Frequently asked questions.
Short answers to the questions buyers most often ask before signing up. If yours isn't here, email hello@qwicmail.com — there's a person behind it.
Onboarding
Why isn't there a self-serve signup?
qwicmail uses closed onboarding — every tenant is reviewed by a human before sending is enabled. We do this because the cheap, automated end of the transactional-email market is dominated by abuse, and shared-IP reputation collapses when bad actors land alongside legitimate senders. Curating the tenant list is how we keep the IP pool clean. Review typically completes within one business day.
What information do you need to approve me?
A real business identity (company name, registered address, website), the sending domain you plan to use, and a one-line description of what you'll send (login codes, receipts, alerts, etc). High-volume or regulated-sector use cases may have a short follow-up call. Submit at /request.
Can I evaluate qwicmail before signing a contract?
Yes. Once approved, you can send through staging from day one against the documented sending tiers. The standard and long-form legal documents are available for review on request — see /legal.
Pricing & billing
How does pricing work?
A monthly base subscription that includes a generous send quota, plus metered overage if you exceed it. Both numbers are visible on the /pricing page and pre-computed per plan in the customer portal — no hidden line items. Quotes for higher-volume tiers are arranged directly.
What currencies and payment methods do you support?
qwicmail is Nigeria-first; pricing is published in NGN with USD, GHS, KES, and ZAR also supported in our billing schema. Payments are processed by Paystack (cards, bank transfer, and direct debit on the supported markets). Invoices are downloadable from the portal.
Why don't I see Stripe?
Our customer base and corporate registration are in Nigeria. Paystack has materially better local rails (mobile transfer, NGN settlement, Nigerian invoicing). We'll consider Stripe alongside Paystack when the customer base genuinely warrants it.
What happens if a payment fails?
The platform retries on a published dunning schedule (see
/legal for the binding version). Sending continues
through the grace window; if the dunning runs out, the tenant moves to
suspended. Existing data is preserved for at least 30 days
after suspension so you can settle and reactivate without re-onboarding.
Data, residency, security
Where is my data stored?
Production data lives in Hetzner's Falkenstein region by default. Customers with regulatory requirements for in-country residency (Nigerian banks, for example) can request a regional deployment as part of onboarding — talk to us before signing.
What data do you keep, and for how long?
Message metadata (envelope, status, delivery events) is retained for the operational window needed for diagnostics and billing. Message bodies are retained for a shorter window (default 7 days, configurable in your plan) and then redacted. Full detail is in the Privacy Policy on /legal.
Are you NDPA-aligned? Do you sign a DPA?
Yes. The standard ToS includes the inline data-processing terms required by section 29 of the Nigeria Data Protection Act. A long-form DPA (including the EU SCCs and UK IDTA) is available for procurement teams that need it — request it from legal@qwicmail.com.
Do you have a Banking Customer Addendum?
Yes — aligned with the CBN Risk-Based Cybersecurity Framework for OFIs (2022). Covers data residency, banking-sensitive data exclusions, tightened incident notifications, and right-to-audit. Available on request for CBN-supervised entities.
How fast do you notify on a security incident?
24 hours from confirmed scope. The banking addendum tightens this further for CBN-supervised customers.
Operating the service
What's your SLA?
99.9% Monthly Uptime with tiered service credits and defined support response times (P1 within 1 hour, 24×7; P2 within 4 business hours; P3 within 2 business days). Full text under /legal → Service Level Agreement.
Can I get a dedicated IP?
Available on plans that warrant it. Dedicated IPs need to be warmed over weeks; for most transactional volumes our curated shared pool delivers better placement than a new dedicated IP would. Ask before committing.
Do you support multiple environments (staging, production)?
Yes — mint separate API keys per environment in the portal (Settings → API keys). Each key has its own scopes, name, and audit trail. Tenants are not separated by environment; suppression and reputation are per-tenant, which is usually what you want.
Do you have SDKs?
Not yet. Official SDKs (TypeScript, Python, Go, Ruby) are a Phase 5
deliverable. The REST API is small and the examples in
/docs/api are curl-based, which
translates trivially to any HTTP client.
Can I sign templates and reuse them?
Server-rendered templates (Maizzle-based) ship in Phase 5. Today, send fully-rendered HTML and we deliver it. If you're using a template engine on your side (Handlebars, Jinja, Liquid …), you're already set.
Compare
How is this different from Resend / Postmark / SES?
Each takes a different lane:
- SES — cheapest by far if you can do all the deliverability ops yourself. We're a managed layer with people you can talk to and a curated IP pool you don't have to warm.
- Resend — developer-first, optimised for fast self-serve signup. We're the opposite: closed onboarding, manual verification, no anonymous senders mixed into the pool.
- Postmark — closest in posture (premium, transactional-only, operator-led). The difference is geographic: we're Nigeria-first (NGN pricing, Lagos legal jurisdiction, an addendum for CBN-supervised customers) and operate the engine on Hetzner.
If you're sending newsletters or marketing blasts, none of us are the right tool — that's a separate market.
Can I migrate from another provider?
Yes, and we'll help. The mechanical work is: register your sending domain in qwicmail, publish DKIM, verify, swap the API call. Reputation transfers naturally because the receiving servers care about your From-domain reputation, not your previous provider's IPs. If you have an existing suppression list, we can import it as part of onboarding.