Emailing event badges with your own SMTP
QRACCESS emails PDF badges, QR tickets, registration confirmations, personalised email campaigns and download alerts through your own SMTP account: your address, your domain, your sender reputation, and full control over every message that carries your brand. This guide covers the setup and how to diagnose deliveries when a message goes missing.
A validated SMTP account is required before any of that can go out. It is also how the platform delivers the download links for exports and other queued tasks — without SMTP, many key features cannot be used properly.
What a working SMTP account unlocks
- QR tickets emailed automatically after each purchase (see selling tickets online).
- Personalised PDF badges, sent one by one or in bulk (see designing badges in PDF).
- Certificates of attendance.
- Event reminders.
- Registration confirmations, and any other transactional message the platform generates.
QRACCESS speaks standard SMTP, so it integrates with the email service you already use — Gmail / Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Brevo, Postmark and more. The exact settings for each provider are collected in SMTP setup by provider.
Checklist before a bulk send
- Go to Configuration > SMTP and validate the sender, host, port, username and password.
- Review the Email Template: subject, body text and the HTML/CSS design of the PDF.
- Send a single test message to a test contact.
- Enable PKPass if you want to attach Apple Wallet passes and have set that up beforehand.
- Run the bulk send once everything checks out.
Delivery tracking
How far you can track each delivery depends on the SMTP service you use. QRACCESS integrates with supported services such as Mailrelay (the default service) and can arrange equivalent SMTP services on request.
Recommended setup: Mailrelay step by step
Mailrelay is our recommended external SMTP server for QRACCESS. You can use any other SMTP provider, but free support is only offered for Mailrelay.
- You configure the account in the control panel at https://control.qraccess.com, under Configuration > SMTP.
- No account yet? You can create a free Mailrelay account: up to 80,000 free emails per month, valid for QRACCESS or for your own email campaigns.
- There is also a Mailrelay Enterprise edition with advanced features: open, click and bounce statistics, custom fields, custom domains so the links in your emails appear under a subdomain of your company, and a developer API. We are Mailrelay distributors — if that edition interests you, ask us.
1. Authenticate your sending domain
- In the Mailrelay panel, go to Configuration > Custom domains > Email authentication. It shows the DNS records (SPF / DKIM) you need to create in your domain registrar's admin panel.
- Once the records exist, press the check button: your domain shows as verified. That is the domain that will appear in the links inside your emails, used to track opens and clicks.
2. Authorise your sender addresses
- In the Mailrelay menu, under Newsletters > Senders, add every address you want to use as the sender of an event or campaign. Each one receives an authorisation email: click its confirmation link and the address shows as authorised.
3. Enter the settings in QRACCESS
In the QRACCESS panel (https://control.qraccess.com), open the Configuration menu and then the SMTP tab:
- Host: Mailrelay's SMTP server is always
smtp1.s.ipzmarketing.com. - Username and password: taken from the Mailrelay panel under Configuration > SMTP settings.
- Port: 587. Encryption type: tls.
- Sender: one of the addresses you authorised in your Mailrelay account.
- Sender name: the name you want to appear as the sender of the message — for example, the name of your company or organisation.
- Press Save.
Mailrelay offers support by email and phone, and we can help you too.
Diagnosing deliveries: common problems and fixes
Emails do not arrive
- Check the recipient's spam folder.
- Verify the SMTP settings in the panel.
- Check the DNS records (SPF / DKIM).
Authentication error
- Wrong username or password.
Emails blocked
- Missing SPF / DKIM configuration.
- Bulk sending from an address with no sender reputation.
- A new domain that is not configured correctly.
Best practices
- Use a professional domain — not a generic Gmail address for a business service in production.
- Configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
- Avoid sending large volumes at the very start: build reputation gradually.
- Always run a test before launching an event.
SMTP settings by provider
Every provider has its quirks: for some the "username" is your email address, for others it is a fixed word or an API key. The exact sheet for each one — host, ports, credentials and sending limits, ready to copy into the panel — covers Mailrelay, Gmail / Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 / Office365, Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Brevo (Sendinblue), Mailchimp (Mandrill), Postmark, SparkPost, Zoho Mail and Elastic Email.
Wrapping up
Setting up SMTP is an essential step to get the full value out of QRACCESS:
- Automated badge and ticket emails.
- A better experience for your attendees.
- More control and a more professional image.
- Access to every feature that sends an email alert, including the download links for queued exports.
It is a simple configuration that unlocks a large part of the platform. Need a hand with the setup, or want us to leave it ready for you? Contact us and we will have it running in minutes.
Would you like to try QRACCESS at your next event?
Create an account and start setting up your first event from the web control panel.
Control panel: https://control.qraccess.com