Default Daily and Hourly Sending Limits Are Based on How Many Emails You Can Safely Send Through Your Linked Mailbox

Sending limits are set in Apollo so that your linked mailbox account does not get rate-limited: whether sending through Apollo or not, your email provider (Gmail, Microsoft, etc.) will limit the amount of emails you can send if they suspect you're SPAMing large amounts of people you don't know. Since your "linked mailboxes" in Apollo are personal business email accounts you are sending through, your email provider only allows you to send a finite amount of emails at a time, tracked by the hour and day, and may limit your sending or suspend your account if you supersede what they view as reasonable volumes.

We send all Apollo emails through your linked mailbox email servers so they always appear the same as emails sent directly from your own email to your recipients. Email services generally only take notice if you send too many emails at once because that indicates automation that no human could manually accomplish on their own. Increasing your send limits gradually, over time, will help you avoid this issue while still taking advantage of the advanced efficiency and automation of Apollo's email features.

How do Apollo Sending Limits Work?

Navigate to Settings > You > Mailboxes and find the mailbox you'd like to view your sending limits for. From there, your Daily Limit and Hourly Limit will be shown to the right of the mailbox.

Your sending limits count all emails sent from your User (linked email address) through Apollo and will schedule any emails over that limit for the following day or hour when you max them out, respectively. Your daily sending limit functions on a rolling 24-hour period; it's NOT based on the calendar day. Specifically, every time a message tries to send, we will check how many messages have been sent in the last 24 hours to make sure your limit is respected. 

Important: The daily/hourly limits monitored by your email provider include all emails sent through your linked mailbox via Apollo AND all emails you send in your mailbox itself (i.e. directly from your Gmail, Microsoft, etc. account), so be mindful of setting lower limits in Apollo if you also send a high volume of emails in your linked mailbox and/or via other Apps that send through it. 

What Are Email Provider Rate Limits and Why Should I Set Daily/Hourly Limits in Apollo?

Gmail, Microsoft, and all other individual email providers have basic sending monitoring systems in place to ensure that all individual email accounts are used by individuals to email other individuals, at least in theory. You can still use efficiency applications like Apollo that facilitate a mix of sending 1:1 and 1:many (auto) emails via your individual mailboxes, but you must do so responsibly to ensure you don't end up "on the radar" of your provider, who will limit your sending when they see red flags indicating you sent too much bad content or a suspiciously high number of emails (more than an individual could reasonably send manually in a given timeframe). 

G Suite's hard limits, for example, are 400 emails per hour and 2000 emails per rolling 24 hour period (not per calendar day), which means they never allow any of their users to send more than that number of emails via an individual mailbox. However, reaching the maximum of those limits without being "rate limited", i.e. having your mailbox/sending suspended because of activity deemed suspicious by your email provider, depends on the sending reputation you've built up over time by sending a reasonable volume and getting a reasonably low amount of bounces/SPAM complaints for the emails you send. 

Any new Gmail account that sends 400 emails per hour or 2000 emails per day will almost certainly get limited or suspended, since that amount of activity without a gradual buildup sends a clear message to Gmail's monitoring tools that you likely opened the email account to use for SPAMing people, rather than emailing existing contacts or potential clients being responsibly targeted.

Keep in mind there are many factors that come into play when Google determines your sending reputation, and it's always best to play it safe.

What can I do to Raise my Limits?

In general, we advise sticking to the 400 per day and 100 per hour limits we set by default, but if you'd like to go higher, the key is to do so gradually. 

1. First, Set a custom tracking subdomain to increase deliverability. 

2. Link a secondary mailbox from a domain name that is not your core domain

3. Integrate with SendGrid via Apollo integrations

4. Have sent around 400 emails daily for the last month (30 days) before increasing

Once you've completed the above steps, you can increase your send rates gradually according to the following guidelines:

• Daily Limit: Increase by no more than 100 each week until you reach 1500 emails/day, which you should never go beyond if you're linked to a regular business mailbox
• Hourly Limit: Increase by no more than 20 each week until you reach 400 emails/hour, which you should never go beyond if you're linked to a regular business mailbox

Important: Do not set your mailbox send limits higher than 2000 emails a day – we highly recommend not sending more than 400 emails a day, at minimum for your first 30 full days of emailing with us.

If you'd like to send even more emails than that, you'll want to integrate your linked Apollo Mailbox with Sendgrid, which is a transactional email service built for even higher-volume sending.

What Happens When I Hit My Limits In Apollo vs. What Happens When I Get Limited/Suspended by My Email Provider?

If you hit your Apollo send limits in a given hour or day, we simply keep any additional emails you have scheduled to go out queued, in order, in the "Scheduled - delayed" Status until the next hour and/or day (24 hour rolling period, not calendar day) begins, at which point we automatically send them. When this happens, it's generally a good thing, since our system is effectively ensuring that you don't send a suspiciously high amount of emails through your linked mailbox email provider, who might limit or suspend your account if you did. 

At any point, you can check on these emails by navigating to the Outbox page in the left main menu of your Apollo App and clicking to view the Scheduled tab therein. Roll over the "Scheduled - Delayed" badge to see exactly why a given email is scheduled but has yet to be sent, and more often than not, you'll see it's due to hitting your Apollo limit and will be automatically sent the next day/hour you're under your limit:

If you are rate limited or suspended by your email provider, it means that you've been sending too much bad content and/or too many emails per day/hour, and you should immediately lower your sending limits in Apollo, edit the content of any emails you're sending that are getting a high rate of SPAM complaints, and follow any further instructions given by your email provider to get back in their good graces.

• Content guidelines for sending good emails/avoiding SPAM
• Optional Domain Configurations to Optimize Deliverability

Important Note:

• If you get limited and continue to hit Google/Microsoft/etc.'s rate limits, they will suspend your account and require you to wait 24 hours to restore the account automatically. You can find more information on how to restore a suspended Gmail account here and reach out to Google support here.