Mandrill

One Mandrill (Mailchimp Transactional) API key covers both its API and its SMTP server, and its webhooks report what happened after the handoff — confirmed deliveries, bounces, deferrals, rejections, and spam reports — which powers the delivered state, webhooks like mail.delivered and mail.bounced, and automatic suppressions.

Before you start

• A Mandrill account with your sender domain verified (DKIM and SPF) — see Deliverability for what each record proves.
• A Mandrill API key (Settings → SMTP & API Info).

Add the account in Mailway

1. Add the provider.

   In the console, open Providers → New provider, pick Mandrill and paste the API key. Secrets are encrypted at rest. The one key gives the account both transports: mail that reaches Mailway’s SMTP relay goes on over Mandrill’s SMTP server (smtp.mandrillapp.com, port 465, implicit TLS, with the key as the password), and HTTP API and console mail go over Mandrill’s API.

   Tip

   Leave Send via on Auto. Set to API only, relayed mail can’t be handed over as-is, because Mandrill’s API is structured-only. It then skips the account unless a project admin enables re-encoding on the attachment.

2. Attach it to a project.

   Open the project, attach the provider, and position it in the failover order. Send something — the provider health panel starts filling in.

Delivery events

Without delivery events, Mandrill only reports that it accepted the mail. With them, Mandrill tells Mailway what happened afterwards.

1. Open delivery tracking. In the console, open the provider → Delivery tracking (beside Configure). Mailway creates the provider’s webhook URL and shows it ready to copy. The URL contains a per-provider secret — treat it like a password (regenerating it at the bottom of the dialog revokes the old one instantly).

2. Add the webhook in Mandrill. In Mandrill’s webhook settings, add a webhook with the URL you copied — Mandrill checks the URL exists before saving, and Mailway answers. Tick delivered, hard bounce, soft bounce, deferred, rejected, and marked as spam. “Message is sent” isn’t a delivery (it means Mandrill sent it, not that anyone received it), and opens, clicks, and unsubscribes are engagement — Mailway ignores those.

3. Store the webhook key (required). Copy the new webhook’s key and paste it into the dialog’s Paste the signing secret step (Mandrill webhook key). Mailway accepts only events that carry Mandrill’s valid signature: until the key is stored, every event sent to the URL is refused.

What each event does in Mailway

Mandrill event	Mailway outcome
Delivered	The mail turns delivered (confirmed by the provider’s event).
Sent	Ignored — Mandrill sent it; no receiving server has answered yet.
Hard bounce	The mail turns bounced; the address is auto-suppressed for the project.
Soft bounce	Recorded as soft_bounced (temporary; a later delivery outranks it).
Deferral	Recorded as soft_bounced (temporary; a later delivery outranks it). Mandrill is still retrying.
Rejected	Recorded as dropped: Mandrill refused the message before sending. The mail keeps its state.
Marked as spam	The mail turns complained; the address is auto-suppressed.

Note

Events correlate to mails through Mandrill’s per-recipient message id, which Mandrill’s API returns when the mail is handed off — Mailway keeps every recipient’s id, so API sends correlate exactly, recipient by recipient. Correlation of mail relayed over Mandrill’s SMTP transport is still being verified. An event only ever affects mail your own team sent through that provider; an uncorrelated event is still recorded and visible, just not pinned to a specific mail.

Check the connection

• Connection check. The provider page’s connection check logs in over SMTP and makes one read-only API call, without sending anything.
• Delivery events. Send a test email from the Delivery tracking dialog’s last step: it waits for Mandrill’s first event and ticks when it arrives. After a real send, the mail’s timeline shows the delivered or bounced step with Mandrill’s own details attached.

What Mandrill changes

Not tested yet. What Mandrill changes before delivery will appear in What providers change once it is.

Limits

Your Mandrill plan’s own sending limits apply. Mailway adds none for Mandrill beyond your Mailway plan’s quotas.