Mail Policy and Limits

Shared Hosting Mail Limitations

500 hourly maximum outgoing email limit

This policy is applicable on a per-domain basis on all Shared servers, meaning that each addon and subdomain gets its own separate 500 outgoing emails per hour limit. This also applies to mailing lists. If a user sends over 500 emails at any hour, the emails will fail and may bounce back with an undeliverable error.

If you receive a bounceback indicating that your email has been flagged as spam due to exceeding the 500 email per hour limit, wait until the next hour to continue sending emails. If the problem does not go away, please contact us via phone or chat.

Each connecting IP is limited to 30 POP checks per hour

Users who attempt to go over the 30-check limit will likely get a password error indicating that the login is incorrect. The login error will subside within an hour, and the email check will automatically unlock. The best way to prevent this occurrence is to disable email settings that automatically send and receive or set the email check to a higher time interval, such as checking once every 10 minutes.

Mailing lists over 900 email addresses are only allowed during off-peak times

Any mailing list containing over 900 email addresses is only allowed to be sent during off-peak hours to prevent high server loads. HostGator defines off-peak times as all day Saturday and Sunday and 1 AM - 8 AM Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday.

Any mailing list larger than 5,000 email addresses will require a VPS or Dedicated Server. This means that users cannot send 12,000 emails a day (500 emails an hour x 24-hour period) on our Shared or Reseller plans. Please note that dividing one large list into smaller lists to get below this limit is not allowed on Shared or Reseller hosting plans.

The complete mail policy for HostGator's Shared and Reseller plans can be reviewed at the following link: Email Policy.

VPS Plan and Dedicated Hosting Mail Limitations

HostGator's Dedicated Server and VPS accounts can send and receive unlimited emails per hour and do not apply to the same mail restrictions listed in the section above for the Shared and reseller plans.

Our VPS and Dedicated server plans require that our users use a double opt-in list or a safelist. For more information, please see the following article:

Opt-in Mail Lists, Safelisting

The full mail policy for HostGator's Dedicated Servers and VPS plans can be found at the following link:

https://www.hostgator.com/tos/dedicated-mailpolicy

CAN-SPAM Rules

All online businesses that use email marketing must follow and understand all of the CAN-SPAM rules listed below:

The message must be identifiable as an advertisement.
The message must include an unsubscribe mechanism.
The message includes a valid physical postal address.

Note: Deceptive subject lines and false headers are outlawed and taken very seriously. You will be held responsible if anyone sends emails on your behalf.

Open Relays

Open relays are mail daemons that allow mail to be sent to a valid local user without authentication. These relays are not allowed on HostGator services.

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