Utility API

Experimental endpoints for blacklist lookups, email validation, content moderation, gender guessing, and IP geolocation. Use them to screen signups, enrich subscriber data, and check sending reputation.

Looking for the overview of why Bento blocks certain emails? See the Spam API overview. For endpoint details, see the Spam API reference.

These endpoints are all considered experimental and subject to change, as we continuously refine and enhance based on user feedback and technological changes.

Available Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Name
GET	experimental/blacklist	Search Blacklists
POST	experimental/validation	Validate Email
POST	experimental/jesses_ruleset	Validate Email (Jesse's Ruleset)
POST	experimental/content_moderation	Moderate Content
POST	experimental/gender	Guess Gender
GET	experimental/geolocation	Geolocate IP Address

GET/v1/experimental/blacklist

Search Blacklists

The Blacklist Model

Validates the IP or domain name with industry email reputation services to check for delivery issues.

A true value for any of the keys in the model indicates a problem

Properties

Name
just_registeredboolean
Description
true / false flag if the domain age is flagged.
Name
spamhausboolean
Description
Spamhaus considers mail from this domain or IP to likely contain spam.
Name
nordspamboolean
Description
Nordspam considers mail from this domain or IP to likely contain spam.
Name
spfblboolean
Description
Spfbl considers mail from this domain or IP to likely contain spam.
Name
sorbsboolean
Description
Sorbs considers mail from this domain or IP to likely contain spam.
Name
abusixboolean
Description
Abusix considers mail from this domain or IP to likely contain spam.

You can provide either a domain or an IP to be looked up.

Only IPv4 addresses are currently supported.

Required Attributes

Name
domainstring
Description
Please provide just the domain (e.g., google.com) without including the protocol (such as http:// or https://)
Name
ipstring
Description
Please provide just the IP address.

Response

Returns a boolean result for each reputation service checked.

Results can be null if all the checks return false.

POST/v1/experimental/validation

Validate Email

The Validate Email Model

Validates the email address using the provided information to infer its validity.

Properties

Name
validboolean
Description
true / false flag if the email address is considered valid.

Validate the submitted email address against spam patterns.

Required Attributes

Name
emailstring
Description
Validates an email's domain using MX records.

Optional Attributes

Name
namestring
Description
The contact's full name. Heavy bias towards US Census Data. False positives possible.
Name
user_agentstring
Description
The user agent as a string.
Name
ipstring
Description
The user's IP address. Accepted for compatibility but not currently used in the validation result. See the Spam API reference for current behavior.

Response

Returns a single valid boolean for the submitted email.

POST/v1/experimental/jesses_ruleset

Validate Email (Against Jesse's Ruleset)

The Validate Email (Against Jesse's Ruleset) Model

Validates the email address using the provided information to infer its validity. This is a custom ruleset that Jesse, the Founder of Bento, has created that we use in our own application. It is extremely strict so use with caution. We recommend logging failures to monitor them so you don't get any false positives.

Required Attributes

Name
emailstring
Description
Validates an email's domain using MX records.

Optional Attributes

Name
block_free_providersboolean
Description
Whether to block free email providers.
Name
wiggleroomboolean
Description
Set to true to reduce a few extremely opinionated checks.

Response

Returns a valid flag plus a list of reasons when the email fails a check.

POST/v1/experimental/content_moderation

Moderate Content

The Moderate Content Model

Opinionated content moderation for short text. It flags links, XSS, and other unsafe input, then returns a safe version of the content.

Properties

Name
validboolean
Description
true / false flag if the supplied content is considered safe.
Name
reasonsarray
Description
string values of the issues found with the supplied content.
Name
safe_original_contentstring
Description
A safe version of the supplied content.

This endpoint will return an opinionated moderation score based on the content provided. This is optimized for small amounts of text content, where you never want a link/XSS/etc inside it.

Required Attributes

Name
contentstring
Description
The content you wish to moderate.

Response

Returns a valid flag, the reasons any content was flagged, and a sanitized copy of the original content.

POST/v1/experimental/gender

Guess Gender

The Gender Guess Model

Guess a subscriber's gender using their first and last name. Best for US users; based on US Census Data. The model returns the guessed gender and a confidence score.

Properties

Name
genderstring
Description
The guessed gender based on census data.
Name
confidencefloat
Description
Confidence level of the guess.

This endpoint allows you to guess the gender of a subscriber based on their first name and last name. Works best with US users as we use US Census Data to make our guesses.

Required Attributes

Name
namestring
Description
Full name of the subscriber, or first and last name together.

Response

Returns the guessed gender and a confidence score.

The response will always return a confidence level.

GET/v1/experimental/geolocation

Geolocate IP Address

GeoIP lookup is disabled. This endpoint returns {} for compatibility. Do not build new integrations on it.

Legacy endpoint kept for backward compatibility.

Required Attributes

Name
ipstring
Description
IPv4 address. Accepted for compatibility.

Response

Returns an empty JSON object.

Name
(empty object)object
Description
Always {}. Location lookup is disabled.