Gmail Sending Limits: Quotas, Errors, DNS

What are Gmail's sending limits per day?

Google publishes two sets of Gmail sending limits. Personal @gmail.com accounts are covered on the Gmail Help page "Limits for sending & getting mail". Google Workspace accounts are covered on the Workspace Admin Help page "Gmail sending limits in Google Workspace". Both pages rank at the top of the results for this search. They give the exact quotas, and Google can change them without notice. So read the live pages before you plan volume around a figure you found in a blog post, including this one. The table shows how the limits are built, which changes far less often than the numbers do.

Property	Free Gmail (@gmail.com)	Google Workspace (paid)	Google Workspace (trial)
Where Google publishes the limit	Gmail Help: Limits for sending & getting mail	Workspace Admin Help: Gmail sending limits in Google Workspace	Same Admin Help page, which lists trial accounts separately
What the quota applies to	The single account	Each user, not the whole domain	Each user, with a lower quota than paid
How the day is counted	Rolling window	Rolling window	Rolling window
What counts	Messages and every recipient	Messages, total recipients, external and unique recipients	Messages and recipients
Can you raise it?	No	Not per user; add users or use another sending route	Limit goes up once the trial is paid

Because the quota applies per user, ten Workspace users on one domain each get their own allowance. All ten still share one domain reputation with receiving servers, though. One mailbox that draws spam complaints affects how the others are treated.

How does Google Workspace count recipients against the limit?

Google Workspace counts sends over a rolling window, not from midnight. A send only stops counting once a full day has passed since it went out. Each recipient counts, whether they're in To, Cc or Bcc, so a message to three people uses three units of the recipient quota. Workspace Admin Help also lists separate caps for external recipients and unique recipients. In outreach, almost every recipient is external and new, so those caps can stop an account before the plain message limit does.

• Follow-ups count. A three-step sequence uses up to three times as many sends as the list has prospects.
• Workspace Admin Help counts auto-forwarding and auto-replies against the quota too.
• Mail sent through the Gmail API or over SMTP from a connected app counts against the same user's quota as mail sent from the web interface.
• Trial Workspace accounts keep the lower trial limit until billing is set up. That's behind many reports of hitting the limit in the first few days.

Our article on follow-up timing explains why every message in a sequence is a separate send, and how follow-ups stay in one thread.

What happens when you reach the Gmail sending limit?

When an account goes over its quota, Gmail stops sending new mail and returns a bounce notice saying the sending limit was exceeded. Google's help pages say sending can stay blocked for up to a day. Incoming mail still arrives during that time. Read the Status and Diagnostic-Code lines in the bounce. A quota bounce names the limit. A reputation rejection from a receiving server names a policy or spam reason instead.

One Reddit thread in the current results is titled "Gmail Says I reached my sending Limit with only around 15". That's far below any quota Google publishes. Google also restricts accounts it treats as suspicious, for example new accounts, accounts sending many near-identical messages, or accounts with lots of bounces or spam reports. It doesn't publish those thresholds. Waiting for the window to clear won't fix this kind of block, because the sending pattern caused it. Our guide to bounce codes shows how to tell the two cases apart.

Is the Workspace quota a safe cold email volume?

No. The quota is the most Google will send for you before it stops the account. It doesn't tell you how much a receiving server will accept from a cold sender before it gets suspicious. The receiving server decides about inbox placement, based on its view of your domain and IP: whether authentication passes, how many messages bounce, how many recipients mark them as spam, and how fast the volume grows. A new mailbox that jumps straight to its quota usually hurts its domain reputation well before it hits the hard stop.

Gmail also has rules for incoming mail that apply however you send. Google's Email sender guidelines require SPF, DKIM and a DMARC record aligned with the From domain from senders above a published bulk threshold, plus one-click unsubscribe. They also ask every sender to keep the spam rate shown in Postmaster Tools low. We cover realistic daily volumes per mailbox and the ramp-up in separate guides.

How can you send more than Gmail allows?

There are four realistic routes. Each sets its limit in a different place and gives you a different degree of control over authentication. The table compares them on the same properties. Limits for each provider depend on the plan or account, so check them in that vendor's documentation.

Route	Who sets the sending limit	Whose domain signs DKIM	Where it stops
More Google Workspace users	Google, per user, as in Workspace Admin Help	Your domain, with the google._domainkey key	Each mailbox needs its own licence and warm-up, and reputation is still shared per domain
Google Workspace SMTP relay	Google, under separate relay limits in Workspace Admin Help	Your domain, if DKIM is turned on in Workspace	Built for devices and apps in your organisation, not for bulk sending tools
Brevo	Brevo, under your Brevo plan	Your domain, once you authenticate it in Brevo	Needs its own SPF include and DKIM key; whether the IP is shared or dedicated depends on the plan
Amazon SES	AWS, under account quotas you can ask to raise	Your domain, through domain verification	New accounts start restricted, and you build sending and list handling yourself

Mail sent through an email service provider doesn't use your Gmail quota, because it never passes through Gmail's outgoing servers. You still have a limit, though. The provider's limits take the place of Google's, and Gmail's rules for incoming mail stay the same.

How EmailFlow OS sends: a EmailFlow OS product

EmailFlow OS sends through your own provider account, not a shared one. You record one video and upload it to EmailFlow OS. You connect your Brevo account and your sending domain, then import your prospect list into EmailFlow OS, where it's stored. EmailFlow OS makes a personalised version of that recording for each recipient, not just for each company. Each version goes out from your own inbox, through your Brevo account and your sending domain. Nothing is sent from a shared platform address.

So Gmail's per-user quota doesn't apply to these sends. Your Brevo plan sets the limit. Your domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, along with the reputation you build on that domain, shape how receiving servers handle the mail. You control all of these. The home page explains how EmailFlow OS's personalised video email works.

What is Gmail's SPF record?

For a custom domain on Google Workspace, Google's Admin Help gives the SPF record as one TXT record at the root of the domain: v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all. Personal @gmail.com addresses don't need one. Google publishes SPF for gmail.com itself, and you can't change it. If you also send through Brevo, don't add a second SPF record. The SPF standard allows only one SPF record per domain, and two records make the check fail. Add the include that Brevo's domain authentication screen shows to the existing record. The standard also limits how many DNS lookups an SPF check may trigger. Stacking includes past that limit causes a permerror, which receivers treat as an SPF failure. Our article on Workspace DNS records shows the combined record.

How does Gmail DKIM work?

With Gmail DKIM, Google's outgoing server adds a cryptographic signature to each message, and the receiving server checks it against a public key published in DNS. Personal @gmail.com mail is signed as gmail.com, and you can't add your own key. Mail from a Workspace domain is signed with a default Google key until you turn on your own. That default signature doesn't match your From domain, so it doesn't count toward DMARC alignment. Turn on your domain's key before you send any volume.

Gmail DKIM record: where and what

Google's Admin Help gives the steps. Generate the key under Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > Authenticate email. Publish it as a TXT record at google._domainkey on your domain. google is the default selector. The value starts with v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p= followed by the public key. Then go back to the Admin console and click Start authentication, because signing doesn't begin until you do. Some DNS hosts cut long TXT values. If the published key looks truncated, split it into several quoted strings or generate a shorter key. Brevo signs with its own selector, so its key sits alongside Google's and doesn't replace it. You can check both with our SPF, DKIM and DMARC checker. Our G Suite DKIM guide covers the common fixes.

Questions people ask

? Does the Gmail sending limit reset at midnight?

No. Google's Gmail Help and Workspace Admin Help describe a rolling window, not a calendar day. Each send stops counting one full day after it went out. If you hit the limit in the morning, you get capacity back the next morning, as those morning sends age out. Midnight has no effect.

? Do Bcc recipients count toward Gmail's limit?

Yes. Gmail counts every recipient address in To, Cc and Bcc. A message with fifty Bcc addresses uses the same recipient allowance as fifty separate messages. Bcc only hides the addresses from the other recipients. It doesn't lower the count.

? Does sending through Brevo with a Gmail address avoid the limit?

It avoids Google's sending quota, but it creates an authentication problem. Brevo can't sign DKIM as gmail.com, so a From address on @gmail.com fails DMARC alignment. Send from your own domain instead, with SPF and DKIM set up for both Google Workspace and Brevo.