Gmail sending limit
500 a day on free Gmail.2,000 on Workspace.
A free Gmail account can send 500 emails a day, and no more than 500 recipients in one email. A paid Google Workspace account can send 2,000 a day, or 1,500 recipients by mail merge. Go over and Gmail stops you sending for up to 24 hours. The calculator below shows how many days your customer list would take under those caps, and what the same send costs from your own domain with Builderify Broadcast.
By the Builderify team
What is the Gmail
sending limit?
500 a day, or 2,000
on Workspace.
It depends on the account you send from. A personal Gmail account stops at 500 emails a day.Gmail Help A paid Google Workspace account can send 2,000 messages a day per user, with lower figures on a trial and for mail merge.Workspace Help
A day means the last 24 hours, not since midnight. Google’s Workspace page says its limits apply over a rolling 24-hour period, “not a set time of day”. Everything you send counts: the newsletter, and the replies and invoices you send in between.
Google also says sending limits can change without notice. These figures were read on 29 October 2026.
| Account | Per day | In one email | Locked out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Gmail | 500 emails | 500 recipients | Within 1 to 24 hours |
| Google Workspace | 2,000 messages | 2,000 (500 outside your domain) | Up to 24 hours |
| Workspace trial | 500 messages | 2,000 (500 outside your domain) | Up to 24 hours |
| Workspace mail merge | 1,500 recipients | 1,500 in the To line | Until the daily quota resets |
Sources: Gmail Help for free accounts, Google Workspace Admin Help for Workspace and trials, and Gmail’s mail merge help for mail merge.
How many days will Gmail
take to reach your list?
Count it before you press send.
Type in how many people are on your list and which account you send from. The calculator takes off the everyday email you send anyway, splits the list into batches under Google’s daily cap, and prices the same send in Builderify credits. It starts with a made-up bakery’s numbers; nothing you type leaves your browser.
From Gmail
3 days
1,200 people at 450 a day (500 cap, less 50 other emails). The last 300 go out on day 3.
- Day 1 450
- Day 2 450
- Day 3 300
The same send from Builderify Broadcast
- One send
- 600 credits
- A month of sends
- 1,200 credits
- After 250 free a month
- 950 credits
| Pack | Per email | That month, at the pack rate |
|---|---|---|
| Starter $9 for 1,000 | $0.0045 | $8.55 |
| Growth $29 for 5,000 | $0.0029 | $5.51 |
| Pro $69 for 15,000 | $0.0023 | $4.37 |
| Business $149 for 50,000 | $0.0015 | $2.83 |
| Scale $349 for 150,000 | $0.0012 | $2.21 |
Packs are bought whole, once, and their credits never expire, so the last column is the share of a pack this month’s sending uses. Builderify paces sending by the hour rather than the day; the campaign screen shows an estimated send time before you start.
Why take off other email. The cap counts everything the account sends. On mail merge, Google stops merging once regular and merged email reach 1,500 together.
Why a customer list hits 2,000 on Workspace. Workspace allows 2,000 unique outside recipients a day, so putting customers in Bcc doesn’t stretch it.
A day is 24 hours. Start each batch at least 24 hours after the last one began, and keep a note of who has had it.
Gmail sending limits
for free accounts
500, with everything counted.
A free Gmail account can send 500 emails a day. Google’s help page gives two triggers for its “You have reached a limit for sending mail” message: one email to more than 500 recipients, or more than 500 emails sent in a day. After that, it says you should be able to send again within 1 to 24 hours.Gmail Help
Plan as if every recipient counts. The personal help page doesn’t spell out how Bcc addresses count towards the daily figure; Google’s Workspace page counts To, Cc and Bcc. One newsletter with 300 customers in Bcc, plus a busy day of ordinary email, can be the whole allowance.
There is no mail merge on a personal account. Google lists only Workspace plans for it, so on free Gmail a personal email to each customer is one send each, and you add your own unsubscribe line. For what a marketing email needs in the US, see the CAN-SPAM checklist.
-
01
“You have reached a limit for sending mail”
This is the sending limit. Your account sent too much; nothing more goes out until it lifts, within 1 to 24 hours.
-
02
“Messages you sent couldn’t be delivered”
This is a bounce, not the limit: Google gives an invalid address or a bounce from the recipient’s server as the reasons. Read the code in it with the email bounce codes decoder.
Gmail sending limits
on Google Workspace
2,000 a day, 1,500 by mail merge.
A paid Workspace user can send 2,000 messages a day, over a rolling 24 hours. Go over any of the limits below and Google says the user can’t send new messages for up to 24 hours, though they can still receive email and use other Google services.Workspace Help
-
2,000
Messages a day, per user
The daily sending limit. A trial account gets 500, and Google doesn’t raise it during the trial.
-
2,000
Unique outside recipients a day
The figure that decides a customer list, because each customer is a different outside address. 3,000 unique recipients in all; 500 outside on a trial.
-
2,000
Recipients in one message
To, Cc and Bcc together, with no more than 500 of them outside your domain.
-
10,000
Recipients a day, in total
Every address on every message you send. 1,500 when you send by mail merge.
-
3,000
Outside recipients a day
Addresses outside your primary domain, counted each time you email them.
-
1,500
Mail merge recipients a day
Inside the 2,000. Once regular and merged email reach 1,500, merging stops; the last 500 are for ordinary email.
What about Gmail mail merge?
Mail merge sends one personal copy to each person on a list. Google allows up to 1,500 recipients a day and 1,500 in the To line of one message, with only one recipient in Cc or Bcc, and adds a unique unsubscribe link to the bottom of each email.Mail merge Help
Plans Google lists for mail merge
- Workspace Individual
- Business Standard
- Business Plus
- Enterprise Standard
- Enterprise Plus
- Education Standard
- Education Plus
Business Starter isn’t on the list, and neither is a personal Gmail account. If your plan isn’t there, the 2,000-a-day limit still applies, but each personal email is a separate send.
What happens when you
hit the Gmail sending
limit per day?
You wait. Then you batch.
Gmail stops sending new mail from the account until the limit lifts: within 1 to 24 hours on a personal account, up to 24 hours on Workspace. You can still read and receive email. There is nothing to request; the way through is to send the rest in smaller batches.
-
01
Stop and note who has it
Before anything else, mark on your list who the email reached. Sending the rest twice is worse than sending it a day late.
-
02
Wait for the window to move
The limit is over the last 24 hours, so room comes back as yesterday’s sends age out, not at midnight.
-
03
Send the rest in batches under the cap
Leave room for your everyday email. The calculator above gives the batch size and the number of days.
-
04
Check it wasn’t something else
A bounce or a 421 4.7.28 “unusual rate of email” reply comes from the receiving server, not from your own limit. The bounce codes guide explains each one.
-
05
If it happens every send, move the list
A list bigger than a day’s allowance is a list for a sending service on your own domain, with SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up first. Google applies extra rules to anyone sending close to 5,000 messages a day to personal Gmail accounts.
When should you stop
sending from Gmail?
When the list outgrows the day.
Gmail is built for people writing to people. It is fine for a few hundred customers. Once a send takes more than a day, or you are adding unsubscribe lines by hand, a campaign tool on your own domain is less work. Broadcast sends to a list in your lead lists from your domain, and replies land in the Builderify Inbox.
| The same newsletter | Free Gmail | Workspace mail merge | Builderify Broadcast |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily ceiling | 500 emails | 1,500 recipients | No daily figure; an hourly limit that starts low for a new sender and rises as it ages |
| Sends from | Your @gmail.com address | Your Workspace address | Your own domain, once SPF, DKIM and DMARC check out |
| Unsubscribe link | You add one | Added automatically | Added when your email has none, with one-click opt-out |
| Before the first send | Nothing | An eligible Workspace plan | DNS records verified and the sender approved by a person |
| Replies arrive in | Your Gmail inbox | Your Gmail inbox | Mailboxes in the Builderify dashboard |
| Cost of the send | Free | Part of your Workspace plan | 0.5 credit an email; 250 free credits a month |
What Broadcast does
- Checks SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your domain before the first send. The SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide builds the records with you.
- Adds an unsubscribe link and one-click opt-out to every send, puts your business name and postal address in the footer, and skips unsubscribed and bounced addresses.
- Sends now or on a schedule, and can pause and resume mid-send without emailing anyone twice.
- Costs 0.5 credit an email. The 250 free credits every account gets each month cover 500 emails, and packs start at $9 with no monthly fee. See pricing.
What it won’t do
- Send to a list you didn’t earn. It is for people who asked to hear from you; the sender setup asks how they joined your list.
- Send the moment you sign up. A person approves each new sender first.
- Send without limits. It has its own hourly limit, which starts low for a new sender and rises as the sender ages, and slows down if bounces or complaints creep up.
- Promise the inbox. No tool can; where an email lands is the receiving provider’s decision.
Still building the list? Popups and forms write signups into a list, and Sequences send the welcome emails. On WordPress, compare the three ways to send a newsletter from WordPress.
Gmail limits, before you ask.
A free Gmail account can send 500 emails a day, and no more than 500 recipients in one email. A paid Google Workspace account can send 2,000 messages a day per user, or 500 on a trial, and mail merge allows 1,500 recipients a day. Google applies the Workspace limits over a rolling 24 hours and says they can change without notice; these figures were checked on 29 October 2026.
On a free account, Google says you should be able to send again within 1 to 24 hours. On Workspace, a user who goes over a limit can't send new messages for up to 24 hours, but can still receive email and use other Google services. Because the day is a rolling 24 hours, room comes back as earlier sends age out, not at midnight.
No. A free account is limited to 500 recipients in one email, and Workspace counts every To, Cc and Bcc address, with at most 500 outside your domain in one message and 2,000 unique outside recipients a day. Mail merge allows only one recipient in Cc or Bcc. For a list bigger than a day's allowance, send in batches or use a sending service on your own domain.
Google lists Workspace Individual, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Standard and Education Plus. Business Starter and personal Gmail accounts are not on the list. Mail merge sends up to 1,500 recipients a day and adds a unique unsubscribe link to each email.
Each email sent is 0.5 credits, and the 250 free credits every account gets each month cover 500 emails. Packs are one-time, start at $9 for 1,000 credits and never expire, with no monthly fee. Broadcast sends from your own verified domain to people who asked to hear from you, a person approves each new sender, and sending is paced by an hourly limit.
Sources
Google’s help pages were read on 29 October 2026, and Google says its sending limits can change without notice. The Builderify details come from the Broadcast module page and the rate card on this site. Nothing here is a promise of delivery or inbox placement.
Stop losing the visitors
you already paid for.
More leads from the traffic you already have, and follow-up that sends itself. Free to start. No card, no monthly fee.