How to Increase Your Hourly Email Sending Limit

Shared hosting places an hourly limit on how many emails one account can send. It is not there to frustrate you — it protects every site on the server from being blocklisted if one account is compromised or misconfigured. If you are hitting the cap, there is a right way to send more, and it usually is not simply raising the number.

Why the limit exists

If a single account suddenly blasts thousands of messages — often because it has been hacked or a plugin has gone haywire — mail providers blocklist the server's IP. That would hurt everyone. The hourly cap keeps one bad batch from poisoning the whole neighbourhood.

Step 1: Find out if you are actually hitting it

Before asking for more, confirm the limit is really the problem. Check your account for deferred-mail notices, and review the mail queue. Sometimes the true issue is deliverability, not volume.

Step 2: Send bulk email the right way

For newsletters and large campaigns, shared hosting is the wrong tool no matter how high the limit. Use a dedicated service built for volume:

• A transactional/bulk provider (SMTP relay services) handles reputation and deliverability for you.
• Your WordPress site can route through one — see configuring WordPress to send via SMTP.

This keeps your marketing mail off the shared queue entirely, so your normal business email stays fast.

Step 3: Request a review if you have a genuine need

If your legitimate day-to-day mail genuinely needs a higher cap, open a support ticket explaining your use case. We review these individually and can adjust limits or suggest a plan better suited to your volume, such as a VPS.

Frequently asked questions

Why not just set the limit really high?

Because a high cap is exactly what a compromised account exploits. The limit is a safety net; the better fix for real volume is a sending service designed for it.

Does the limit count internal emails too?

Typically it counts messages leaving the server. High internal traffic (like site notifications) can still add up, so audit any plugins or scripts sending mail automatically.

My contact form stopped sending after a busy day.

You may have hit the cap from automated mail. Route form and site mail through an SMTP service, and the problem disappears while your allowance frees up for personal email.