diff --git a/docs/spf-optimizer.md b/docs/spf-optimizer.md
index 9f4d7c5e2..90c55838d 100644
--- a/docs/spf-optimizer.md
+++ b/docs/spf-optimizer.md
@@ -82,6 +82,7 @@ D("example.tld", REG, DSP, ...
   SPF_BUILDER({
     label: "@",
     overflow: "_spf%d",  // Delete this line if you don't want big strings split.
+    overhead1: "20",  // There are 20 bytes of other TXT records on this domain.  Compensate for this.
     raw: "_rawspf",  // Delete this line if the default is sufficient.
     parts: [
       "v=spf1",
@@ -101,6 +102,7 @@ The parameters are:
 
 * `label:` The label of the first TXT record. (Optional. Default: `"@"`)
 * `overflow:` If set, SPF strings longer than 255 chars will be split into multiple TXT records. The value of this setting determines the template for what the additional labels will be named. If not set, no splitting will occur and dnscontrol may generate TXT strings that are too long.
+* `overhead1:` "Overhead for the 1st TXT record".  When calculating the max length of each TXT record, reduce the maximum for the first TXT record in the chain by this amount.
 * `raw:` The label of the unaltered SPF settings. (Optional. Default: `"_rawspf"`)
 * `ttl:` This allows setting a specific TTL on this SPF record. (Optional. Default: using default record TTL)
 * `parts:` The individual parts of the SPF settings.
@@ -123,8 +125,50 @@ flattening required to reduce the number of lookups to 10 or less.
 To count the number of lookups, you can use our interactive SPF
 debugger at [https://stackexchange.github.io/dnscontrol/flattener/index.html](https://stackexchange.github.io/dnscontrol/flattener/index.html)
 
+# The first in a chain is special
 
-## Notes about the DNS Cache
+When generating the chain of SPF
+records, each one is max length 255.  For the first item in
+the chain, the max is 255 - "overhead1".  Setting this to 255 or
+higher has undefined behavior.
+
+Why is this useful?
+
+Some sites desire having all DNS queries fit in a single packet so
+that UDP, not TCP, can be used to satisfy all requests. That means all
+responses have to be relatively small.
+
+When an SPF system does a "TXT" lookup, it gets SPF and non-SPF
+records.  This makes the first link in the chain extra large.
+
+The bottom line is that if you want the TXT records to fit in a UDP
+packet, keep increasing the value of `overhead1` until the packet
+is no longer truncated.
+
+Example:
+
+```
+$ dig +short whatexit.org txt | wc -c
+   118
+```
+
+Setting `overhead1` to 118 should be sufficient.
+
+```
+$ dig +short stackoverflow.com txt | wc -c
+     582
+```
+
+Since 582 is bigger than 255, it might not be possible to achieve the
+goal.  Any value larger than 255 will disable all flattening.  Try
+170, then 180, 190 until you get the desired results.
+
+A validator such as
+[https://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html](https://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html)
+will tell you if the queries are being truncated and TCP was required
+to get the entire record. (Sadly it caches heavily.)
+
+## Notes about the `spfcache.json`
 
 dnscontrol keeps a cache of the DNS lookups performed during
 optimization.  The cache is maintained so that the optimizer does
diff --git a/pkg/js/helpers.js b/pkg/js/helpers.js
index 11550b65e..188f292b1 100644
--- a/pkg/js/helpers.js
+++ b/pkg/js/helpers.js
@@ -1,5 +1,12 @@
 'use strict';
 
+// If you edit this file, you must run `go generate` to embed this
+// file in the source code.
+// If you are heavily debugging this code, the "-dev" flag will
+// read this file directly instead of using the output of
+// `go generate`. You'll still need to run `go generate` before
+// you commit the changes.
+
 var conf = {
     registrars: [],
     dns_providers: [],
@@ -725,6 +732,7 @@ var FRAME = recordBuilder('FRAME');
 // ttl: The time for TTL, integer or string. (default: not defined, using DefaultTTL)
 // split: The template for additional records to be created (default: '_spf%d')
 // flatten: A list of domains to be flattened.
+// overhead1: Amout of "buffer room" to reserve on the first item in the spf chain.
 
 function SPF_BUILDER(value) {
     if (!value.parts || value.parts.length < 2) {
@@ -756,6 +764,10 @@ function SPF_BUILDER(value) {
         p.split = value.overflow;
     }
 
+    if (value.overhead1) {
+        p.overhead1 = value.overhead1;
+    }
+
     // Generate a TXT record with the metaparameters.
     if (value.ttl) {
         r.push(TXT(value.label, rawspf, p, TTL(value.ttl)));
diff --git a/pkg/js/static.go b/pkg/js/static.go
index d43553c3d..b371061ac 100644
--- a/pkg/js/static.go
+++ b/pkg/js/static.go
@@ -212,106 +212,108 @@ var _escData = map[string]*_escFile{
 	"/helpers.js": {
 		name:    "helpers.js",
 		local:   "pkg/js/helpers.js",
-		size:    23384,
+		size:    23595,
 		modtime: 0,
 		compressed: `
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 `,
 	},
 }
diff --git a/pkg/normalize/flatten.go b/pkg/normalize/flatten.go
index 2993cac4e..c6aff7058 100644
--- a/pkg/normalize/flatten.go
+++ b/pkg/normalize/flatten.go
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package normalize
 
 import (
 	"fmt"
+	"strconv"
 	"strings"
 
 	"github.com/StackExchange/dnscontrol/v3/models"
@@ -41,11 +42,27 @@ func flattenSPFs(cfg *models.DNSConfig) []error {
 			}
 			// now split if needed
 			if split, ok := txt.Metadata["split"]; ok {
+
+				overhead1 := 0
+				// overhead1: The first segment of the SPF record
+				// needs to be shorter than the others due to the overhead of
+				// other (non-SPF) txt records.  If there are (for example) 50
+				// bytes of txt records also on this domain record, setting
+				// overhead1=50 reduces the maxLen by 50. It only affects the
+				// first part of the split.
+				if oh, ok := txt.Metadata["overhead1"]; ok {
+					i, err := strconv.Atoi(oh)
+					if err != nil {
+						errs = append(errs, Warning{fmt.Errorf("split overhead1 %q is not an int", oh)})
+					}
+					overhead1 = i
+				}
+
 				if !strings.Contains(split, "%d") {
 					errs = append(errs, Warning{fmt.Errorf("Split format `%s` in `%s` is not proper format (should have %%d in it)", split, txt.GetLabelFQDN())})
 					continue
 				}
-				recs := rec.TXTSplit(split + "." + domain.Name)
+				recs := rec.TXTSplit(split+"."+domain.Name, overhead1)
 				for k, v := range recs {
 					if k == "@" {
 						txt.SetTargetTXT(v)
diff --git a/pkg/spflib/flatten.go b/pkg/spflib/flatten.go
index 31c10557a..3de225989 100644
--- a/pkg/spflib/flatten.go
+++ b/pkg/spflib/flatten.go
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ func (s *SPFRecord) TXT() string {
 	return text
 }
 
-const maxLen = 255
+const maxLenDefault = 255
 
 // TXTSplit returns a set of txt records to use for SPF.
 // pattern given is used to name all chained spf records.
@@ -22,14 +22,20 @@ const maxLen = 255
 // should result in fqdn after replacement
 // returned map will have keys with fqdn of resulting records.
 // root record will be under key "@"
-func (s *SPFRecord) TXTSplit(pattern string) map[string]string {
+// overhead specifies that the first split part should assume an
+// overhead of that many bytes.  For example, if there are other txt
+// records and you wish to reduce the first SPF record size to prevent
+// DNS over TCP.
+func (s *SPFRecord) TXTSplit(pattern string, overhead int) map[string]string {
 	m := map[string]string{}
-	s.split("@", pattern, 1, m)
+	s.split("@", pattern, 1, m, overhead)
 	return m
 
 }
 
-func (s *SPFRecord) split(thisfqdn string, pattern string, nextIdx int, m map[string]string) {
+func (s *SPFRecord) split(thisfqdn string, pattern string, nextIdx int, m map[string]string, overhead int) {
+	maxLen := maxLenDefault - overhead
+
 	base := s.TXT()
 	// simple case. it fits
 	if len(base) <= maxLen {
@@ -66,7 +72,7 @@ func (s *SPFRecord) split(thisfqdn string, pattern string, nextIdx int, m map[st
 		}
 	}
 	m[thisfqdn] = thisText + tail
-	newRec.split(nextFQDN, pattern, nextIdx+1, m)
+	newRec.split(nextFQDN, pattern, nextIdx+1, m, 0)
 }
 
 // Flatten optimizes s.
diff --git a/pkg/spflib/flatten_test.go b/pkg/spflib/flatten_test.go
index ff88e8a70..92bb7b7f7 100644
--- a/pkg/spflib/flatten_test.go
+++ b/pkg/spflib/flatten_test.go
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 package spflib
 
 import (
+	"strconv"
 	"strings"
 	"testing"
 )
@@ -63,6 +64,13 @@ var splitTests = [][]string{
 		"_spf1.stackex.com",
 		"v=spf1 include:X12345678901234567890123456789000000000000000123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789.com ~all",
 	},
+	{
+		"overhead-200",
+		"v=spf1 include:a.com include:b.com include:X12345678901234567890123456789000000000000000123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789.com ~all",
+		"v=spf1 include:a.com include:_spf1.stackex.com ~all",
+		"_spf1.stackex.com",
+		"v=spf1 include:b.com include:X12345678901234567890123456789000000000000000123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789.com ~all",
+	},
 	{
 		"really big",
 		"v=spf1 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178 ip4:200.192.169.178" +
@@ -85,12 +93,21 @@ var splitTests = [][]string{
 
 func TestSplit(t *testing.T) {
 	for _, tst := range splitTests {
+		overhead := 0
+
+		v := strings.Split(tst[0], "-")
+		if len(v) > 1 {
+			if i, err := strconv.Atoi(v[1]); err == nil {
+				overhead = i
+			}
+		}
+
 		t.Run(tst[0], func(t *testing.T) {
 			rec, err := Parse(tst[1], nil)
 			if err != nil {
 				t.Fatal(err)
 			}
-			res := rec.TXTSplit("_spf%d.stackex.com")
+			res := rec.TXTSplit("_spf%d.stackex.com", overhead)
 			if res["@"] != tst[2] {
 				t.Fatalf("Root record wrong. \nExp %s\ngot %s", tst[2], res["@"])
 			}