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Email Provider & Gateway Intelligence

Infrastructure choice predicts security posture — +22.7pp DMARC uplift from email security gateways
MonitorWorkspace
March 2026
35,862 Domains • 20 Providers Analyzed
Domains using an email security gateway (Barracuda, Proofpoint, Mimecast) achieve 75.7% DMARC vs only 53.0% for non-proxied domains — a +22.7pp uplift
35,862
Domains Analyzed
75.7%
Proxied DMARC
53.0%
Non-Proxied DMARC
+22.7pp
Gateway Uplift
25.9%
Self-Hosted DMARC
14.2%
Proxy Adoption Rate

Provider Category — Security Posture

CategoryDomainsSPFDMARCSPF–DMARC Gap
Email Security Proxy4,11197.3%75.7%21.6pp
Enterprise Cloud Email19,19093.2%60.4%32.8pp
Gov/Ed Self-hosted56390.2%55.1%35.1pp
Mid-tier Cloud Email72100.0%50.0%50.0pp
Other / Self-hosted3,60784.0%25.9%58.1pp
Budget / Hosting Email1,52251.3%23.8%27.5pp

Top Email Gateways — DMARC Rates

Gateway ServiceDomainsSPFDMARC
Cisco IronPort211100.0%89.6%
Mimecast45698.7%84.2%
Barracuda1,36898.0%79.3%
Sophos13398.5%78.2%
Proofpoint1,09199.0%73.1%
SpamTitan/TitanHQ87100.0%73.6%
AppRiver/Zix45488.3%66.5%
Cloudflare Email74100.0%60.8%

The self-hosted gap problem: Entities running their own email infrastructure (Other/Self-hosted category) have only 25.9% DMARC adoption — the lowest of any provider category, with the widest SPF-DMARC gap (58.1pp). This represents 3,607 public entities that have SPF records but have not taken the final policy enforcement step. Budget hosting providers like GoDaddy (3.3% DMARC) add another 717 at-risk entities.

Enterprise vs Proxy: Microsoft & Google

ProviderDomainsSPFDMARCGap
Microsoft 3659,20299.1%62.0%37.1pp
Google Workspace9,98887.7%58.9%28.8pp
GoDaddy7177.3%3.3%4.0pp
Microsoft SPF 99.1% but DMARC only 62.0% — 37pp gap needs attention

Proxy Uplift Summary

MetricProxied (4,111)Non-Proxied (24,954)Uplift
MX Records100.0%100.0%
SPF Adoption97.3%89.2%+8.1pp
DMARC Adoption75.7%53.0%+22.7pp
Gateway deployment is the highest-ROI security investment for email authentication

Research Collaboration

Vendor Landscape Research
Provider-level security data across 20+ vendors enables market analysis, competitive benchmarking, and vendor selection research for public sector procurement.
Security ROI Analysis
The +22.7pp proxy uplift quantifies the measurable security benefit of gateway investments — ideal for budget justification studies and compliance reporting.
Procurement Intelligence
Identify which providers are most common in your state or entity type — supports strategic vendor analysis for state-wide email security initiatives.
Proposed next step: Get a free scorecard showing your provider's security posture vs 35,862 public sector peers.
Contact: monitorworkspace.com/scorecard