This is just an entry Note to myself about the various Send Rates for some email services. I have been running into some issues sending mail to GMail and others so I figured I would document my efforts to understand their limits. The notes below are for sending USING a webmail account…I mostly Send TO a webmail account, but I imagine the limits would be similar. I will report more as I find it out.
My initial data comes from emailaddressmanager.com
Send email rate limit for webmail providers – Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, AOL, Lycos Mail
Sending mass emails from webmail email accounts
Most webmail email account providers, such as Yahoo! Mail or Google Gmail, allow users to send email by using the webmail browser interface or by using a SMTP connection with the email account SMTP server. No matter the way you send the emails (web interface or email client software), you must be aware of the “rate limit” (the limit for sending emails) established by your email account provider.
Web Email Account Providers – email rate limits and SMTP limit
Important note: Please do NOT take this information for granted, as your email account provider can change its email policy without any prior notification. It is always a good idea to contact your email account provider and ask about the email send rate, before proceeding with a mass email campaign.
Google Gmail Email Send Rate Limit & Restrictions
The following restrictions apply when sending emails from a Google Gmail account:
Gmail email send limit – no more than 500 recipients per message for the Gmail web interface, or max 100 recipients if you are using an email client software.
Gmail other SMTP limits – outgoing messages sent via Google Gmail can not exceed 10Mb per email (including attachments)
Google Mail Policy – http://www.google.com/mail/help/program_policies.html
Google Mail SMTP restriction expiry method – the restriction is automatically removed within 24 hours after the limit was reached.
MSN Hotmail Email Send Rate Limit & Restrictions
The following restrictions apply when sending emails from a Hotmail account:
Hotmail email send limit – no more than 100 recipients per day.
Hotmail other SMTP limits – outgoing messages sent via Hotmail can not exceed 10Mb per email (including attachments)
Yahoo Mail – Email Send Rate Limits & Other Email Restrictions
The following restrictions apply when sending emails from a Yahoo Mail account:
Yahoo Mail email send limit – no more than 100 emails or recipients per hour
Yahoo Mail other SMTP limits – max 10Mb per message for the free Yahoo Mail Service, or 20Mb per message for Yahoo! Mail Plus
Yahoo! Anti-Spam Policy – http://docs.yahoo.com/info/guidelines/spam.html
Yahoo Mail SMTP restriction expiry method – N/A
Lycos Mail – Email Send Limits & Restrictions
The following restrictions apply when sending emails from a Lycos Mail account:
Lycos Mail email send limit – max 25 recipients per message and max 250 emails per day
Lycos Mail other SMTP limits – Lycos Mail does not have a limit to the attachment file size at this time.
Lycos Email Policy – http://info.lycos.com/legal/mail_terms.html
AOL Email Send (Rate) Limits
AOL imposes a rate limit on an AOL member when a member exceeds the acceptable number of email messages sent in a given time period. The following restrictions apply when sending emails from an AOL connection:
AOL email send limit – no more than 100 recipients per message or 500 recipients per connection
AOL other SMTP limits – max 16mb per message
AOL email-outbound policy – http://postmaster-us.info.aol.com/ipt/
AOL SMTP restriction expiry method – N/A
