Rate Limiting
Protect your sender reputation with smart send limits
Rate limiting controls how many emails Stormy sends from each connected Gmail account per day and per hour. Proper rate limiting is the single most important factor in keeping your emails out of spam folders and maintaining a healthy sender reputation over time.
Rate limiting configuration panel showing daily and hourly limits with warmup progress
Why Rate Limiting Matters
Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo track sending patterns for every email account. When an account suddenly starts sending high volumes of email, it triggers automated spam defenses. The consequences are severe:
- Emails land in spam instead of the primary inbox
- Temporary sending blocks from Gmail (you literally cannot send email for hours or days)
- Permanent reputation damage that takes weeks or months to recover from
- Domain blacklisting in extreme cases, affecting all email from your domain
Rate limiting prevents all of this by keeping your sending volume within safe thresholds that match what email providers expect from a legitimate human sender.
A single day of aggressive sending can undo months of reputation building. Always err on the side of sending fewer emails rather than more, especially with newer accounts.
Default Limits
When you connect a new Gmail account, Stormy applies conservative default limits:
| Setting | Default Value |
|---|---|
| Daily limit | 30 emails per day |
| Hourly limit | 10 emails per hour |
| Minimum delay between emails | 60 seconds |
| Warmup mode | Enabled |
These defaults are intentionally low. They are designed for a brand-new Gmail account that has never been used for outreach. As your account builds reputation, you can gradually increase these limits.
Configuring Limits
Navigate to Settings > Email Accounts, click on the Gmail account you want to configure, and adjust the rate limiting settings.
Rate limit settings form with daily limit, hourly limit, and delay sliders
Daily Limit
The maximum number of emails this account can send in a 24-hour rolling window. Once the limit is reached, remaining emails are queued for the next day.
Recommended ranges by account age:
| Account Age | Recommended Daily Limit |
|---|---|
| Week 1-2 | 10-20 emails |
| Week 3-4 | 20-40 emails |
| Month 2 | 40-60 emails |
| Month 3+ | 60-100 emails |
| Established (6+ months) | 100-150 emails |
These are recommendations for cold outreach. If you're sending to creators who have previously engaged with you (warm contacts), you can be slightly more aggressive with limits because your reply rate will be higher and your emails are more likely to be marked as wanted.
Hourly Limit
The maximum number of emails sent per hour. This prevents sending spikes within a single hour even if your daily limit is higher.
Set your hourly limit to roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of your daily limit. For example, if your daily limit is 60, set your hourly limit to 15-20.
Minimum Delay Between Emails
The shortest allowed gap between two consecutive emails. Stormy adds randomized jitter on top of this minimum, so actual delays will be longer.
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| 30 seconds | Aggressive — suitable for established accounts |
| 60 seconds (default) | Balanced — good for most accounts |
| 120 seconds | Conservative — recommended during warmup |
| 300 seconds | Very conservative — for brand-new accounts |
Warmup Period
The warmup period is the most critical phase for a new email account. During warmup, Stormy automatically ramps up your sending volume over several weeks instead of letting you hit your configured maximum immediately.
How Warmup Works
When warmup mode is enabled, Stormy overrides your configured daily limit with a gradually increasing cap:
| Warmup Week | Max Emails Per Day |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | 5 |
| Week 2 | 10 |
| Week 3 | 20 |
| Week 4 | 35 |
| Week 5 | 50 |
| Week 6 | 75 |
| Week 7+ | Your configured daily limit (up to 150) |
Warmup progress chart showing gradual volume increase over 6 weeks
The warmup schedule adjusts based on engagement signals. If your emails are getting good open and reply rates during warmup, the system may accelerate slightly. If bounce rates are high or opens are unusually low, it may slow down.
When to Use Warmup
- New Gmail accounts — Always use warmup.
- Accounts that haven't sent outreach in 30+ days — Re-enable warmup to rebuild sending patterns.
- Accounts with recent deliverability issues — Turn on warmup to gradually restore reputation.
During the warmup period, prioritize sending to your highest-quality contacts — people most likely to open and reply. Positive engagement signals during warmup help build your sender reputation faster.
Disabling Warmup
Once your account has completed the warmup period, the mode automatically transitions to your configured limits. You can also manually disable warmup from the account settings if you're confident the account is ready (for example, an established account you're reconnecting).
Do not disable warmup on a new account to send higher volumes immediately. This is the fastest way to get your account flagged. The warmup period exists for a reason.
Gmail Sending Limits
Google enforces its own hard limits on Gmail accounts regardless of what Stormy's rate limiter allows. These limits are non-negotiable and cannot be changed.
| Account Type | Gmail Daily Limit |
|---|---|
| Free Gmail (@gmail.com) | 500 emails per day |
| Google Workspace (paid) | 2,000 emails per day |
Stormy will never exceed these limits. If your configured daily limit is higher than what Gmail allows, the Gmail limit takes precedence.
For professional outreach, always use a Google Workspace account. Free Gmail accounts have lower limits, fewer deliverability features, and are more likely to be flagged for outreach activity.
Shared Limits
Gmail's daily limit is shared across all sending methods. If you send 100 personal emails from Gmail directly, you've used 100 of your daily quota. Stormy's rate limiter only tracks what it sends — it cannot account for emails you send manually.
If you use the same Gmail account for both manual communication and Stormy sequences, set Stormy's daily limit well below the Gmail maximum to leave room for manual sends.
Multiple Accounts
When you have multiple Gmail accounts connected, Stormy can distribute outreach across them. Each account has its own independent rate limits and warmup status.
Account Rotation
You can assign multiple Gmail accounts to a single sequence. Stormy will rotate between them, distributing sends evenly. This effectively multiplies your daily capacity:
- 3 accounts at 50 emails/day each = 150 emails/day total
- Each account stays within its own safe limits
Use different accounts for different creator segments rather than round-robin across all sequences. This way, if a creator replies, the conversation continues naturally from the same sender.
Per-Account Monitoring
The Settings > Email Accounts page shows the real-time status of each account:
- Current daily sends vs. limit
- Current hourly sends vs. limit
- Warmup progress (if enabled)
- Last 7-day deliverability score (based on opens and bounces)
Email accounts overview showing per-account send volume bars and health indicators
Best Practices
Start low, go slow. It's always safer to send fewer emails and scale up gradually than to start aggressive and deal with reputation damage.
Monitor bounce rates. If your bounce rate exceeds 5%, pause sending immediately and clean your list. High bounce rates are the fastest way to trigger spam filters.
Watch your open rates. If open rates drop below 15-20%, something is wrong — either your subject lines aren't working, your emails are landing in spam, or your list quality is poor. Investigate before continuing.
Don't send on weekends (at first). Stick to weekday sending during business hours until your account is well-established. Weekend sending patterns look different from normal business email and can confuse spam heuristics.
Leave headroom. Set your Stormy daily limit to 60-70% of what you think your account can handle. The extra headroom provides a safety margin and leaves room for manual emails.
Separate cold and warm. If possible, use one Gmail account for cold outreach through Stormy and a different one for ongoing conversations with creators who've already replied. This keeps your cold outreach account's reputation isolated.
Last updated: 2026-03-29