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Gmail and Google Workspace limit how many bulk emails they accept from a single sender each day. If a large share of your audience uses Gmail addresses and you send a very large campaign, Gmail may defer or reject some messages — meaning some participants never receive the email, without any obvious error on your end. This is not a problem with the platform. It is a constraint imposed by Gmail on receiving bulk email, and it affects all bulk senders. Understanding it helps you plan campaigns that reach everyone you intend to reach.

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Why Gmail limits bulk receiving

Gmail treats high volumes of email from a single sending source as a potential spam signal. When too many emails arrive from one sender in a short window, Gmail starts deferring them — accepting some immediately, queuing others for later delivery, and in some cases silently dropping messages that look like spam. The threshold is not published by Google and changes over time, but it is most likely to affect you when:
  • Your campaign is very large (thousands of recipients).
  • A high proportion of your audience uses Gmail or Google Workspace addresses.
  • Your sending domain or IP reputation is not well established.
  • You send infrequently, so there is no warm sending history.

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How to avoid hitting the limit

Send to your actual subscribers, not everyone. Use the Audience step to target only participants who have opted in and are likely to engage. A smaller, more engaged list is treated more favourably by Gmail than a large list of cold addresses. See Audiences. Keep your list clean. Remove addresses that have bounced, unsubscribed, or are clearly inactive before sending. High bounce rates and low engagement rates damage your sender reputation over time and make Gmail more likely to rate-limit future sends. Use a verified custom sending domain. Campaigns sent from a recognised, verified domain build a sending reputation faster than shared or generic addresses. If you regularly send to a large audience, set up a custom sending domain — see Branding. Send consistently, not in large irregular bursts. Gmail is more tolerant of senders with a steady history of regular sends. If you send only once or twice a year but to a very large list, consider smaller, more frequent campaigns to build a sending pattern. Stagger very large campaigns. If you need to reach tens of thousands of participants in a single campaign, consider splitting the audience into segments and sending to each over consecutive days rather than all at once.

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What to do if participants report not receiving an email

Ask the participant to:
  1. Check their Spam or Junk folder — Gmail sometimes misroutes bulk email there.
  2. Check their Promotions tab if they use Gmail’s tabbed inbox.
  3. Look for an email from hello@letsdothis.com (or your custom from address if set up) and add it to their contacts, which helps future delivery.
If multiple participants report the same issue after a large send, it is likely that Gmail rate-limited part of the campaign. Deferred emails are typically retried and delivered within a few hours. If messages were rejected outright, they will not be retried — contact Let’s Do This support and we can investigate the delivery logs.

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Ongoing list hygiene

The best long-term protection against Gmail limits is a healthy, engaged list:
  • Remove hard bounces promptly — addresses that permanently fail are a signal to Gmail that your list is not well maintained.
  • Watch your unsubscribe rate. A spike after a campaign suggests the content did not match participant expectations.
  • Do not import old, unverified lists. Addresses that have not engaged in years are likely to bounce or be flagged as spam traps.