When teams look at delivery logs, they often see two numbers that appear interchangeable: accepted and delivered. On the surface they sound like synonyms, but anyone who has stared at a flatlined open rate after a “successful” send knows the difference matters.
An "accepted" status means a receiving server initially took the message from your provider. "Delivered" confirms that the message was successfully handed off to the recipient's mailbox. However, everything between those two checkpoints-filtering decisions, throttling, temporary deferrals-determines how many people actually see your email in their inbox.
This guide breaks down what those statuses really mean, why the distinction shows up in your performance metrics, and how to monitor them without getting lost in platform jargon.
TL;DR: Accepted vs. Delivered
- Accepted = The recipient’s server said “sure, we’ll take it from here” in an initial handshake.
- Delivered = The message was successfully transferred to the recipient's mailbox. This does not guarantee it landed in the inbox.
- A strong program tracks both so you can spot spam-filter detours or infrastructure issues quickly.
If you’re troubleshooting bigger delivery swings, bookmark troubleshooting email delivery issues and monitoring email delivery and reputation for deeper dives.
What Is Email Status?
Deliverability dashboards read like flight trackers: every status shows where a message is in transit. Providers name the steps differently, but the core milestones stay consistent. Messages sit in a send queue, move to “sent” once your platform hands them off, show up as “accepted” when the destination server takes responsibility, and ultimately land as “delivered” if nothing breaks along the way. Bounces and deferrals flag the exceptions-hard bounces for permanent failures, soft bounces or deferrals when the other side asks you to try again later. Knowing the vocabulary makes it easier to spot bottlenecks without guessing.
Email Delivery Stages
Think of the journey in five beats. First, your platform queues the message. Second, it opens a connection and sends the data. Third, the receiving server gives an acknowledgment-this is the “accepted” moment everyone focuses on. Fourth, that server does its internal filtering and, assuming everything checks out, places the email in the inbox. If something goes wrong-bad address, policy violation, full mailbox-you’ll see a bounce instead. Mapping the flow like this keeps status reports from feeling abstract.
Accepted vs Delivered
Accepted
An accepted status is the receiving server saying, “Got it, thanks.” That’s good news-you cleared the infrastructure hurdles like DNS authentication and IP reputation. It does not, however, promise the message reached someone’s inbox. The server can still file it in spam, hold it for additional checks, or drop it if later filters fail.
Delivered
Delivered is the final handoff: the server placed the email in the recipient's mailbox. It's the last status an email provider can confirm. From this point on, mailbox providers like Gmail or Outlook can still filter the message to spam or other folders. If your accepted rate is strong but your open rates are lagging, you’re likely facing a filtering or engagement problem, not a transport issue.
Other Email Statuses
Bounced
Bounce events flag addresses you couldn’t reach. Hard bounces signal permanent issues-a non-existent mailbox or blocked domain-so suppress those contacts right away. Soft bounces point to temporary problems like a full inbox or a brief outage. Most providers will retry soft bounces automatically; keep an eye on repeated failures and clean them up if they persist.
Deferred
Deferred messages sit in limbo because the receiving server asked you to slow down. Maybe you hit a rate limit, maybe they’re busy. Your provider will usually retry for a set window. If deferrals become a pattern, check your sending cadence-batching tools and better list hygiene often fix the bottleneck.
Opened/Clicked
Opens and clicks live downstream from transport metrics, but they complete the picture. Healthy engagement tells mailbox providers your messages deserve a spot in the inbox. If accepted and delivered look solid while engagement falls, it’s time to refresh content, targeting, or cadence.
How to Track Email Status
You don’t need a wall of dashboards to stay informed. Start with your provider’s analytics to understand accepted, delivered, and bounce trends. Layer in webhooks if you want delivery events piped into your own systems for alerts or custom reporting. Then review the outliers-campaigns with unusual gaps or spikes usually reveal authentication errors, list quality problems, or suddenly disengaged segments. Treat status data like an early-warning system rather than a vanity metric.
Where Bento Helps
If you need a platform that takes status data seriously, Bento bakes the essentials in. Delivery logs show accepted, delivered, deferred, and bounced events in real time, and webhooks push those updates wherever your team wants them. More importantly, the infrastructure work that protects those numbers-SPF, DKIM, DMARC, reputation monitoring, batching controls-comes included. You can focus on the messages themselves instead of juggling tooling just to figure out where an email went.
Next Steps
If accepted and delivered still feel interchangeable, start tracking them separately on your next send. Set a baseline for both metrics, wire up webhooks if you need faster alerts, and dig into any campaign where accepted outpaces delivered by a wide margin. Pair that with the resources below when you need deeper troubleshooting:
The sooner you treat accepted vs. delivered as two distinct checkpoints, the easier it becomes to spot deliverability drift before revenue takes a hit.