Can You Really Send Unlimited Emails?

If you try to send an email to a few hundred recipients in your Gmail, you’ll soon discover that Gmail has restrictions in place. In other words, you can’t send unlimited emails without hitting a cap.

Well then — how can you send mass emails without hitting your service provider’s limits or getting your messages lost in spam? It might sound impossible, but there are practical solutions.

In this guide, we’ll introduce you to three solutions that ensure your mass emails reach the intended audience without hitting any snags.

Why You Can’t Send Unlimited Emails With Gmail and Outlook

Popular email service providers like Gmail and Outlook let you send emails for free. However, they have strict rules on how many emails you can send each day.

The main reason behind this limitation is to protect recipients from spam. When one person sends lots of emails, it’s often considered spam. So, to keep inboxes free from unwanted or harmful messages, these services limit how many emails a person can send and receive.

Let’s take a look at how Gmail and Outlook restrict the number of emails you can send.

Gmail

Gmail limits the number of emails users can send and receive every day. If you go over these limits, Gmail will stop you from sending any more messages for 24 hours.

This is what you need to know about Gmail’s daily email sending limits:

You can’t send more than 500 emails a day.
You can’t send to more than 100 recipients in a single email.
If you’re a Google Workspace user, you can send up to 2,000 messages a day.

Some people try to get around these limits by using multiple Gmail accounts. They spread out their emails across these accounts so they don’t hit the sending cap. However, managing all these accounts can be a hassle and takes a lot of time.

Outlook

Outlook also puts a cap on the number of emails users can send.

This is what you need to know:

You can send emails to a maximum of 5,000 people in one day.
You can’t send a single message to more than 500 recipients.
You can send messages to 1,000 new addresses a day.

The exact limits might vary for different Outlook users, depending on how you’ve used your account in the past.

Solution 1: Use an Email Marketing Service to Send Unlimited Emails

If you’re looking to send a lot of emails without any limits, signing up with an email marketing service is the easiest solution. Unlike regular email providers, these services don’t usually limit how many emails their paying customers can send.

Using an email marketing service comes with several key benefits, including:

Better deliverability: In email marketing, getting your emails to actually arrive in people’s inboxes is crucial for any email campaign. Email marketing services have some measures to make sure your emails don’t end up in the spam folder.
Design tools: Many email marketing services come with tools to help you create eye-catching emails that grab attention. You can play around with different designs, email formats, catchy subject lines, and call-to-action buttons to make your emails stand out.
Analytics: Email marketing services provide analytics so you can see how many people are opening your emails, clicking on links, or ignoring your messages. You can’t get this information from standard email services like Gmail, but it’s vital for tweaking your campaigns to be more effective.

Now, let’s cover how to send unlimited emails using an email marketing service. We’ll also give you pointers about picking the right email service for you.

Step 1: Choose an Email Marketing Service

Pick a service that matches your needs and budget. A good email marketing service should allow you to scale and grow your list without locking you in. This way, you can easily switch to a better one if it doesn’t match your needs anymore.

Ideally, look for a service that only bills you for the emails you send out, rather than how many contacts you have on your list.

At Campaign Refinery, that’s exactly how we do things. We only use your credits when you send an email. Plus, there’s no cap on how big your list can be. We think this approach is clearer and fairer, and it’s designed to help your business grow without unnecessary costs.

Step 2: Sign Up

Many email marketing services provide a free trial or a free version to let you try out their features before you fully commit. This is a great way to learn how the service works and to see if it fits your needs. However, keep in mind that these free options usually come with certain restrictions.

These limits could include how many emails you can send, how many subscribers you can have, or access to advanced features like detailed analytics or design tools.

What if there was something even better than a free trial? Imagine getting insights from an expert email marketer about whether a platform is the right fit for your needs. That way, you wouldn’t have to spend hours navigating a new dashboard and trying to figure out how everything works just to see if it’s what you’re looking for.

At Campaign Refinery, we’ve decided to skip the free trial phase. Instead, we focus on working with clients who we know we can help. Before we bring someone on board, we have a chat to go over what you need and what we offer. If it looks like we’re a good fit, then we welcome you to our platform. This approach ensures you’re investing in a service that truly matches your needs.

Step 3: Import Your Contacts

If you’ve already built up a contact list, most email marketing platforms make it easy for you to transfer that list from your previous vendor. This process is usually straightforward and quick, meaning you won’t have to manually input each contact again.

On the other hand, if you’re starting without an email list, be prepared for the effort it takes to build a quality one from scratch.

Steer clear of questionable shortcuts, like buying email lists. While buying lists might seem like a quick fix, it often leads to reaching people who aren’t genuinely interested in your offers, which can harm your sender reputation and effectiveness.

Instead, focus on building your list the right way. Use proven methods like double opt-in forms on your website, creating engaging landing pages, or offering compelling lead magnets. This approach takes more time, but you’ll avoid being a spam sender.

Step 4: Clean Your List

Email list hygiene means checking your email list for non-valid addresses, spam traps, and duplicates. You might also want to remove contacts who haven’t engaged with your emails for a long time.

Each ESP has its own set of rules for managing bounced emails and handling spam complaints. By cleaning your list before sending emails, you ensure that you’re only sending to contacts who are active and interested in your emails. So, you’ll avoid issues with your new provider right from the start, such as being mistakenly flagged for sending spam.

With Campaign Refinery, you can put your list cleaning on autopilot. Our auto-cleaning feature scans your list and gets rid of any harmful addresses.

This includes:

Bots.
Spam traps.
Invalid addresses.
Role-based addresses (like info@ or support@).
Addresses that have bounced emails back.

Step 5: Segment Your List

Now that you’ve built your email list the right way, make sure each person on your list gets messages they’re interested in. Just because you can send unlimited emails doesn’t mean you should.

Segmenting your list is a powerful strategy here. It means you organize your contacts into groups based on age, and where they live, their previous purchases. This way, you can tailor your emails to fit the interests and needs of each group.

For example, you might send a different message to young adults than you would to retirees, or you might highlight certain products to customers in cold climates that wouldn’t be as relevant to those in tropical areas.

At Campaign Refinery, our segmentation tools help you tailor your email lists perfectly to match your subscribers’ interests and actions. Our tag-based system gives you the flexibility to send highly personalized and relevant emails to each segment. This means more people opening your emails, clicking on links, and, ultimately, better results for your campaigns.

Step 6: Send Your Email Campaigns

When you can send as many emails as you want, make sure those emails are well-written and align with your audience’s needs.

Think about who you’re writing for. What do they need? What do they care about? How can your product or service make a difference in their lives?

Also, consider why you’re sending the email in the first place. Are you trying to inform, persuade, or simply stay in touch? Your purpose will guide your email content and email format.

Solution 2: Open Source Software for Sending Unlimited Emails

If you’re not ready to spend money on an email marketing service, consider open-source email marketing software to send your bulk emails. There are plenty of open-source options out there that offer exciting features for free.

You’ll still have to pay for your server and email sending agent, but the cost will be lower than signing up with an email marketing software.

However, there are a few downsides:

Fewer features: You might not get all the fancy tools that come with paid services.
No support: If you run into trouble, there’s no dedicated help desk to call.
Less security: There’s a higher chance of running into security issues without regular updates.
More technical: You’ll need some tech skills to set up and customize your software.

To kick off with open-source email marketing software, you need to go through these steps:

Get a server: Think of a server like a computer that’s always on. It needs to host your email software so you can send emails anytime.
Choose an email sending agent: This is the service that actually delivers your emails from your server to people’s inboxes.
Install your email marketing software: Once your server is ready, install the email software on it. Whichever software you choose, look for the installation instructions and follow them.
Configure the email sender: Connect your email sending agent to the software. Tweak the settings in your software to work the way you want.

Solution 3: Build Your Own SMTP Email Server to Send Unlimited Emails

If you’re looking to send mass emails without the extra features of an email marketing platform, setting up an SMTP server is your most cost-effective option.

An SMTP server is a mail server that lets you send unlimited emails per day. It works on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) to deliver emails.

This type of server is only responsible for sending emails by establishing a connection between the sender and the recipient. Then, the recipient’s server, which works on POP or IMAP protocols, receives the message.

Of course, going this route means you’ll miss out on:

Automated email sequences,
Built-in analytics,
Drag-and-drop email design tools,
List segmentation options,
Customer support,
Regular security updates,
Compliance with email laws and regulations.

How To Set Up Your Own SMTP Server

Setting up your own SMTP server may require different steps depending on your email sending agent.

But these are the general guidelines:

Choose your server agent. You’ll need a Virtual Private Server to host your SMTP software, or you could sign up with service providers like SMTP.com to reduce the technical workload and improve your deliverability.
Configure the settings. Depending on your sender software, you’ll need to set up the email sending features, including credentials, server address, and port number.
Pick an IP or email relay host. You need an IP address to make yourself known to the ISP.
Test your performance. Start sending test emails to see how your server works. You may want to track performance indicators, especially email deliverability.
Warm up your IP. IP warming is when you start by sending just a few emails and then slowly send more each week. This helps you build trust with ISPs and improve your IP’s reputation.

Recapping Different Ways to Send Unlimited Emails

Let’s recap the strengths and weaknesses of different ways to send unlimited emails.

Solution	Pros	Cons
Gmail and Outlook	‣ Free	‣ A severely limited number of emails ‣ No email marketing features
Email marketing software	‣ Unlimited number of emails ‣ Email templates ‣ List growth and cleaning ‣ Analytics ‣ Regulatory compliance ‣ Beginner-friendly	‣ Can be costly
Open-source software	‣ Control over features ‣ Lower prices	‣ Steep learning curve ‣ Limited technical support
SMTP server	‣ High control over the number of emails ‣ Lower costs	‣ No analytics ‣ No email templates ‣ No built-in list-building tools ‣ No regulatory compliance

Pros and cons of bulk email sending methods

Don’t Use Your SMTP Server to Send Cold Email

If your business strategy leans heavily on cold emailing, you might find that traditional email marketing platforms don’t support this approach. These platforms often have rules against cold outreach.

So, you’ll have to set up an SMTP server to send unlimited cold emails. But this method has its own set of challenges.

First off, ISPs limit how many emails you can send from a domain, even if there’s no explicit limit from your email sending service. They do this to shield their users from spam and unwanted emails.

Plus, setting up and managing your own SMTP server comes with the challenge of maintaining email security standards. Without the necessary resources, it’s tough to adhere to all the best practices for email security.

What’s the Alternative?

Stop doing cold outreach! It’s not a sound business strategy because there’s no trust. Cold email open rates are meager, and spam complaint rates are high.

This can hurt your domain’s reputation, to the point where you might have to keep changing email domains and starting all over again. Instead, put your energy into ways to genuinely attract people’s interest and get them engaged with what you do.

Important Note: At Campaign Refinery, we take a firm stand against cold outreach and will close the accounts of any clients found engaging in this practice. We insist that all your contacts have given their consent, and we strongly recommend using a double opt-in process. This ensures that your subscribers are truly interested in what you have to offer.

Send Unlimited Emails With Campaign Refinery — No Hassle, No Surprises

Campaign Refinery makes email marketing straightforward and effective. With our platform, you can send as many emails as you need without worrying about hitting a cap or encountering unexpected costs.

We’re proud to be the go-to option for people who need to send lots of emails and want to avoid the dreaded spam folder.

By teaming up with us, you join a group of reputable senders, and you can count on the collective reputation to boost your deliverability.

Apply to join Campaign Refinery today!

Your Guide to Sending Unlimited Emails Successfully