<b>You share an IP with a spammer and didn't agree to it</b>

<b>You share an IP with a spammer and didn't agree to it</b>

Myth: "Shared hosting is fine, I'm a clean site."

You're clean. The 400 other accounts on your IP aren't all clean. One runs a phishing kit, the IP lands on Spamhaus, and suddenly <i>your</i> transactional emails go to spam and a few blocklists flag your domain — for a neighbor's behavior.

You didn't choose the neighborhood. The host crammed it, and the cheaper the plan, the denser the block.

Follow the money: a dedicated IP costs them almost nothing but they charge extra for it, because reputation-by-association is a problem they manufactured and then sell you the cure to.

Reality: on shared hosting your sender reputation is a group project graded on the worst member.