SendGrid Integration
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SendGrid Integration

Send your ATS candidate email through your own SendGrid account — paste an API key, verify a sender, and every interview invite and update carries your domain's reputation.

2 min read · Updated July 2026 · Expertini Editorial

The email your ATS sends — interview invitations, assessment links, offer notifications — is employer-brand communication, and deliverability is part of the brand. The SendGrid integration lets your organisation route all of that candidate email through its own SendGrid account: your verified sender address, your domain authentication, your deliverability reputation, your sending analytics. Setup is deliberately simple because SendGrid designed it that way — an API key, not an OAuth dance.

Connect it on the Connectors page: paste an API key from your SendGrid account, enter the sender address you've verified with SendGrid, and the ATS verifies the key live against SendGrid's API before storing it encrypted — a key that doesn't check out is rejected on the spot, never silently accepted. SendGrid is a trademark of Twilio Inc.; the integration uses your own account on your own contract.

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01How to set it up, end to end

In your SendGrid account: verify a sender (Single Sender Verification for one address, or authenticate your domain with DNS records for the strongest deliverability), then create an API key with Mail Send permission. In the ATS: Connectors → SendGrid card → paste the key, enter the verified sender email and an optional from-name, click Connect. The ATS validates the key against SendGrid's API immediately; on success, candidate email starts relaying through SendGrid's SMTP service with no further changes anywhere.

02What changes when it's connected

Interview invitations, assessment and video-interview links, and candidate updates go out via your SendGrid account instead of the platform mailer — from your address, signed by your domain where you've authenticated it, visible in your SendGrid activity feed alongside the rest of your transactional email. Disconnecting is one click and reverts sending to the platform default (or your custom SMTP if configured).

03SendGrid, custom SMTP, or neither

Three honest tiers: out of the box, the platform sends on your behalf and everything works with zero setup. Custom SMTP points sending at any mail server you run — Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, your own. SendGrid is the middle path most scaling teams pick: serious deliverability infrastructure without running a mail server, on a vendor you may already use for product email. All three are included; choose per organisation.

Engineering notes

Platform architecture & operations

A1Connection architecture

This is a direct connection to a system you host or key yourself: the form takes your instance URL and credential, verifies them with a live call before anything is saved, and stores secrets encrypted at rest. Connection pages show presence ("connected", "saved ✓"), never the values themselves.

Because the credential is yours, rotation is in your hands: replace the key in your own system, paste the new one here, and the live verification confirms it before the old one is overwritten. Disconnecting removes the stored credential immediately.

A2Write semantics and data flow

Every data movement is an explicit action with a logged result. Writes happen on your click — or automatically only where you enabled a rule (auto-push on hire is off by default, per-provider). Reads — imports of people, accounts, or files — run when you press Import, deduplicate against what you already have (clients by name, people by email), skip rather than overwrite, and report created-versus-skipped honestly, which is why re-running any import is safe by design.

Each action writes a row to the app-activity journal (ats_app_activity): what ran, when, for which record, and the outcome — including the vendor's own error text verbatim when something fails. Usage reporting inside the ATS aggregates that same journal, so integration reporting and integration reality cannot diverge.

Anything that leaves the request path — notification fan-out, webhook delivery, activity journalling, mail — runs in fire-and-forget background threads. A slow external endpoint can never make the interface hang, and a failed side effect is logged rather than silently retried into inconsistency.

A3Operational considerations

Connections are organisation-level and gated to owner and admin roles; recruiters use the features a connection powers but cannot connect, disconnect, or reconfigure. Disconnecting removes stored credentials immediately and stops the dependent features visibly, not silently. Data already imported stays yours and editable.

Imported people arrive marked as imported with conservative privacy defaults — no consent is assumed for anyone who never filled in your application form, and retention defaults apply. Everything written is yours to take: CSV exports and the Data Export app cover the same stores the product itself reads. The exit is as open as the entrance — by design, not concession.

A4Placement in the integration topology

This integration is live in the registry today. One connection per provider unlocks every feature it powers, and the topology grid below shows the neighbouring connectors in the same capability area — statuses come from the same registry that drives the in-app hub, so this page can never claim more than the product does. For anything the catalogue does not cover, Webhooks and Zapier are the generic, documented escape hatch.

Dependency map

Connection typedirect — your instance URL + credential, verified live before save
Secrets at restencrypted; UI shows presence flags, never values
Action journalats_app_activity — one row per action, vendor errors verbatim
Auto-push rulesoff by default, per-provider, every run logged
Registry statuslive

Interface blueprint

Structural schematic of the surface — panels, hierarchy, and interaction affordances. A contract, not a screenshot.
Connection card
● connected — presence flag
scopes: minimum required disconnect
Actions
push — explicit clickimport — deduplicated
Activity journal
Fig. 1 — SendGrid Integration: structural interface schematic. Panels and states are the contract; data shown is placeholder.

Interaction flow — states, validations, feedback

Every state below is enforced server-side; the interface reports it, it doesn't decide it.
Enter URL + credentialyour own instance, your own key
Live verificationa real call must succeed before anything is stored
Encrypted storesecrets at rest; presence-flag display
Explicit actionspush / import / invoice on your click
Journalper-action row, vendor errors verbatim
Verification fails → the vendor's own response is shown; nothing savedCredential rotated → paste the new one; verified before overwriteDisconnect → credential removed immediately
Fig. 2 — interaction flow: navy = states, gold = server-enforced gates, green = confirmed outcomes; tags list the edge cases and their feedback.

Neighbouring connectors — Email & Sending

Custom SMTPlive Mailchimplive SendGridthis page
Statuses come from the live registry — browse the full catalogue →

Frequently asked questions

Why an API key instead of a sign-in button?
SendGrid's integration model is key-based — there's no user sign-in flow to build on. The key is verified live at connect time, stored encrypted, and used only as SMTP credentials for your organisation's sending.
What does "verified sender" mean?
SendGrid only sends from addresses or domains you've proven you control — a confirmation link for a single address, or DNS records for a whole domain. The sender you enter in the ATS must be one of those, or SendGrid will refuse the mail at send time.
Can I see what was sent?
Yes, twice over: the ATS keeps its own record of candidate communication, and every relayed message appears in your SendGrid activity dashboard with delivery status.
Is Expertini affiliated with SendGrid or Twilio?
No. SendGrid is a trademark of Twilio Inc. The integration uses the standard SMTP relay and API that SendGrid documents for exactly this purpose, on your own account.
Cost?
The connector is included in the plan. SendGrid's own free tier covers modest volumes; your SendGrid pricing is between you and SendGrid.

At a glance

  • All candidate email relayed through your own SendGrid account
  • API key verified live at connect time — bad keys rejected, not stored
  • Your verified sender and domain reputation on every message
  • Key stored encrypted; disconnect reverts sending in one click
  • Sending visible in your SendGrid analytics alongside product email
  • Included in the plan — SendGrid's free tier fits modest hiring volume

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