Transactional Email API + Hosted Mailboxes (2026): One Rovela Domain for App and Inbox
How Rovela combines a transactional HTTP email API with hosted domain mailboxes, webmail at rovela.email, and mailbox SMTP — and why that is not an app relay.
A transactional email API and hosted mailboxes in one product
Most email APIs stop at sending. Your app can fire a receipt, but support@yourdomain.com still lives in Google Workspace, and replies never share infrastructure with the API. Rovela is explicitly both: a developer Email API for transactional and broadcast sending, and business mailboxes on your own domain, read in the browser at rovela.email (Webmail manual).
This post is the product picture of API + mailboxes together. It is not Move Company Email to Rovela (a mailbox cutover playbook), not What Is an Email Domain? (what a domain is), and not a changelog. Inbound webhooks are covered in Inbound and Outbound Email API and Inbound Email API Webhooks.
Start from the Email API product page, the Quick Start, the Send Email API, and Authentication. Also: SMTP for mailboxes, pricing (every plan includes mailboxes; the free plan includes 5 mailboxes and 1 GiB of storage).
Related product guides in this series:
- Transactional Email API
- HTTP Email API
- Migrate SMTP to an Email API
- Email API for SaaS Apps
- Send Email with curl
- Inbound and Outbound Email API
- Email Sending API
- Email Notification API
- Email API Integration
- Batch Transactional Email API
- Transactional Email Webhooks
- A Simple Transactional Email API
- Send Transactional Email from Your App
- Verified Domain Email API
Two surfaces, one domain
| Job | Surface | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up codes, receipts, alerts | POST https://api.rovela.dev/emails with a sending_access key | Your application |
People reading and writing name@yourdomain.com | Webmail at rovela.email, plus IMAP/SMTP with a device credential | Your team (and any mailbox user) |
| Mail apps (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird) | SMTP mx.rovela.dev:465 (implicit TLS) and IMAP with the same device credential | A person or a small app |
| Replies arriving at a support address | Inbound on the verified domain + email.received | Your application |
The sending API requires a verified sending domain — the same class of domain you attach mailboxes to. See Verified Domain Email API and How to Set Up a Domain Email Address.
What webmail actually gives you
The webmail manual is the source of truth:
- Login at rovela.email with the mailbox address and password (not your main Rovela account password). Admins set mailbox passwords on the Mailboxes page.
- Inbox, thread view, attachment download. Remote images are blocked until you click Load images (tracking-pixel protection).
- Standard folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash, Spam) plus custom folders, multi-select, and search across folders.
- Compose in text or HTML; the documented per-message attachment limit in webmail is 25 MB.
- One-way, non-destructive IMAP import from another provider (copies into Rovela; does not delete the source).
- Administrators can mark a mailbox shared. It appears in each granted member’s folder list, and mail sent from it shows the shared address.
- Settings: display name, mailbox password, default signature.
Pricing also lists IMAP and SMTP for mailboxes on every plan (pricing).
Mailbox SMTP is not the app relay
SMTP settings:
- Host
mx.rovela.dev, port 465, SSL/TLS (TLS 1.2+ from the first byte) - Username = full email address; password = a per-device credential (used for both IMAP and SMTP). Revoke one device without touching the others.
- A mailbox can send only as itself — a leaked credential cannot impersonate another address on the domain.
- Messages are DKIM-signed with your domain key, with SPF and DMARC aligned.
- Documented limits: 50 recipients per message, 30 messages a minute from one client address.
For programmatic volume, use the HTTP API instead (HTTP Email API, Migrate SMTP to an Email API). Point reply_to on API mail at a hosted mailbox if a human should answer.
Why this combination matters when you compare vendors
Several transactional APIs do not include hosted inboxes. If you are weighing Rovela against a send-only API, the existing alternative pages are the right place for a vendor-by-vendor view — for example Rovela vs Resend, Rovela vs Postmark, Rovela vs SendGrid, Rovela vs Mailgun — rather than restating those comparisons here.
FAQ
Does sending via the API create a mailbox automatically? No. Mailboxes are provisioned as mailboxes. The API can send from a verified domain address whether or not that local part is also a hosted inbox; if you want a person to read that address, create the mailbox.
Can I use one password for the dashboard and webmail? The manual says webmail uses mailbox credentials, not the main account password.
Is inbound the same as webmail? Related, not identical. Webmail is the human client. Inbound webhooks give your app email.received and GET /inbound/:id (Inbound Email API Webhooks).
Do API and mailbox sends share DKIM? Both are signed with your domain’s key once the domain is verified. Follow the records the dashboard shows (Domain setup).
Send from the app, read in the inbox
Keep sending_access on the server for product mail, and give people webmail or a mail app on the same domain. That is the “API + mailboxes” product query Rovela is built to answer.