Model the cadence
How it works
Cadence
Step delays become day offsets. A reply rate per step removes leads from later steps if stop-on-reply is on.
Fill
New leads per day defaults to what the fleet can sustain once every step is stacking — capacity divided by sends per lead.
Simulate
Every lead's steps are placed on the calendar, skipping non-sending days, and summed per day.
Compare
The daily curve is drawn against capacity. Peak, fit, exhaustion date and total sends come from the same simulation.
Why sequences surprise people
On day one a five-step sequence sends one email per lead. On day eight it is sending step one to today's leads, step two to last week's, and step three to the week before. By the third week every step is live at once and the daily volume is three to four times what day one suggested. Fleets are sized for day one, the tool throttles when the stacking arrives, and the sequence timing everyone agonised over falls apart because step three goes out on day nine instead of day seven. This planner shows the stack before it happens.
Sends per lead is the number
With a five-step cadence and a 2% reply rate that stops the sequence, each lead receives about 4.8 emails; at 5% it drops toward 4.5. Divide fleet capacity by that figure and you have the number of new leads you can start per day without exceeding capacity once the sequence is fully stacked. Everything else follows: how long the list lasts, when the peak lands, how many replies to expect. The tool defaults new-leads-per-day to exactly that calculation so the fit is right by default; type a number to see what a more aggressive start does.
Fewer steps, better replies
Most of the replies in a sequence come from the first two or three touches. Steps five and beyond add sends, add complaints, and add a small number of replies from people who were going to reply anyway. A four-step sequence with genuine variety between steps outperforms a seven-step one in nearly every fleet I have looked at, and it uses half the capacity. If the peak does not fit, cutting a step is usually cheaper than adding inboxes.
The settings that are not optional
Stop on reply. Skip weekends unless the list is in a market that reads mail on Saturdays. At least two days between steps, three or four is better. A daily cap per inbox that the tool enforces regardless of what the schedule wants. These are the defaults in the form because they are the defaults in every well-run campaign, and the notes flag what changes when you move them.
Frequently asked questions
How many follow-ups should a cold email sequence have?
Three to five steps in total. Reply rates fall sharply after the third touch and complaint rates rise. A tight four-step sequence usually beats a long one.
How many days between follow-ups?
Two is the minimum, three to four is normal, and later steps can stretch to a week. The form takes delays as days after the previous step.
Why does daily volume increase over the first few weeks?
Because steps stack. Once the sequence is longer than the delay between steps, every step is sending to a different cohort on the same day. The peak arrives when all steps are live.
What does 'sends per lead' mean?
The average number of emails one lead receives across the whole sequence, after accounting for leads who reply and drop out. It is what capacity has to be divided by.
Does the planner account for weekends?
Yes. Sending days per week defaults to five; steps that land on a non-sending day are pushed to the next sending day, which is what most tools do.
Last reviewed
What to run next
The checks that most often follow this one.
More in this category
Guides that go deeper
When the tools tell you something is wrong
The diagnostics here are free and always will be. When the fix is bigger than a DNS record, this is the work I do.
Deliverability rescue
Mail landing in spam, replies gone quiet, or a domain suddenly blocked. I find the actual cause rather than guessing, and fix it.
- Authentication and alignment failures
- Blocklist delistings and reputation repair
- Gateway and filter-level blocks
- A written report on what broke and why
Email & sending infrastructure
Sending domains, inboxes, authentication and warmup, built to survive volume instead of burning down in a month.
- Domain and inbox fleets at any scale
- SPF, DKIM, DMARC and tracking domains
- Google Workspace — Silver Partner
- Handover documentation you actually own
Domain, DNS & migration
Changing registrar, mail provider or host without a day of downtime or a week of mail silently failing.
- Registrar and nameserver moves
- Workspace and Microsoft 365 migrations
- MX, SSL and subdomain cutover
- Staged rollout with rollback at every step
Monitoring & retainer
Infrastructure drifts. Records get edited, certificates expire, domains get listed. Ongoing eyes on the fleet.
- Scheduled checks across every domain
- Alerts before your clients notice
- Monthly reporting
- Priority response when something breaks
Start with a call
Bring a domain and the symptom. I will tell you what is actually wrong and whether you need me at all — plenty of people leave that call able to fix it themselves.
Thirty minutes, no pitch
We will run the checks together on your actual domains, and you will leave knowing what is broken, what it takes to fix, and what it should cost. If that is a job you can do in-house, I will say so.