Why do email sending limits exist?
Email sending limits exist to maintain the overall health and reliability of email communication. They are designed to protect both senders and recipients while ensuring that email systems operate smoothly.
Some of the main reasons for these limits include:
Preventing spam and abuse: Excessive email sending can lead to spam or malicious activity, which compromises trust in email as a communication tool.
Maintaining server performance: High volumes of emails can overload servers, causing delays or failures in delivery.
Enhancing overall reliability: Regulating email flow minimizes the risk of technical issues that affect delivery and system stability.
How to increase your daily sending limit
A few factors influence how much you can send each day, mostly related to your email provider and your sender reputation. Here is a clear step-by-step approach to help you increase your capacity:
Check your provider’s standard limits
Start by reviewing the daily limits set by your email provider. These limits vary across platforms and depend on your account type, subscription plan, and overall sending history. Understanding them gives you a clear picture of what you can send right now and what steps you may need to take to increase your capacity.
Here are some common limits across major providers:
Outlook.com and Microsoft 365: Many Microsoft 365 subscribers can send to about 5,000 recipients per day. Contacts that you rarely email may fall under a separate category with a limit closer to 1,000 recipients.
Gmail and Google Workspace: Standard Gmail accounts have lower allowances, while many Google Workspace business plans support up to around 2,000 recipients per day depending on the specific plan.
Amazon SES: SES offers 200 messages per 24-hour limit. Once your reputation is strong and your metrics look healthy, you can request a higher daily sending quota through the AWS console.
For example, a company starting with Amazon SES might begin inside the default sandbox, monitor performance closely, then request a production-level quota increase once bounce and complaint rates stay consistently low. This creates a reliable path toward higher sending capacity.
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If you need more daily sending capacity than your current provider allows, you can request a higher limit. Platforms are more likely to approve increases when your sending history is stable and metrics such as bounce rates and spam complaints show consistent performance.
However, keep in mind that receiving servers also enforce limits. Sending large volumes too suddenly can cause them to block your messages or mark them as spam, which can damage your reputation and, in severe cases, lead to blacklisting.
3. Ensure your domain and address are authenticated
After reviewing your provider’s limits, the next step is to make sure your domain and email address are properly authenticated. Authentication helps email providers recognize your messages as legitimate, which protects your sender reputation and makes it easier to increase your sending capacity.
Key authentication methods include:
SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Confirms which servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Adds a digital signature to ensure messages aren’t altered during delivery.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): Provides instructions to receiving servers on how to handle messages that fail SPF or DKIM checks and allows you to receive authentication reports.
3. Warm up your sending account or domain
Now it’s time to warm up your sending domain or account. It’s important to increase your sending volume gradually rather than sending a large number of emails all at once. Suddenly blasting a high volume can trigger spam filters, lead to high bounce rates, and harm your sender reputation.
For example, you might begin by sending 20 to 30 emails per day. Once engagement remains strong and bounce and complaint rates are low, you can gradually increase the volume to 50, then 100, and continue scaling incrementally.
If this feels difficult to manage manually, you can use an ESP like Mailmodo that supports automated warmup. Mailmodo includes a fragmented scheduling option where you can select Send in batches at regular intervals (up to 7 days).
Final thought
Sending limits issue might look confusing at the beginning, with a lot of rules and numbers to track, but it’s not. Start with gradual warm-ups, and adjust your sending volumes based on what works best for your audience.
A consistent focus on deliverability, infrastructure setup, and steady growth gives you a better chance at reaching higher daily sending capacity without interruptions.
