North American MSP email-authentication benchmark 2026 ====================================================== Status: Published 2026-08-14T21:10:00.000Z Audience: MSP, channel, managed-security and IT-service publications Contact target: 40–60 channel publications, MSP associations and practitioner communities Plain-language summary An aggregate benchmark of MSP organizational domains, designed to inform channel operations without ranking named companies or making claims about client environments. Key findings - 566 of 567 MSP organizational domains were observed during the recorded scan window. - DMARC adoption was 89.0% (504/566); enforcement among publishers was 68.5% (345/504). - 16.7% (84/504) of DMARC publishers had no aggregate-reporting address. - SPF recursive lookup failures affected 5.9% (32/542) of SPF publishers; 5/566 domains published multiple SPF records. - Enforcement among DMARC publishers was 61.0% (50/82) in the public 2–9 employee band and 73.2% (90/123) in the 50–249 band. - BIMI was present on 6.1% (21/345) of enforcing domains. - These measurements describe MSP organizational domains only. They do not measure client environments, service quality or private security controls. Embargo approach Offer specialist channel editors an aggregate first look; never use individual results as an outreach threat or sales tactic. Pitch angles - Industry: The aggregate enforcement gap across 500+ MSP organizational domains listed in Clutch's North American markets. - Operational: Why reporting and SPF health matter before an MSP productizes DMARC management. - Standards: A transparent baseline MSP associations can use for member education without ranking firms or inferring client security. Methodology - Freeze factual rows from publicly indexed Clutch U.S., Canada and local MSP result pages, then resolve each public Visit Website destination to the provider domain. - Direct automated access stopped at Clutch's access challenge. The collection did not rotate proxies, solve CAPTCHAs, call private APIs or bypass access controls. - Deduplicate official-site hostnames and retain source-page provenance without copying reviews, descriptions, contacts or marketing copy. - Verify a minimum of 100 mappings manually and publish only aggregate DNS statistics. Limitations - An MSP corporate domain does not describe the authentication state of its clients. - Clutch-listed organizations appearing in the sampled market result pages are a sourced directory cohort, not every North American MSP. - Some firms appear in both national or local markets; market presence is not evidence of headquarters location. - Public service and partnership labels are used only when their source supports a defensible grouping. Publication policy Publish only aggregate results. Use the phrase “MSP organizational domains not currently enforcing DMARC”; never imply that it measures client security or service quality. Sources - Clutch MSP directory: https://clutch.co/it-services/msp, Public discovery source for MSP market listings and official-site destinations. - Clutch public sitemap: https://clutch.co/sitemap.xml, Public discovery route for current directory market pages; no profile copy is republished. Suggested citation Palisade. “North American MSP email-authentication benchmark 2026.” 2026-08-14. https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026 Reusable charts - adoption (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/adoption.svg - adoption (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/adoption.png - reporting (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/reporting.svg - reporting (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/reporting.png - spf (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/spf.svg - spf (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/spf.png - bimi (SVG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/bimi.svg - bimi (PNG): https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026/charts/bimi.png Visible attribution: Source: Palisade: North American MSP email-authentication benchmark 2026 (https://www.palisade.email/research/north-american-msp-email-security-2026), CC BY 4.0.