Anyone else seeing Outlook bounces spike this week?
bouncebetty · 2026-03-03 · 890 views
Starting Monday my bounce rates to Outlook and Hotmail addresses went from 1.5% to 6%. Nothing changed on my end — same lists, same copy, same PuzzleInbox inboxes, same Instantly settings.
From the replies: multiple people experienced the same thing. Appears to be a temporary Microsoft infrastructure issue that caused increased bounces for a few days. Rates returned to normal by Wednesday for most people.
Key takeaway: always monitor bounce rates daily. When you see a sudden spike with no changes on your end, check if others are experiencing the same thing before making drastic changes to your setup. Sometimes it is the receiving infrastructure, not yours.
Comments (6)
warmup_wiz · 2026-03-03
yes! saw the exact same thing starting Monday. bounce rate to Outlook/Hotmail went from 1.2% to 5.8%. checked everything on my end — DNS fine, inboxes fine, lists are verified. it's definitely on Microsoft's side
inboxwhisper · 2026-03-03
can confirm. multiple clients across different providers all seeing the same Outlook bounce spike. not domain-specific. looks like a Microsoft infrastructure issue
tina_infra · 2026-03-04
this is why you should always pause and investigate before panicking. if you see a sudden spike across multiple domains with no changes on your end, check the community first. nine times out of ten it's the receiving side
frustratedfrank · 2026-03-04
I almost burned my domains rotating everything when this happened. glad I checked here first. bounces are back to normal today for me. would have wasted so much money if I panic-replaced everything
bouncebetty · 2026-03-05
update: rates are back to normal as of Wednesday afternoon. seems like it was a 48 hour Microsoft issue. no action needed on our end
enterprise_closer · 2026-03-05
pro tip: set up alerts in your sending platform for bounce rate thresholds. if bounces go above 3% you get notified immediately instead of finding out days later. saved us multiple times