Email Sending Limits of Email Service Providers

When dealing with big marketing campaigns, many things can go wrong – personalization problems, email search, obsolete lists, numerous follow-ups, and so on. These can all be dealt with with the help of numerous affordable tools and platforms. But when it comes to the sending part of your campaign, you need to know the email sending limits. 

Luckily, you don’t need to test email sending abilities of each service provider as we have already compiled the table of email service providers:

1&1 20i Amazon Workmail AOL Mail AWeber BlueHost Campaign Monitor CounterMail DNS Exit DreamHost FastMail

Gmail GoDaddy G Suite Hostinger HostMonster HushMail iCloud Mail iPower Lycos MailChimp MailFence

Outlook Planet Hoster ProtonMail Rackspace Rochen Runbox SaskTel Spectrum Tutanota Yahoo!Mail Zoho

Why is knowing the email sending limits of your provider important? Because otherwise your email campaign is at risk of not getting delivered and your account may be blocked.

To give you the most accurate comparison of email providers, I have to present the full picture. The table below compares email providers on the following issues: pricing, attachment size limits, recipients/messages per hour limits, and daily email limits.

1. Pricing. Depending on your budget and campaign size, you might need a free or a paid provider. We will provide information on both options. As a rule, most providers offer a free trial for anywhere between a week and a month.
2. Email attachment size limit. If your email campaign involves attachments, make sure they fit the attachment size limits of your provider. Every ESP differs in this parameter, for example, the AOL attachment size limit is 25MB and iCloud email attachment limit is 20 MB, while you can send up to 150 MB through 1&1.
3. Recipients/messages per hour limit. The key characteristic. Every provider sets its own limits, the breaking of which can lead to a temporary ban. Choose your provider depending on the size of your campaign.
4. Daily email limit. The amount of email that can be sent in a day without getting banned.

If you break the email provider’s sending limits, you will get temporarily banned, meaning your campaign will be paused. We will not be comparing the ban length: usually, the ban lasts only 1-24 hours.

The table is based on the information provided by the providers through their websites or support teams.

Email service provider	Price	Max attachment size	Sending limits per hour, minute, or email	Sending limits per day
1&1	$0.99-9.99 per month	70-150 MB	100 recipients per message 200 recipients per 5 minutes Click for more provider recommendations	N/A
20i	$0-34.99 per month	50 MB	100 individual email addresses per email	8,000 messages 10,000 recipients 2,000 unique recipients
Amazon Workmail	1 month free trial for 25 users, then $4 per month per user	25 MB	Depends on your account reputation, may be changed upon request	10,000 recipients per user 100,000 recipients per account
AOL Mail	Free	25 MB	100 recipients per message	500 recipients
AWeber	1 month free trial, then $19-149 per month	1 MB	Unlimited (both within the free trial and paid plans)	Unlimited (both within the free trial and paid plans)
BlueHost	From $7.99 per month	35 MB	150 messages per hour Limits can be changed on demand	N/A
Campaign Monitor	Freemium (up to 5 subscribers) $9-989 per month	25 MB	1,000 messages per hour	5 recipients (freemium) Depends on the number of subscribers in a plan
CounterMail	Free 1 month trial $59 per year	25 MB	10 messages per 120 seconds	N/A
DNS Exit	$1.50-77.99 per month	30 MB	500 recipient per email	N/A
DreamHost	(No separate email service) $0.99-509.99	40 MB	From 100 recipients per hour Limit depends on the plan	N/A
Fast Mail	30-day free trial $3-9 per user per month $30-90 per user per  year	50 MB	½ daily limit per hour ½ hourly limit per 10 minutes	120 messages (trial) 4,000-16,000 messages (paid plans)
Gmail	Free	25 MB	20 messages per hour	500 messages/ recipients
GoDaddy	Free 1 month trial, then $6.99-14.99 per month	20 MB	100 recipients per message	250 messages (Up to 500 messages per additional order)
G Suite	14-day free trial (up to 10 users), $5-25 per user per month	25 MB	N/A	500 messages (trial) 2,000 messages (paid plan)
Hostinger	$3.99-11.99 per month (billed for 3 months)	25 MB	SMTP: 200-500 emails per hour (depending on the plan) Sendmail: 60 per minute	N/A
HostMonster	From $9.49 per month	35 MB	150 messages per hour (May be raised upon request)	N/A
HushMail	Free 14-day trial, from $3.99 per user per month for businesses, $48.98 per year for personal use	20 MB	N/A	350 messages (sent through the webmail interface) 2,000 messages (sent using IMAP/POP/SMTP clients)
iCloud Mail	Free to $9.99 per month	20 MB	500 recipients per message	1,000 messages
iPower	$14.95 per month (billed annually)	25 MB	500 messages per hour	5,000 messages
Lycos	$4.95 per month, $19.95 per year, $49.95 per 3 years	25 MB	N/A	250 messages
MailChimp	Free plan $10-199 per month	10 MB	N/A	2,000 messages per day (free) Unlimited (paid)
MailFence	Free plan €2.50-7.50 per month	10 MB (free) 50 MB (paid plan)	50 messages per hour (free) 120/140 messages per hour (paid plans)	1,200 messages (free plan) 2,880 – 3,360 messages
Outlook	Free $6.99-9.99 per month (premium plans)	20 MB	30 messages per minute 100-500 recipients per message	300 messages (free) 10,000 messages (paid plans)
Planet Hoster	Free plan €6 per month	50 MB	200 messages per hour 90 messages/30 minutes	N/A
ProtonMail	Free plan €4-24 per month	25 MB	50 messages per hour (free plan) 300 messages per hour (plus plan) Unlimited (professional and visionary plans)	150 messages (free plan) 1,000 messages (plus plan) Unlimited (professional and visionary plans)
Rackspace	$2-6.50 per user per month	50 MB	N/A	10,000 recipients
Rochen	From $4.95 per month	N/A	100 messages/10 minutes	1,000 messages
Runbox	$19.95-79.95 per year	100 MB	N/A	500 messages
SaskTel	No separate email service $91.95-157.30 per month	25 MB	250 messages per hour 100 email addresses per email	500 messages
Spectrum	No separate email service $99.97-139.97 per month	5 MB	N/A	1,000 messages
Tutanota	Free plan €1-5 per month	20 MB	100 messages per hour	100 messages
Yahoo! Mail	Free $34.99 per year (pro) $9.99 per year (mobile only)	~15 MB	N/A (free plan) 95 messages per hour (paid plans)	N/A (free plan) 500 messages(paid plans)
Zoho	Free plan $3-6 per user per month	3-10MB	N/A	200 messages (free plan) 250-1,000 messages (depending on the plan) Campaigns option available

All the mentioned email sending limits of ESPs are precautions used to prevent spam-sending and let the provider support all of their users at all times.

What else affects email deliverability?

1. Email content (sender name, subject line, preheader, greeting, body, call-to-action, sign-off, and signature).
2. Email frequency, the amount of sent messages, and adherence to email attachment limitations.
3. Sending emails only to those contacts who have given their consent. The addresses must be valid. You can check this with Snov.io Email Verifier.
4. Reputation of your domain.
5. The DMARC policy, SPF records, and DKIM settings.

Knowledge is power, especially in the world of sales. Now you have all the data at your fingertips: send emails based on this knowledge, become much better than your competitors, and your satisfied customers will bring more leads! Good luck!