Send Limits imposed by Email Service Providers

Modified on Sun, 15 Sep at 11:07 AM

Will my Email Provider Limit the Number of Emails I can Send in a day? - Yes, they will!

Most email providers will impose a limit on the number of emails that can be sent via SMTP in any given day. The limits are set by each individual email service provider and often differ between providers.

Some impose daily, or hourly limits and some will impose a combination of limits. For example, you could experience a daily limit (to say 250 emails a day) combined with a limit on the number of emails that can be sent per hour or per second. So your email service provider might have a daily limit of 250 emails, but if they also limit to (say) 5 emails a second, then only a small portion of any mass email will actually be sent because Pet Sitter Plus will send emails to your SMTP server faster than that server is prepared to accept them.

Note: Often it's a double whammy, the email service provider limits not only the total number of emails it will send on your behalf in a day, but also the speed at which it is prepared to send them.

How Can I Tell if my Email Service Provider is Imposing Limits on the Amount of Emails I Send?

There are a number of ways in which you can discover that your email service provider imposes email send limits.

You might be unaware that your email provider imposes send limits until your clients tell you that they have not received your emails. If you have implemented SMTP, Microsoft or Google connections in Pet Sitter Plus Email Settings, and your clients tell you that they are not receiving your emails, the first thing to check is your SMTP report.

Tip: The SMTP Status report will show any failed emails with a reason why they failed. The reasons are very often quite helpful and will explain in detail if an email send limit has been reached.

The other way to find out if your email service provider imposes a send limit is to a) ask them or b) use a search engine like Google. For example if your email service provider was gmail, you could search on "gmail email send limit".

So, What do you do if you have 2,000 clients to Email about their Service Requirements for the Upcoming Holiday Season?

Your options are:

Contact your current email service provider and ask them if they have a business account you could change to. Most of the big email service providers (such as Gmail) offer business accounts with higher send limits and higher per minute restrictions. There is usually an upgrade fee or ongoing fee to use this type of service.
Find a web hosting company that offers a daily send limit that meets your needs – therefore switch email provider. But this of course can be troublesome and time consuming.
Rent or buy your own MS exchange server and configure it for SMTP email delivery.
Use an SMTP relay service like SMTP2Go to relay your large email campaigns.