Enter a domain. This reads the BIMI record, fetches the logo and inspects the file itself, checks for a certificate, and confirms the DMARC policy underneath it.
That last part is why most BIMI setups do not work. BIMI is the only one of these records that depends entirely on another: below p=quarantine, no provider will show your logo no matter how correct the BIMI record is.
The second most common failure is a perfectly ordinary SVG. BIMI accepts one narrow profile and rejects everything else.
Free, no account, nothing stored. It is a DNS lookup, so it costs us nothing to run.
BIMI puts your logo next to your messages in supporting inboxes. It is the visible reward for having authentication in order, and that is the honest framing: the logo is the incentive, the authentication is the point.
Gmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail and Fastmail display BIMI logos, with different requirements. Nobody displays one for a domain that is not at DMARC enforcement, which makes BIMI a reasonable finish line for an authentication project and a poor place to start one.
First, DMARC at p=quarantine or p=reject on the domain doing the sending. Not p=none, and not enforcement on the parent while the sending subdomain sits at none.
Second, an SVG that conforms to SVG Tiny Portable/Secure. This is a restricted profile: the root element has to declare baseProfile="tiny-ps", there has to be a <title>, and scripts, links, embedded images and anything loaded from another URL are all forbidden. An export from your design tool will be rejected even though it looks identical, which is what the file check above is for.
Third, for most of your recipients, a certificate. Gmail needs a VMC or a CMC, and Apple Mail needs a VMC specifically. Yahoo and Fastmail will show your logo without one.
A Verified Mark Certificate proves you own a registered trademark on the logo. It is issued by a small number of certificate authorities, it is renewed annually, and the trademark requirement is the real barrier rather than the price.
A Common Mark Certificate is Gmail newer alternative for logos with no trademark, requiring instead that the logo has been publicly in use on your domain for at least twelve months. Gmail shows CMC logos without the blue verification tick. Apple Mail does not currently accept CMCs at all.
Without either, your BIMI record is not wasted, it is just limited to the providers that do not ask.
Not on its own, and not first. BIMI changes how a message looks once it has already reached the inbox, so it does nothing for the problem cold email usually has, which is arriving at all.
The path there is worth taking anyway, because it runs through SPF, DKIM and DMARC at enforcement, and those three do decide whether you arrive. Treat the logo as the receipt.
In order of likelihood: DMARC is at p=none, the SVG is not Tiny PS, there is no VMC and the recipient is on Gmail or Apple Mail, or the change has not propagated yet. Providers cache BIMI aggressively, so allow days rather than minutes after a fix.
For a VMC, yes, a registered trademark on the logo itself. For a CMC you need twelve months of public use on your own domain instead, which is a far lower bar, but Gmail is the only one of the major providers accepting CMCs today.
Export a square SVG, strip everything the profile forbids (scripts, links, embedded raster images, external references), add baseProfile="tiny-ps" and a version attribute to the root element, and add a title element. Several free converters do this, and the result is worth re-checking here because they are not all correct.
Not directly. There is no evidence that a BIMI record itself changes filtering. What does help is the DMARC enforcement BIMI requires, so the effect people attribute to BIMI usually belongs to the prerequisite.
default is what every provider looks for, at default._bimi.yourdomain.com, and it is what this checker queries. Other selectors are legal but only reachable when a sender explicitly points at them in the message headers, so there is rarely a reason.
Yes, and it needs its own BIMI record and its own DMARC enforcement. Nothing here is inherited from the parent domain, which is the same trap SPF and DKIM set.
Wisemation finds the people worth writing to, researches each one, writes the email and the follow-ups, and sends them from your own inbox. Ten leads free, no card.
Try it free →