📧 Email Integration

Resend Email Setup

Connect Resend to FollowFire to send branded AI follow-up emails from your own domain — in under 15 minutes.

⏱️ ~15 min setup💰 Free tier available🏷️ Difficulty: Easy

What you'll need

✅
FollowFire account
Already deployed to Vercel
📧
Resend account
Free at resend.com
🌐
A domain (optional)
For branded sending address

Setup Guide

1
📧

Create a Resend Account

Go to resend.com and sign up for a free account. The free plan includes 3,000 emails/month and 1 custom domain — more than enough to get started with FollowFire.

Free plan limits:

  • 3,000 emails/month
  • 100 emails/day
  • 1 custom sending domain

Most FollowFire customers send well under 100 emails/day. You can upgrade to a paid plan ($20/mo) for higher volume.

2
🌐

Add and Verify Your Sending Domain

A verified domain lets you send emails as hello@yourbusiness.com instead of a generic Resend address — building trust with your leads.

  1. In the Resend dashboard, click Domains → Add Domain
  2. Enter your business domain (e.g., yourbusiness.com)
  3. Resend will provide DNS records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to add to your domain registrar
  4. Add the DNS records in your registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, etc.)
  5. Click Verify in Resend — propagation typically takes 5–30 minutes
📌 Tip: If you don't have a custom domain yet, Resend will send emails from a shared domain (onboarding@resend.dev). This works fine for testing but we recommend verifying your own domain before going live.
3
🔑

Create an API Key

FollowFire uses a Resend API key to send emails on your behalf.

  1. In the Resend dashboard, go to API Keys → Create API Key
  2. Name it something memorable, e.g. followfire-production
  3. Set permission to Full Access (FollowFire needs send + track)
  4. Copy the key — it starts with re_
⚠️ Important: The API key is shown only once. Copy it immediately and store it securely — you'll need it in the next step.
4
⚙️

Add the API Key to Vercel

Add your Resend API key as an environment variable in your Vercel project (where FollowFire is deployed).

  1. Go to your Vercel project → Settings → Environment Variables
  2. Add the following variable:
    Name:RESEND_API_KEY
    Value:re_your_key_here
  3. Set environment to Production, Preview, Development
  4. Click Save

Optional: set a custom From address

RESEND_FROM_EMAIL = hello@yourbusiness.com
RESEND_FROM_NAME = Your Business Name

If omitted, FollowFire defaults to followups@followfire.app

5
🚀

Redeploy and Send a Test

After adding your environment variables, you need to redeploy FollowFire for the changes to take effect.

  1. In Vercel, click Deployments → Redeploy on your latest deployment
  2. Wait for the deployment to complete (~1–2 minutes)
  3. Go to your FollowFire dashboard → Settings → Send Test Lead
  4. Check your email — you should receive the AI follow-up within 30 seconds
✅ Success: If you receive the test email from your verified domain, Resend is configured correctly. FollowFire will now send branded emails for every new lead.

Email Follow-Up Timeline

1
Lead submits your website form0 sec

FollowFire receives the webhook payload instantly.

2
AI follow-up email sent via Resend< 60 sec

Personalized reply delivered from your domain — before your competitor even sees the notification.

3
Automated follow-up (if no reply)48 hrs

FollowFire sends a gentle follow-up email to warm up the lead.

4
You reply manually from InboxAny time

Use the FollowFire inbox to send manual replies or let the AI suggest one.

Troubleshooting

⚠️Emails landing in spam
▼
Make sure your domain is verified with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Unverified domains are more likely to trigger spam filters. Also check that your sending domain matches your website domain.
⚠️API key error: 'unauthorized' or '403'
▼
Your RESEND_API_KEY environment variable may be incorrect or missing. Double-check it starts with re_ and was copied without extra spaces. After updating, always redeploy on Vercel.
⚠️Emails sending from onboarding@resend.dev instead of my domain
▼
Your domain hasn't been verified yet, or RESEND_FROM_EMAIL isn't set. Complete domain verification in the Resend dashboard, then add the RESEND_FROM_EMAIL environment variable in Vercel.
⚠️Daily send limit reached (100/day on free plan)
▼
You've hit the Resend free tier limit. Upgrade to a paid Resend plan ($20/mo for 50,000 emails) or reduce follow-up frequency. Most contractors won't hit this limit.
⚠️Domain verification pending / DNS not propagating
▼
DNS propagation can take up to 48 hours, though it's usually 5–30 minutes. Check propagation status at dnschecker.org. Make sure you added the TXT and CNAME records exactly as Resend specified.

Ready to set up email follow-ups?

Once Resend is connected, FollowFire will respond to every lead within 60 seconds — automatically, from your own domain.

🔥 Start Free Trial📱 Also set up SMS

Questions? Email support@followfire.app