Foo - SMTP: sending bulk (not spam) emails, need a higher limit!

For my website, velobase.com, I have been sending out periodic (semi-monthly) update emails to all members to let them know what is new on the site, what changes have been made, etc etc. I'm doing this through the SMTP sever through my webhost, godaddy.com. My website's code (asp.net 2.0) has the server and my account info, and sends off the emails through SMTP relay.

All in good, except that godaddy imposes a limit of 250 emails per day. My website opened in June, and in less than 6 months I have 220 users currently. You see then, the problem I will soon face. As it is I can not send a correction to a update email if for some reason I send a wrong bit of information or something (like I accidentally did today :o)

Right now I'm looking at using gmail's smtp for the bulk emails only, but their limit only goes to 500, and I hear a rumor it might limit to 100 per hour?

Anyone else have any other better options? Thanks!

Setup or find someone to run ezmlm for you. Or use yahoo groups. But I'll be honest. You sound like someone trying to get into the spam game - thats why those rules exist on other mail servers.

That came off harsher than I'd intended. Take that statement, but imagine it nice... er. Anyhoo, my bad.

Contact someone who sends a list on a regular basis. I'm thinking Fred Langa from the langalist. He's got a rather large mailer and seems willing to help.

Do like the spammers do--find open SMTP servers and send your mail through them. ;)

<just kidding...sorta>

Setup or find someone to run ezmlm for you. Or use yahoo groups. But I'll be honest. You sound like someone trying to get into the spam game - thats why those rules exist on other mail servers.


Yeah, I understand why the limits exisit, just makes life difficult for valid newsletter mailings unless you have your own hardware and dedicated pipe laying around. Which, while not the easiest nor cheapest thing to do, is usually the final solution. I'm just running a little (yet rapidly growing) website about vintage cycling components. All emails are opt out of course. Suppose the short term solution could be to set the emailer to send nothing unless members opt in.

Stacey - thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. Perhaps the guys who run bikelist.org might have some ideas as well.

For businesses we use http://constantcontact.com - but it's not free.

Otherwise the free workaround I've used is to put everyone on a Google groups list.

Why not run your own SMTP server, I use to run one off my DSL at home. I ran qmail, but would suggest posfix.

what happened to the genteel, hand written letter? you kids and your computer machines.

write a script and attach it to the first e-mail.
The script (if done properly) could then fire off 10 or 20 emails from the recipients own e-mail system.
Voila, you'll cover every possible user. :D

Why not run your own SMTP server, I use to run one off my DSL at home. I ran qmail, but would suggest posfix.

That won't always help, sometimes the relay servers have limits too. I run into this all the time with my sales department. My smtp sends it fine, then my isp calls me and asks me whats going on ;)

That won't always help, sometimes the relay servers have limits too. I run into this all the time with my sales department. My smtp sends it fine, then my isp calls me and asks me whats going on ;)

If you have your own mail server for your domain you shouldn't have to relay mail though your ISP.

How are these figures computed?

i.e. Are you sending 200 users the same message (1 message, multiple recipients)
or 200 separate emails?

200 of the same email (BCC'ed 75 addresses at a time as the limit for a single email is 100 email addresses). But since it gets sent to ultimately 200+ actual addresses, it counts one to each.

I'd consider a Yahoo group as the easiest solution.

Barring that, you can use a commercial SMTP server provider, or if your ISP doesn't block port 25 you can send the messages out yourself, but a lot of places blackhole dynamic (cable/DSL) addresses.

200 of the same email (BCC'ed 75 addresses at a time as the limit for a single email is 100 email addresses). But since it gets sent to ultimately 200+ actual addresses, it counts one to each.
Be aware that large numbers of BCCs are one of the methods used to detect spam. Also, running your own mail server from your home computer is probably not a great idea if you're into reliability. If you belong to an IP range known to be used for home users and have no mail server record in DNS, many systems will identify what you send as spam.

You need a list hosting service. Then, even sending thousands of messages is no problem.

Gmail doesn't have any kind of limit that I know of. Has SMTP and POP3.

That came off harsher than I'd intended. Take that statement, but imagine it nice... er. Anyhoo, my bad.

You'd think as smart as you are, you would have gone back and edited your post.

Gmail doesn't have any kind of limit that I know of. Has SMTP and POP3.

I can send up to 1200 emails in a batch, but I get the warning from gmail that if I am spamming, I can lose my gmail account. Never had a reason to send more.

SMTP = Show Me the Pink (http://www.myspace.com/showmethepink)?

(not what you're thinking you dirty-minded fools; it's a bikey Pop-Punk band)

:D

I BCC so that I don't expose the email addresses of members to everyone else, Tom, thanks for the info on Gmail, I'll give it a try some time soon. For the time being I've put a stop-gap measure in by only selecting to email the 250 most recently active members on the website. It still prevents me from sending out any more than 1 broadcast email a day, which 99.999% of the time shouldn't ever need to happen. I'll be that one time that I screw something up and send the wrong information out that I'll need it.

SMTP.com has a limit of 600 per day ($280 yr)

or as mentioned - run your own

Find a proper web hosting service that includes Mailman (http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html), free software for managing electronic mail discussion and e-newsletter lists. Hosting services that use Plesk (http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/plesk/) for their server administration and end-user (meaning you) domain control panel are a good place to start looking.

You'd think as smart as you are, you would have gone back and edited your post.

The statement stands, so I didn't edit it. It wasn't intended harsh but realize it could be read/taken that way. I run a series of mail servers - mostly qmail & postfix with a scattering of Exchange - and am familiar with the ins and outs surrounding them.

I think yahoo groups is probably the way to go - or setup some forums using something like phpbb and get away from the listserv model. 250 members is decent sized. Congrats on that! I poked around your site - is pretty nice. Alot of information there. Really, well done.