B
Evidence Grade B
Graded
accuracy verified by the review judge
Safe to Cite
Current
53.6%
53.6% -- share of domains using softfail qualifier for SPF-enabled domains (2026)
53.6% of domains configure their SPF record with the softfail (~all) qualifier.
Attribution:
View source
Lighthouse Research Team
Last verified:
·
How we verify data →
Source verified
Evidence graded
Value
53.6%
Unit
Percentage
Data Vintage
2026
Entity
Sample Size
5,499,028
Evidence Quality
B
Strong, reliable evidence
Sourced from a well-regarded research firm or industry leader with transparent methodology and a reasonably large sample.
Single source - not yet corroborated
Score breakdown
Extraction
95
Source Trust
60
Citation Chain
20
Independence
30
Methodology
45
Freshness
95
Source
DMARCguard
Primary
Tier A
https://dmarcguard.io/blog/spf-permerror-fix/ ↗
Source Article
SPF PermError: How to Find and Fix It (2026 Guide) | DMARCguard
SPF PermError: What Causes It and How to Fix It Step-by-Step
In our SPF Supply Chain Study, we scanned 5,499,028 domains and found 148,655 with SPF configurations that exceed the 10-lookup limit — the most common trigger for SPF PermError. If your emails are silently failing authentication, an inval…
Original Research
DMARCguard
· Original study ↗
Methodology
DMARCguard SPF Supply Chain Study
Methodology documented
Segmentation
Industrymarketing
Cite this stat
Plain Text
SPF-enabled domains: 53.6% share of domains using softfail qualifier. Source: DMARCguard (2026). Via Lighthouse Intelligence -- https://lighthousedata.io/data/softfail-usage-spf-2026
HTML Embed
<blockquote cite="https://lighthousedata.io/data/softfail-usage-spf-2026" style="border-left:3px solid #2563eb;padding:12px 16px;margin:16px 0;font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;background:#f0f4ff;"><strong>53.6%</strong> -- share of domains using softfail qualifier for SPF-enabled domains<br><small>Source: DMARCguard (2026) · <a href="https://lighthousedata.io/data/softfail-usage-spf-2026" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lighthouse Intelligence</a></small></blockquote>
Share
Use this data in your work
Copy the citation, embed the widget, or explore thousands more verified marketing statistics -- all free.