Email Verification for Mobile App Onboarding
Fake accounts degrade your app's quality signals and inflate your DAU metrics. Verify emails at registration before fake users enter your system.
The specific challenges of mobile app account abuse
Mobile apps face unique registration abuse patterns — farm accounts for referral fraud, bots for review manipulation, and disposable emails to bypass trial limits.
Referral fraud exploits generous new user bonuses
Apps with referral programs are targets for users who create multiple accounts with disposable emails to collect signup bonuses repeatedly. Each fake account costs real money.
Fake reviews and app store manipulation
Competitors and bad actors create fake accounts to submit reviews. App stores factor account age and email validity into review authenticity signals.
DAU and retention metrics are polluted
Fake accounts that activate once and never return distort your day-1 retention and DAU numbers — making growth metrics misleading for your team and investors.
Transactional email delivery fails silently
Password reset, receipt, and notification emails sent to invalid addresses fail silently. The user can't access their account and churns blaming the app.
Verify at the backend registration endpoint — before account creation
Call Mailbeam from your backend registration API before creating the user record. The verification is invisible to users but stops fake accounts at the entry point.
Backend-only integration
Mailbeam runs server-side. No mobile SDK needed — verify in the registration API endpoint before any user record is written to your database.
Disposable and temporary email detection
Block 50,000+ disposable domains used by referral abusers and bot operators. Updated continuously as new services emerge.
Typo correction suggestions
Return suggested corrections to the mobile client for common misspellings. The user can tap to correct before completing registration.
Sub-100ms latency
Verification completes before the registration loading state times out on any mobile connection. The experience is identical to registration without verification.
Implementation
Copy-paste ready. Replace the API key and integrate with your existing flow.
import Mailbeam from "@mailbeam/sdk";
const mb = new Mailbeam({ apiKey: process.env.MAILBEAM_KEY! });
export async function registerUser(email: string, password: string) {
const result = await mb.verify(email);
if (!result.valid) {
throw new BadRequestError("INVALID_EMAIL", result.suggestion);
}
if (result.disposable) {
throw new BadRequestError(
"DISPOSABLE_EMAIL",
"Please use a permanent email address to register."
);
}
// Score threshold: reject very low-quality addresses
if (result.score < 30) {
throw new BadRequestError("LOW_QUALITY_EMAIL");
}
return await db.users.create({ email, passwordHash: hash(password) });
}Real-world example
Loopcast (placeholder)
Consumer mobile app
Challenge
A referral campaign attracted 12,000 signups, but 4,300 used disposable emails for the signup bonus. The campaign ROI was negative after payouts.
Result
After adding Mailbeam at registration, the next referral campaign had zero disposable email signups and a 3.2x improvement in campaign ROI.
Referral fraud signups 36% → <1%
* Example based on anonymized customer data. Results may vary.
Recommended plan
Starter
Most mobile apps register fewer than 10,000 new users per month outside of viral growth periods. Starter covers this comfortably. Upgrade to Growth during launch or viral events.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to get started?
Free tier includes 1,000 verifications/month. No credit card required.