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Sender Policy Framework (SPF) tells receiving mail servers which IP addresses are authorized to send email for your domain. When you relay through MailChannels, messages leave from MailChannels’ shared IP pool — not your own servers. Without an SPF record authorizing those addresses, recipients may reject your mail or mark it as spam, and your domain becomes easier to spoof. To authorize MailChannels, add a single include reference to your existing SPF record. MailChannels maintains its own SPF record, so it always reflects the current sending addresses — you don’t need to update anything when IPs change.

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Required DNS records

You need two DNS records for full SPF coverage with MailChannels.

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SPF record (for your sending domain)

Add or update the TXT record for your domain:
LocationTypeValue
example.comTXTv=spf1 a mx include:relay.mailchannels.net ~all
Replace example.com with your actual domain name. If you already have an SPF record, add include:relay.mailchannels.net to it — do not create a second SPF record. Only one SPF TXT record is permitted per domain. Place the include before the all mechanism, since all always matches and must appear at the end. Example — adding MailChannels to an existing SPF record:
Before
v=spf1 a mx include:sendgrid.net ~all
After
v=spf1 a mx include:sendgrid.net include:relay.mailchannels.net ~all
Including the MailChannels SPF record without also adding the Domain Lockdown TXT record makes it easier for other MailChannels customers to send email that appears to come from your domain. Always add the _mailchannels subdomain record.
LocationTypeValue
_mailchannels.example.comTXTv=mc1 auth=<your-account-id>
Replace <your-account-id> with the Account ID shown in your Host Console. This record tells MailChannels that only your account is authorized to send from your domain, locking out any other MailChannels account from spoofing it. If you cannot configure Domain Lockdown right away, you can use a neutral qualifier as a temporary measure: 
v=spf1 a mx ?include:relay.mailchannels.net ~all
A ? qualifier produces a neutral SPF result. This allows messages from MailChannels to be accepted by hosts that would otherwise reject on SPF failure, but it does not help with DMARC alignment (which will depend on DKIM only until Domain Lockdown is configured).

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Verify your SPF record

After updating your DNS, confirm the record is correct using dig or nslookup: 
dig TXT example.com +short
You should see your SPF record in the output. Look for the include:relay.mailchannels.net entry. To verify the Domain Lockdown record: 
dig TXT _mailchannels.example.com +short
You can also use online tools to inspect the full expanded list of MailChannels IP addresses:
DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate, though most resolvers pick up changes within minutes to a few hours.

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Common SPF mistakes

Creating two SPF records for the same domain — Only one v=spf1 TXT record is allowed per domain. If you add a second one, both records become invalid. Edit your existing record instead of creating a new one. Placing include:relay.mailchannels.net after all — The all mechanism matches everything, so any mechanisms after it are ignored. Always put include statements before the all at the end. Exceeding the 10 DNS lookup limit — SPF records are limited to 10 DNS lookups during evaluation. If you have many include statements, you may hit this limit. Use an SPF flattening tool to consolidate lookups if needed. Using -all (hard fail) without testing first — A -all suffix causes receiving servers to reject messages that don’t match. A ~all (soft fail) is safer during initial setup because it marks non-matching messages rather than rejecting them outright. Switch to -all once you are confident your record is complete.

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cPanel bulk SPF setup

If you manage many domains in cPanel, you can add SPF records in bulk using the spf_installer script from the command line: 
cd /var/cpanel/users
for i in $(ls /var/cpanel/users); do /usr/local/cpanel/bin/spf_installer $i; done
The spf_installer is a built-in cPanel/WHM script that lets system administrators add or update SPF. cPanel Documentation
Test this script on a single account before running it across all users in a production environment.

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Next step

Once your SPF records are in place, configure your mail server to relay through MailChannels:

Configure your mail server

Set up your MTA to use MailChannels as a smart host for outbound delivery.