platform for immediate analysis.

The Investigate tool tests authentication configurations in real time, eliminating the typical 24-hour delay for DMARC report propagation. This enables instant validation of changes and dramatically speeds up policy deployment. Investigate integrates with the Email Sources inventory to check SPF/DKIM alignment, active selectors, and compliance with frameworks like the UK MCSS, US BOD 18-01, and bulk-sender requirements from Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

The Email Sources view continuously maps all email-sending services per domain. Each source can be tagged as legitimate or suspicious, with ownership details preserved for operational continuity. This prevents duplication of effort and ensures institutional knowledge stays intact.

Sendmarc’s setup wizard walks users through onboarding but requires DNS updates before access to the main UI. Integration with Entri allows one-click provisioning, which benefits MSPs or teams without DNS access.

While Sendmarc does not include an integrated diagnostic feature within its main product, it does offer a domain checker tool on its website. This tool assesses email authentication protocols and related risks to provide an overall health score. It’s a useful starting point for initial analysis and can help users overcome the 24-hour delay before DMARC reports populate, though it’s not as in-depth or interactive as OnDMARC’s built-in Investigate tool.

Sendmarc provides an inventory of email sources that they call “authorized senders”, which are the sending sources you have marked as an asset.

This inventory allows you to track includes and mechanisms, so should you ever decide to switch vendors, migration would be straightforward.

Traditional DNS management of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MTA-STS is manual and error-prone, especially for organizations with multiple registrars.

OnDMARC’s Dynamic Services replaces static records with smart hosted records, allowing users to manage everything within the platform.

Through NS delegation for DKIM and DMARC or TXT overrides for SPF, administrators can modify records instantly without logging into DNS.

This setup supports:

• 2048-bit DKIM keys
• Flexible policy updates
• Simplified SPF management across domains—all from one interface.

Sendmarc supports hosted SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MTA-STS records, and integrates with Entri for automated provisioning. This reduces coordination with IT for teams lacking DNS access. However, there’s no dedicated area for hosted record management, which can be a little confusing—it’s housed within the Domains section of the UI.

Dynamic SPF flattens and compacts all authorized senders into a single include, bypassing the DNS 10-lookup limit without macros that often break legacy systems.

The Activity view shows whether each SPF mechanism is still in use based on live DMARC data, helping teams remove redundant entries and maintain a clean configuration.

Sendmarc’s SPF implementation acts primarily as an aggregator—it combines the customer’s includes within its own, which does not reduce lookups. It can behave as a flattener only if the feature is manually enabled, adding operational complexity.

Screenshot taken from the Red Sift SPF Checker tool: https://redsift.com/tools/spf-checker/sendmarc.com.

Mail Transfer Agent Strict Transport Security (MTA-STS) ensures the secure transmission of emails over an encrypted SMTP connection and stops man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. 

OnDMARC includes hosted MTA-STS as part of its Dynamic Services. This covers policy hosting, certificate lifecycle management, and TLS reporting in one place. Any TLS violations or downgrade attempts are surfaced automatically, giving security teams immediate visibility into encryption gaps and potential MITM attempts.

MTA-STS and TLS-RPT are available but classed as premium features, not included in Sendmarc’s free tier.

Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) allows organizations to display their verified brand logo next to DMARC-authenticated emails. Studies have shown BIMI can lift open rates by nearly 40% and improve brand recall by more than 40%.

OnDMARC offers the only integrated BIMI and VMC solution on the market, streamlining the entire process—from application to certificate issuance—through a direct API integration with DigiCert.

Enterprise customers receive a complimentary VMC license, avoiding the need for separate vendor contracts or budget approvals.

Sendmarc hosts BIMI records and supports SVG logo uploads but lacks VMC integration. Users must apply to a Certificate Authority independently, adding manual steps.

When using Sendmarc’s own DMARCchecker tool, it reveals that they do not have a valid BIMI certificate for their own domain.

Most DMARC solutions focus narrowly on email authentication, leaving DNS blind spots unaddressed. With the rise of SubdoMailing attacks—where adversaries abuse abandoned or misconfigured subdomains to send authenticated spam—having visibility into DNS configuration has become an essential layer of protection.

OnDMARC’s DNS Guardian feature monitors for dangling records, CNAME hijacking, and SubdoMailing attempts, giving organizations visibility into DNS-layer risks.

This feature extends protection beyond email authentication, addressing the wider attack surface exploited in modern domain-based phishing.

Sendmarc acknowledges DNS hygiene risks but does not offer a dedicated monitoring capability for detecting these issues.

LLMs and AI assistants like GPT-4 are increasingly recognized as valuable for troubleshooting and accelerating workflows. In security, however, the challenge is that generic models are rarely embedded within tools or trained on the right domain knowledge, limiting their usefulness. Integrating this technology directly into security products can deliver meaningful efficiency gains for teams.

OnDMARC includes Radar, an LLM-powered assistant trained on domain and email intelligence that detects misconfigurations, interprets complex errors, and offers actionable fixes.

Embedded directly in the workflow, Radar helps teams progress to enforcement faster—especially those without deep technical expertise.

At the time of writing, Sendmarc does not provide an AI or LLM assistant.

Effective alerting ensures that organizations can respond quickly to emerging risks, reducing the chance that phishing or misconfigurations slip through unnoticed.

OnDMARC’s Notifications feature lets users schedule compliance summaries, action reminders, and configuration alerts via email or Slack.

These include:

• Compliance reports summarizing pass, quarantine, and reject volumes
• Action reminders listing outstanding steps
• Configuration alerts for sender reputation drops, service changes, or sudden compliance declines

Sendmarc provides domain and account-level alerts with granular role-based access control. Triggers include compliance-score changes, new authorized senders, and lookalike detections, though configuration and delivery options are less customizable than OnDMARC’s.

Time-to-enforcement is one of the most important measures of a DMARC deployment. Expert guidance can make a major difference in helping organizations reach protection quickly while reducing risk.

Red Sift’s support team is recognized by G2, with a 100% Quality of Support rating in the Europe Regional Grid® Report for DMARC (Fall 2025). We’re trusted by leading brands including Capgemini, ZoomInfo, TalkTalk, and Holland & Barrett, and have a strong library of customer case studies showcasing our results.

Enterprise customers gain access to dedicated Customer Success Engineers (CSEs) specializing in email authentication protocols.

Sendmarc provides support through email, phone, and remote sessions. It maintains an online knowledge base, and customer reviews on G2 highlight responsive service, though dedicated implementation support is not specified.

OnDMARC offers an open REST API with fully documented endpoints, enabling integration with custom dashboards, SIEMs, SOARs, XDRs, ticketing tools, and collaboration platforms. It connects seamlessly with the Red Sift Pulse Platform, syncing with Brand Trust and DNS Guardian for extended protection across email, DNS, and brand assets.

Through the Red Sift Event Hub, teams can stream structured security events into their existing environments, improving visibility and response workflows.

Beyond connectivity, OnDMARC enriches email intelligence with data from Spamhaus, Validity, Yahoo, and Abusix, providing deeper forensic insight into sender reputation, deliverability, and potential abuse. These feeds enhance detection of spoofing, domain impersonation, and brand misuse—giving organizations a fuller, data-driven view of their domain ecosystem.

Sendmarc provides a RESTful API for enterprise and MSP workflows, though documentation is not public and integration options are limited. It does not currently support third-party intelligence feeds or SIEM integrations, operating primarily as a standalone DMARC platform.

Both Red Sift OnDMARC and Sendmarc deliver capable DMARC management solutions.

• Sendmarc suits MSPs needing multi-tenant control and white-label flexibility.
• Red Sift OnDMARC extends far beyond DMARC configuration—offering built-in AI guidance, DNS risk visibility, and ecosystem integration that help enterprises move faster and scale securely.

And that’s the key difference: where Sendmarc stops at DMARC, Red Sift helps you build beyond it.

For enterprises, DMARC is the foundation and not the finish line. As organizations mature, priorities extend to DNS hygiene, lookalike domain detection, and brand protection. 

Choosing Sendmarc means finding new vendors when those needs arise—adding cost, time, and disruption.

Red Sift offers a single, scalable platform that unifies comprehensive email, DNS, and domain protection:

• OnDMARC – for authentication and enforcement
• DNS Guardian – for DNS hygiene and misconfiguration detection
• Brand Trust – for identifying and removing lookalike domains

With over 40 years of combined email security expertise and consistent G2 leadership, Red Sift enables enterprises to protect their domains end-to-end, without additional headcount or fragmented tooling.