Understanding the SendGrid email integration

Last updated: June 4, 2026

Onboarded sends onboarding emails through SendGrid, an email provider you connect to your own account. This explains what the integration does, why it's there, and who owns the SendGrid side.

What it is

SendGrid is the email-delivery service (a Twilio product) Onboarded uses to send onboarding emails. The SendGrid integration is the connection between your Onboarded account and a SendGrid account — you provide a SendGrid API Key and a Sender Email, and Onboarded uses them to send email on your behalf.

If you remember nothing else: Onboarded doesn't send onboarding emails from its own mailbox. It sends them through a SendGrid account that you connect, from an address you control.

Why it matters

Any automation that emails a candidate — a welcome message, a reminder, a document request — sends through this integration. Until it's connected, the Send email automation action has no credentials to send with, so those emails don't go out. Connecting SendGrid is what turns on email for your account, and it's what makes those emails come from your own domain rather than a generic address.

This matters most when:

  • You're setting up your first email automation.

  • You want candidates to receive email from your company's domain.

  • Emails save and appear to send in Onboarded but never arrive — usually a SendGrid-side domain problem (see below).

How it works

The connection

You connect SendGrid from Account Settings → Integrations → SendGrid → Configure. The panel asks for two things: an API Key from your SendGrid account and a Sender Email — the from-address candidates will see. When you save, Onboarded checks the key with SendGrid before storing it, so an invalid key, or one without sending permission, is rejected on the spot. Once connected, the key is stored encrypted and only ever shown masked (SG-…) next to the Sender Email, with a Connected status.

Where the email content lives

Onboarded doesn't store the design of your emails — your SendGrid account does, as dynamic templates. When an automation runs, Onboarded calls SendGrid with the template to use and the data to fill it (candidate name, dates, links, and other facts), and SendGrid renders and delivers the message. So the look of an email is managed in SendGrid; what triggers it and what data it carries is managed in Onboarded.

Domain authentication

The Sender Email has to belong to a domain that's authenticated in SendGrid. This is the part that trips people up: an address on an unauthenticated domain saves without complaint, but SendGrid quietly drops the messages — so the email looks sent on the Onboarded side and never arrives. Authenticating the sending domain in SendGrid is what makes delivery reliable. The step-by-step is in the how-to below.

You need a SendGrid account to send onboarding emails. You have a few paths:

  • Bring your own SendGrid account and connect it.

  • If you signed up through a partner, reach out to them — they may manage SendGrid (and your email templates) on your behalf.

  • Don't have one? You can use Onboarded's SendGrid account — reach out to support and we'll set that up for you.

Example

Take an account that hires warehouse staff and wants every new candidate to get a welcome email the moment they're added to a placement. The team builds the email design as a dynamic template in their company's SendGrid account, authenticates their domain there, and generates an API key. In Onboarded, they open Account Settings → Integrations, configure SendGrid with that key and a Sender Email of onboarding@theircompany.com, and save. Their welcome automation now sends through SendGrid, and candidates receive an email from theircompany.com rather than a generic address. When the team later adds a reminder automation, it uses the same connection — there's nothing more to set up.