Following the email sending limits recommendations for recipients per email can help reduce the likelihood of your emails being delayed, rejected, or marked as spam.
Whether you’re sending a message to colleagues, customers, or a group of contacts, understanding these limits helps ensure your emails reach their intended recipients.
This guide will help you understand how many recipients you can include in a single email, why recipient limits exist, and how to send emails in a way that protects your sender reputation and improves deliverability.
What This Means
Email recipient limits define how many people you can send a single email to at one time.
These limits exist to:
- Protect email servers from abuse
- Reduce spam and phishing activity
- Maintain good email deliverability
- Protect your domain and sender reputation
Recipient limits apply to everyone included in the email, regardless of whether they appear in the To, CC, or BCC fields.
If you regularly send newsletters, promotions, or announcements to large groups, a dedicated email marketing platform is a better choice than standard email hosting.
Steps to Meeting Recipient Per Email Sending Limits
Step 1: Understand the Maximum Recipient Limit
To protect deliverability and prevent spam-like sending patterns, 1-grid allows a maximum of 25 recipients per email.
This total includes every recipient added to:
- To
- CC
- BCC
For example:
- 10 recipients in To
- 5 recipients in CC
- 10 recipients in BCC
equals 25 total recipients, which is the maximum allowed in a single email.
TIP: If you need to contact more than 25 recipients, split your recipients into smaller groups or use a dedicated email marketing platform.
Step 2: Understand Why Recipient Limits Exist
Recipient limits help:
- Prevent compromised email accounts from sending spam
- Improve email delivery success
- Protect your domain reputation
- Keep email services reliable for all customers
Sending one email to a very large number of recipients is a common characteristic of spam and may increase the likelihood of messages being filtered or rejected by receiving mail servers.
Step 3: Follow Best Practices When Sending to Multiple Recipients
When emailing multiple people:
- Keep each email to 25 recipients or fewer
- Send messages in smaller batches where appropriate
- Only email recipients who expect to hear from you
- Keep attachments reasonably sized
- Personalise messages where possible
- Regularly maintain your mailing lists by removing invalid addresses
These practices help improve inbox placement and reduce delivery issues.
Step 4: Use the Right Tool for Bulk Email
Standard email hosting is intended for everyday business communication.
If you regularly send:
- Marketing campaigns
- Promotions
- Product announcements
- Customer updates to large mailing lists
use a dedicated email marketing platform instead.
These platforms are designed to:
- Manage large recipient lists
- Handle unsubscribe requests
- Track opens and clicks
- Maintain sender reputation
- Improve large-scale email deliverability
Step 5: Consider Attachments and Bandwidth
Attachments increase the overall size of each email.
If you’re sending the same attachment to multiple recipients:
- Larger attachments require more bandwidth.
- Large files may take longer to deliver.
- Some receiving mail servers may reject oversized emails.
Where possible, consider sharing large files using cloud storage links instead of attaching them directly.
Important Things to Know
- A maximum of 25 recipients can be included in a single email.
- The limit includes recipients in the To, CC, and BCC fields combined.
- Recipient limits help improve deliverability and reduce spam.
- Sending large numbers of emails using standard email hosting is not recommended.
- Recipient limits differ from daily sending limits and attachment size limits.
- Large attachments can affect delivery performance and bandwidth usage.
Before You Move On
Before sending your email:
- Confirm you have no more than 25 recipients.
- Review your recipient list for accuracy.
- Remove outdated or invalid email addresses.
- Consider whether a bulk email platform is more appropriate.
- Ensure any attachments are necessary and appropriately sized.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Sending to more than 25 recipients in a single email.
- Assuming BCC recipients do not count toward the recipient limit.
- Using standard email hosting for large marketing campaigns.
- Sending unsolicited emails to large contact lists.
- Including unnecessarily large attachments.
If This Didn’t Work
If you’re unable to send your email or receive recipient limit errors, gather the following before contacting Support:
- Your domain name
- The sender email address
- The total number of recipients
- Any error message received
- A screenshot of the error (if available)
- The date and time the email was sent
This information helps us investigate the issue more efficiently.
Related Articles
- What Is the Maximum Email Size for Sending and Receiving?
- Understanding Email Restrictions with 1-grid
- How SPF and DKIM Improve Email Delivery with 1-grid
- What Is an Email Signature?
- How Does Email Delivery Work?
FAQs
How many recipients can I include in one email?
You can send an email to a maximum of 25 recipients, including all addresses in the To, CC, and BCC fields.
Do BCC recipients count towards the limit?
Yes. Every recipient counts toward the total, regardless of whether they are in the To, CC, or BCC field.
Why can’t I send to more than 25 recipients?
Recipient limits help reduce spam, protect sender reputation, and improve email deliverability.
Can I send newsletters using my email hosting account?
Standard email hosting is intended for business correspondence. For newsletters and marketing campaigns, we recommend using a dedicated email marketing platform.
Will sending to too many recipients affect email delivery?
Yes. Sending emails to large recipient lists can increase the likelihood of messages being delayed, filtered as spam, or rejected.
What should I do if I need to email more than 25 people?
Split your recipients into smaller batches or use a dedicated email marketing service designed for bulk sending.
Empowering Insight
Successful email delivery isn’t only about sending messages; it’s about sending them responsibly. Following recipient limits and email best practices helps protect your domain reputation and improves the chances of your emails reaching the inbox.
Need Additional Support?
If you’ve reviewed the guidance above and are still experiencing issues, first explore the related Knowledge Base articles for additional troubleshooting steps.
If you still need assistance, contact us with your domain name, sender address, recipient count, and any error messages so we can help investigate further.