Personalized Outbound Strategy
Get The Right Outbound Strategy In Minutes
Enter your email to get a custom plan & stack recommendation for your business
It's being carefully crafted by AI
Please check your mailbox in 5 minutes
Choosing between a shared and dedicated IP is one of the harder cold email decisions to make. Both options can send emails and reach inboxes. The difference becomes clear later, when something goes wrong, and you see how well your deliverability holds up.
That uncertainty makes the choice difficult. You might pick a dedicated IP because it sounds more professional or stay with a shared one because it’s simpler. Either way, you may feel like you’re guessing.
Choose the wrong one way, and you pay for control you never use. Choose the wrong one, and your inbox placement partly depends on senders you’ll never meet.
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 mailboxes also belong in this comparison, so I’ll cover them alongside both IP options.
Below, I compare shared and dedicated IPs for cold email based on deliverability, cost, and setup. Then, I’ll help you match each option to how you send today.
Start with where your outreach stands today. Use a shared IP while testing lists and copy. Move to a dedicated IP once your sending is clean enough to build its own reputation.
Choose Google or Microsoft mailboxes when most of your prospects use those providers.
Every email leaves from an IP address, and inbox providers track how mail from that address behaves.
The main difference between shared and dedicated IPs is who else contributes to that record. Almost every other difference follows from this.
On a shared pool, your mailboxes send from IP addresses used by other businesses. Mailforge works this way.
It distributes mailbox accounts across a pool used by millions of businesses, similar to how Gmail and Outlook handle sending.
The common concern is that another sender’s spam could hurt your deliverability. That risk is real because you can’t control how others use the pool. However, the pool also gives you some protection.
Your emails make up a small part of its total volume, so one bad week causes less damage than it would on an IP used only by you. That’s why Mailforge recommends its shared pool to senders expecting more spam reports.
"Email volume is a critical component in both building and maintaining a strong IP reputation. Mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo respond favorably to senders who deploy email consistently."
Danielle Gallant, Sr. Email Strategist
A dedicated IP is used only by your mailboxes. Infraforge gives each setup its own IP on dedicated servers, so another company’s sending doesn't affect your record.
That works both ways. Nobody else can get your IP blacklisted, and any change in inbox placement comes from your campaigns.
But nothing softens your mistakes either. A poorly validated list or spammy copy affects your IP directly, and the damage appears faster than on a shared pool.
Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 mailboxes don’t include dedicated IPs. Emails leave through Google’s or Microsoft’s infrastructure, putting this option closer to the shared model. Primeforge sets up these mailboxes for cold email.
People choose this option for a different reason. Most prospects use Google or Microsoft, so sending from the same provider can improve inbox placement. The trade-off is that you must follow each provider’s rules.
Google controls its sending limits and spam protections, which can change independently of Primeforge.
Primeforge’s mailbox analytics still shows which IPs each mailbox used and whether they’re blacklisted.
Your IP type affects how quickly trust builds and how much mistakes hurt. It doesn’t change what inbox providers expect from your emails.
Inbox providers judge your domains as well as your IP. Your domain reputation follows you regardless of the IP type you choose. That’s why Mailforge spreads leads and spam reports across several secondary domains instead of one.
A dedicated IP won’t rescue a damaged domain, and a shared pool won’t hide a poor list. Infraforge’s guide makes the same point.
Better infrastructure can’t save bad emails, and list quality remains one of the biggest factors in where they land.
A new dedicated IP has no sending history. Infraforge can set it up in minutes, but inbox providers need around two weeks to begin trusting it.
New Mailforge and Primeforge mailboxes need the same warmup period. With a dedicated setup, the IP is also new.
How to handle warmup:
On a dedicated IP, bounces and spam reports quickly damage your reputation. If they continue, every email may land in spam, and your domains or IP could be blacklisted.
Most problems begin with the list:
Track reply and bounce rates. Open rates and link clicks are less reliable, and tracking them can hurt deliverability. If your placement still drops, follow these steps in order.
If you expect many spam reports, Mailforge’s shared pool is the safer starting point. Google and Microsoft also apply their own spam protections to mailboxes using their infrastructure.
Having an IP to yourself doesn’t mean you can connect unlimited mailboxes.
Going beyond 40 mailboxes risks burning your IP. When you need more capacity, buy another IP for your Infraforge workspace and spread your mailboxes across them.
The mailbox price difference is smaller than you may expect. An Infraforge mailbox on a dedicated IP costs about a dollar more each month than a Mailforge mailbox on a shared pool.
"If you care about email deliverability, your choice of IP setup matters." – Yevhenii Odyntsov, Content @Mailtrap
Most of the extra cost comes from the surrounding setup.
For 200 mailboxes, Mailforge lists a monthly cost of $484, while Infraforge lists $651. Bought directly, Google Workspace costs $1,680 and Microsoft 365 costs $1,200. Primeforge charges $4.50 per mailbox, compared with $8.40 through Google Workspace or $6 through Microsoft 365.
Before comparing totals, consider the costs beyond each mailbox:
None of the three products offers a free trial because you must buy domains and mailboxes to use them. You can still create an account and explore the app before buying.
All three products configure SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and custom domain tracking. They also let you update DNS records in bulk. Setup isn’t the main difference. What you must manage afterward is.
No single option is best in every situation, and Forge’s guidance reflects that. I’d choose by answering three questions honestly.
How proven is your outreach? How much do you want to manage yourself? Which email providers do your prospects use?
Mailforge’s shared pool is a good fit when:
Forge describes Mailforge as a quick, affordable starting point with limited control. That’s the trade-off. You get a cheaper setup and some protection from early mistakes, but you can’t control the IP’s reputation yourself.
Infraforge’s dedicated IP is a good fit when:
Consider the second point carefully. A poor list on a dedicated IP affects only you, but you feel the full impact.
When managed well, Infraforge’s guide points to steadier deliverability, more room to scale, and lower long-term costs.
This option works when most prospects use Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 because sending from the same provider can improve placement. You don’t have to guess. Primeforge analytics groups prospects by email provider and shows reply rates for each, allowing you to compare the choice with your results.
It also suits teams building their own sending system. With Google Super Admin access, you can connect a service account through Domain-Wide Delegation and send through the Gmail API without another sending platform. Google’s limits still apply.
If you want to use more than one option, remember that each Forge product requires its own subscription.
Enter your email to get a custom plan & stack recommendation for your business
Please check your mailbox in 5 minutes
The decision becomes easier once you know what cold email needs to achieve over the next few months.
If you’re still learning what works, stay on a shared pool until your lists and copy perform reliably.
If you’ve passed that stage and want results tied directly to your campaigns, choose a dedicated IP.
If most prospects use Google or Microsoft, sending from the same provider may improve your chances of reaching their inboxes.
Whichever setup you choose, connect your mailboxes to Salesforge to run sequences. Contact validation is included, helping you clean each list before it affects your IP.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
