We have a 99% email reputation, but Gmail disagrees

Article

Font Awesome has 99% SendGrid reputation but Gmail still marks emails as spam
Infrequent senders get penalized; systems require constant volume to stay warm
Gmail’s proprietary reputation system ignores third-party provider scores entirely
Catch-22: too many emails trigger complaints, too few trigger inactivity penalties

Overwhelming consensus: Gmail users are clicking “report spam” on Font Awesome emails, and Gmail is correctly reflecting that — “whether or not you think what you’re sending is spam, the recipients think it is”
Multiple commenters call out Font Awesome for using sign-up email lists (required to access free icons) to send marketing for unrelated products like their “Build Awesome” static site builder — a textbook dark pattern
Experienced email admins push back on the victim narrative: “just get a clean IP and don’t send crap” — those who send only transactional emails report zero deliverability issues
Font Awesome subscribers confirm the spam complaints are warranted: rotating sender names (David, Harry, Sam, Janet) to bypass filters, and sending “exciting new icon release” emails nobody asked for
Some sympathy for Gmail’s inconsistency (marking legitimate transaction emails as spam while allowing obvious scams), but the consensus is Font Awesome’s case isn’t one of those false positives