A free Gmail account can email 500 people a day. If your list is bigger than that, the usual answer is to spread the campaign over several accounts. It works, as long as each account behaves like a normal person's inbox.
The basic setup
- Use accounts that are a few weeks old and have been used normally. Brand-new accounts that immediately send hundreds of emails get locked quickly.
- Set a daily cap per account well below 500. 100 to 300 is a comfortable range for established accounts.
- Rotate between accounts so no single account sends a long burst.
- Add a pause between emails, ideally a slightly random one (for example 20 to 60 seconds).
- Personalise each email with at least the recipient's name. Identical copies sent hundreds of times are a classic spam signal.
Mistakes that get accounts locked
- Sending to old or scraped lists with lots of invalid addresses (high bounce rates)
- Many links, link shorteners or attachments in a first email
- Logging into many accounts from the same IP within minutes
- Ignoring replies and unsubscribe requests
The legal part
Only email people who expect to hear from you, and include a clear way to opt out. That's both the law in most countries and the best thing you can do for deliverability.
Doing it with ZeroPhantom
Our Gmail sender for Windows handles the account rotation, daily caps, random pauses and personalisation for you. You import your accounts and contacts, write the email, and it spreads the sending out safely. New accounts? Warm them up first. And see Gmail's sending limits for the numbers.