CAN-SPAM Act Compliance
SenderWiz is fully compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act and provides built-in tools to help you send compliant commercial emails.
Last updated: March 2026
1. What Is the CAN-SPAM Act?
The CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003) is a United States federal law that establishes the rules for commercial email, gives recipients the right to stop receiving emails, and spells out penalties for violations.
The law applies to all commercial messages — defined as any electronic mail message whose primary purpose is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service. This includes emails that promote content on commercial websites. The law does not distinguish between business-to-business and business-to-consumer email — both are covered.
SenderWiz is fully compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act and provides built-in tools to help all our users maintain compliance.
2. Key CAN-SPAM Requirements
The CAN-SPAM Act outlines seven main requirements for commercial email. Every email you send through SenderWiz must meet these standards:
No false or misleading headers
The "From," "To," "Reply-To," and routing information must accurately identify the person or business who initiated the message.
No deceptive subject lines
The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the email and not mislead recipients about the message's purpose.
Identify as advertisement
If the message is an advertisement, it must be clearly and conspicuously identified as such. The law gives flexibility in how to do this.
Include physical postal address
Every commercial email must include the sender's valid physical postal address — this can be a current street address, a registered P.O. Box, or a private mailbox.
Provide opt-out mechanism
Every commercial email must include a clear, conspicuous, and easy-to-use way for recipients to opt out of receiving future commercial messages from you.
Honor opt-outs within 10 days
You must honor opt-out requests within 10 business days. You cannot charge a fee, require any information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply or visiting a single page.
Monitor third-party compliance
Even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you cannot contract away your legal responsibility. Both the company whose product is promoted and the company that sends the message can be held legally responsible.
3. How SenderWiz Helps You Comply
Our platform is designed with CAN-SPAM compliance built in. Here's how SenderWiz makes it easy to send compliant commercial emails:
Automatic Unsubscribe Links
Every email sent through SenderWiz automatically includes a one-click unsubscribe link in both the email footer and the List-Unsubscribe header. Recipients can opt out with a single click — no login, confirmation pages, or additional steps required.
Physical Address Insertion
Configurable footer blocks automatically include your physical mailing address in every email. Set it once in your account settings and it's inserted into every campaign, template, and automated sequence.
Instant Opt-Out Processing
Unsubscribe requests are processed immediately and automatically — not just within the required 10 days. Once a recipient unsubscribes, they are instantly added to your suppression list and will not receive any further commercial emails from your account.
Bounce Management
Hard bounces are automatically detected and suppressed to prevent continued mailing to invalid addresses. Soft bounces are retried intelligently and suppressed after repeated failures. This protects your sender reputation and ensures compliance.
Sender Domain Verification
We verify all sender domains and email addresses through SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication. This prevents spoofing, ensures accurate sender identification, and builds trust with recipient mail servers.
Content Compliance Checks
Before sending, our system checks for common compliance issues including missing unsubscribe links, absent physical addresses, deceptive subject line patterns, and misleading sender information.
4. Your Responsibilities
While SenderWiz provides the tools for compliance, you as the sender bear ultimate responsibility for ensuring your emails comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. Specifically, you must:
- Truthful content: Ensure your email content is honest, non-deceptive, and accurately represents your products or services
- Accurate sender information: Use accurate sender names, email addresses, and reply-to addresses that correctly identify you or your business
- Valid physical address: Maintain a valid physical postal address in your SenderWiz account settings and ensure it appears in every email
- Preserve unsubscribe links: Never remove, hide, or tamper with the unsubscribe links that SenderWiz automatically includes
- Respect opt-outs: Never re-add contacts who have unsubscribed or import them from another system
- Jurisdiction compliance: Comply with all applicable email marketing laws in your jurisdiction and the jurisdictions of your recipients — CAN-SPAM sets the floor, not the ceiling
- Third-party accountability: If you use SenderWiz to send emails on behalf of another company, both you and that company are responsible for compliance
- Transactional vs. commercial: Correctly classify your emails — transactional messages (order confirmations, shipping notifications, account alerts) have different rules than commercial messages
5. Penalties for Non-Compliance
The consequences of CAN-SPAM violations are severe and apply per individual email:
- FTC enforcement: The Federal Trade Commission can impose fines of up to $50,120 per non-compliant email (as of 2024 adjustment for inflation)
- ISP lawsuits: Internet Service Providers can sue senders for CAN-SPAM violations under certain circumstances
- Criminal penalties: Aggravated violations — such as harvesting email addresses, using false identities, or employing dictionary attacks — can result in criminal prosecution including imprisonment
- SenderWiz enforcement: Accounts that violate CAN-SPAM requirements will face immediate sending suspension, investigation, and potential termination per our Anti-Spam Policy
For more information about CAN-SPAM enforcement, visit the FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide.
6. Questions?
If you have questions about CAN-SPAM compliance or need help configuring your account for compliance, our team is ready to assist.
Our compliance team can help you configure your account for CAN-SPAM compliance:
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