MXToolbox Alternatives (2026): Free Tools That Cover the Same Jobs

Looking for an MXToolbox alternative? Here's the short answer: for the everyday jobs — MX lookups, DNS record checks, DMARC, SPF, and DKIM validation, blacklist checks, and header analysis — Palisade's free tools cover the same ground, with guided fixes built in. Google Admin Toolbox and dmarcian's free tools are also credible picks. What none of these fully replace is MXToolbox's live SMTP connection testing and its paid Delivery Center monitoring. This guide maps each MXToolbox job to a free equivalent so you can decide tool by tool.

One thing up front: MXToolbox is a good product. It has been the default diagnostic site for mail admins for years, and it earned that spot. "Alternative" here doesn't mean "MXToolbox is bad" — it means you have options, and some of them fit an MSP workflow better.

What does MXToolbox actually do?

MXToolbox is best known for its free lookups. The core pieces:

MX Lookup lists a domain's MX records in priority order and queries the domain's authoritative name server directly, so record changes should show up instantly.
SuperTool bundles more than 20 lookup types into one box: MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI, MTA-STS, TLS-RPT, plus general DNS records (A, AAAA, CNAME, PTR, TXT), WHOIS, ASN, ping, and traceroute.
Blacklist Check tests a mail server IP or domain against more than 100 DNS-based blocklists (DNSBLs/RBLs).
SMTP diagnostics open a live connection to the mail server itself: they verify reverse DNS, perform a simple open relay check, and measure response time.
Email Header Analyzer parses raw headers per RFC 822 into a readable report with hop delays and anti-spam results.
Domain Health runs hundreds of domain, email, and network tests in one report, grouped into blacklist, mail server, web server, and DNS issues. Free accounts get one Domain Health check per 24 hours.

What's free in MXToolbox and what's paid?

The lookups above are free. The paid side is Delivery Center, MXToolbox's monitoring and deliverability product. At the time of writing, their products page lists Delivery Center at $129/month (5 domains, 500,000 messages/month, inbox placement analysis, blacklist monitoring, delivery performance reports) and Delivery Center Plus at $399/month (5,000,000 messages/month, adds SPF flattening and advanced threat tools). A free MXToolbox account includes weekly blacklist monitoring for one domain, and a fully managed service is available via their sales team.

That pricing is the most common reason people search for alternatives. The free lookups are genuinely free, but the jump from one weekly blacklist monitor to $129/month is steep — especially for MSPs managing more than the 5 included domains.

Which free tools cover each MXToolbox job?

Here's the job-by-job map. Every Palisade tool below is free to run in the browser.

Job to be done	MXToolbox tool	Free Palisade equivalent
List a domain's MX records	MX Lookup	MX record lookup
Look up A, AAAA, TXT, CNAME, NS records	SuperTool DNS lookups	DNS lookup
Check a DMARC record	SuperTool `dmarc:` lookup	DMARC checker
Validate an SPF record	SuperTool `spf:` lookup	SPF checker
Verify a DKIM selector	SuperTool `dkim:` lookup	DKIM checker
Make sense of raw email headers	Email Header Analyzer	Email header analyzer
Check if a domain has reputation problems	Blacklist Check (domain)	Domain reputation check
Check if a sending IP is blocklisted	Blacklist Check (IP)	IP reputation check
Grade a domain's overall email setup	Domain Health (one free check per 24 hours)	Email security score
Create a DMARC record from scratch	DMARC Record Generator	DMARC generator
Create an SPF record from scratch	SPF Record Generator	SPF generator

A few notes on the mapping. Palisade's DNS lookup resolves through Google (8.8.8.8) and Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) public resolvers rather than your machine's cached resolver, which helps when you're verifying that a fresh DNS change is publicly visible. The header analyzer traces hops and delays like MXToolbox's does, and shows the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC results recorded in the headers. And the email security score grades DMARC, SPF, DKIM, and BIMI in one pass and ranks the fixes by impact — useful when a client asks "how bad is it?" and you need one number. MXToolbox's closest equivalent is its Domain Health report, which sweeps wider (it also covers web server and general DNS health) but caps free use at one check per 24 hours.

What does MXToolbox do that these alternatives don't?

Being honest about the gaps matters more on a comparison page than anywhere else:

Comparison card listing MXToolbox free tools next to Palisade free tools

Both toolsets are free — the overlap covers most daily email checks.

Live SMTP connection testing. MXToolbox actually connects to a mail server, checks reverse DNS, and runs a simple open relay test. Palisade's free tools read DNS and headers; they don't open SMTP sessions. If a server isn't answering on port 25, MXToolbox's diagnostics remain the fastest free way to see it.
Network utilities. Ping, traceroute, WHOIS, and ASN lookups live inside SuperTool. Palisade doesn't offer these.
Blacklist breadth and monitoring. MXToolbox checks more than 100 DNSBLs on demand; a free account adds weekly monitoring for one domain, and its paid Delivery Center plans include adaptive sender blacklist monitoring. Palisade's domain and IP reputation checks are on-demand, not scheduled monitors.
Inbox placement analytics. Delivery Center's message-volume reporting and complaint tracking have no equivalent in any free toolset listed here.

If those are your daily drivers, keep MXToolbox bookmarked. The free tools don't expire, and nothing stops you from mixing toolsets.

What other MXToolbox alternatives are worth a look?

If you're searching for sites like MXToolbox rather than a single replacement tool, two more are worth knowing, both free:

Google Admin Toolbox — Google's own debugging utilities for Workspace admins. Check MX is a DNS validation tool that looks for common MX record misconfigurations, Dig is a web-based equivalent of the Unix dig command, and Messageheader analyzes SMTP headers to help identify the root cause of delivery delays. Spartan but fast, and excellent when the problem involves Gmail or Google Workspace.
dmarcian's free tools — nine authentication-focused tools usable without an account, including a Domain Checker (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC in one scan), SPF Surveyor, DKIM Inspector, a DMARC record wizard, and an XML-to-human converter for reading raw DMARC reports. The deepest free option if your work is purely DMARC.

If what you actually need is a managed DMARC platform rather than lookup tools, that's a different comparison — see our guide to the best DMARC tools for MSPs.

How do you switch your daily checks over?

You don't need a migration plan for free browser tools, but this order makes the switch painless:

List the lookups you actually run. For most MSPs that's MX, blacklist, DMARC/SPF/DKIM, and headers — five bookmarks.
Baseline each client domain with the email security score. It replaces the "run four SuperTool lookups and eyeball the results" routine with one graded report.
Verify records at the source. Use the MX and DNS lookup tools to confirm what's actually published. (New to MX records? Start with what an MX record is.)
Fill the gaps with generators. Where a checker tells you a record is missing, the DMARC generator and SPF generator build a correct one you can paste straight into DNS. A healthy starter DMARC record looks like this:

_dmarc.yourdomain.com.  IN  TXT  "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com"

Keep MXToolbox for SMTP session tests. No reason to give up the one job it still does best.

Common issues

MXToolbox says "No DMARC Record found." The most famous red banner in email. It means exactly what it says: the domain has no _dmarc TXT record, so mailbox providers can't apply any policy. Build one with the DMARC generator and follow our step-by-step fix.

One tool says you're blocklisted, another says you're clean. Different checkers query different DNSBL sets, and lists delist on their own schedules. Check both the domain and the sending IP — a clean domain on a dirty shared IP is common, and the fix (contact the provider or move senders) is different from a domain-level listing.

A DNS change you just made doesn't show up. That's TTL caching, not a broken tool. Your machine and your ISP's resolver keep serving the old value until the TTL expires. Run the DNS lookup — it asks Google and Cloudflare's public resolvers instead of your local cache, so you can see whether the new value is publicly visible yet.

SPF fails with "too many DNS lookups." SPF allows a maximum of 10 DNS lookups per check; nested include: statements from multiple SaaS senders blow past it fast. MXToolbox sells SPF flattening in Delivery Center Plus; you can also consolidate includes manually — our SPF alignment guide walks through it, and the SPF checker counts your lookups.

Frequently asked questions

Is MXToolbox free? The core lookups (MX, DNS, blacklist, SuperTool, header analyzer) are free. Monitoring and deliverability analytics are paid: their products page lists Delivery Center at $129/month and Delivery Center Plus at $399/month at the time of writing, with a free account limited to weekly blacklist monitoring on one domain.

What's the best free MXToolbox alternative? It depends on the job. Palisade's free tools cover the widest slice of daily MXToolbox use (records, reputation, headers, plus generators and a graded score). Google Admin Toolbox is best for quick MX/dig/header checks, especially around Google Workspace. dmarcian's free tools go deepest on DMARC specifically.

Can I check email blacklists without MXToolbox? Yes. Palisade's domain reputation and IP reputation checks report blocklist status free. Note that MXToolbox's on-demand check covers 100+ DNSBLs; no two checkers query identical list sets, so results can differ at the margins.

Do I still need MXToolbox for anything? For live SMTP connection tests, open relay checks, ping, traceroute, and WHOIS — yes, it's still the most convenient free option. Most everything else has a free equivalent now.

Does Palisade replace Delivery Center's monitoring? Not with its free tools — those are on-demand checks. Palisade's paid platform is DMARC monitoring and automation built for MSPs managing many client domains, which overlaps with Delivery Center on the email-authentication side but focuses on multi-tenant automation rather than message-volume analytics. If you're weighing platforms, start with the email security score to see where each domain stands.