Can You Send Bulk Email from Shared Hosting?

As your customer list grows, it is tempting to send the newsletter straight from the email address in your hosting account. The short answer: it works for a small, opted-in list that you email occasionally; it is the wrong tool for regular campaigns.

Why sending limits exist

On a shared server, hundreds of accounts send email from the same IP address. Bulk or complained-about mail from one account can get that IP blacklisted, and then every other customer's messages get blocked too. Hourly sending limits exist to contain that risk. To find out the current limit on your account, ask our support team.

When the limit is reached, extra messages are usually rejected or queued, which means part of your campaign never arrives.

What hosting email is good for

• Day-to-day correspondence, quotes and customer replies.
• Your site's transactional notices: password resets, order confirmations, contact form notifications.
• Occasional announcements to a small, opted-in group.

What to use for newsletters and campaigns

Email marketing and transactional email services are designed for regular bulk sending. They handle unsubscribe links, bounced addresses and complaints automatically. The rules Google and Yahoo introduced in 2024 expect one-click unsubscribe and a low complaint rate from anyone sending thousands of messages a day; managing that by hand isn't practical.

When you use such a service, you need to add its details to your domain's SPF and DKIM records. How to add them without breaking your existing SPF record is in our SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide.

Email from your WordPress site

By default WordPress sends email with the server's PHP mail function. Those messages have weak authentication and often land in spam. Sending through an SMTP plugin, authenticated with an email account you created in cPanel, is more reliable. Use the outgoing server details from our IMAP, POP3 and SMTP settings guide.

List hygiene: rules that always apply

1. Only send to people who explicitly opted in.
2. Every message needs a working way to unsubscribe.
3. Remove bounced addresses from the list.
4. Never use purchased or scraped lists.

Unsolicited bulk email breaks our Acceptable Use Policy and can get the account suspended. If your messages land in spam, see our spam checklist.