Domain example.com Has Exceeded the Max Emails per Hour

What is this error?

If you are receiving an error similar to “Domain example.com has exceeded the max emails per hour (313/250 (125%)) allowed. Message discarded.>” in an email bounceback message, this means that you have a limit defined that only allows you to send a limited amount of emails per hour within your account. By default, all shared hosting accounts will have a limit of 250 emails per hour.

How can I fix this?

Depending on your current situation, there are a few ways in which you can resolve an issue with exceeding the max emails per hour.

If the emails are legitimate emails necessary for your business:

If these are emails that are sent out as part of a standard mailing list, you have a few options available to you.

Most email clients that are made for mailing such as PHPList have an option to rare-limit the amount of hourly emails that are sent out. For example, if you are sending out 500 emails in a list, you can set it to send out 200 for the first 2 hours, and then 100 for the third which will allow you to send out all of your emails, and still have some space each hour to send any normal communications.

Another option would be to request an hourly email exemption request. This will allow you to raise the hourly email to something that better suits your needs. If you are on a VPS or dedicated server, we do not impose any specific limits so if there is one on your specific cPanel account, our support department can set it to unlimited for you if you would like to.

But I didn’t send that many emails?

If you didn’t send this many emails, there could be a further issue within your account such as a compromised email address. If you are getting this message when you have not sent a large amount of emails, especially if you are getting bounceback messages that reference email addresses that you did not send to, you will want to speak with our support department as soon as possible to ensure that your account has not been compromised.

How can I see how many emails I sent?

Unfortunately, this option is not available within a shared hosting environment, but on a VPS or dedicated server, you may click on Mail Delivery Reports within WHM to view any mail sent or received. If on a shared hosting account such as a Launch, Power, or Pro plan, you may contact our support department for more information regarding email activity on your account.

10 thoughts on “Domain example.com Has Exceeded the Max Emails per Hour

  1. I too have the same issue.

    I have sent them a ticket but still no responce.

    Is there a way that I can change this from my end?

    1. This setting is not able to be changed in a shared hosting account. It can be changed in a VPS or Dedicated account by going to ‘Modify Account’, selecting the account you want to change, and then locating the ’emails per hour’ setting. There you can set it to whatever you like.

    2. If you have 500 set of email list. Then you have to use 5 email account. 100 Emails each ID in 1 Hour. Or If you facing same error then just wait for 1 min then start again.

  2. Its seems one our email has been comproized and had been spam attacked about a month ago. We have tried changing passwords. However, we are still not able to send mails. pls help. Below is the copy of the error being sent back each time we send an email.

    “”A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a temporary error.     Domain sama-aldahna.com has exceeded the max emails per hour (1/1 (100%)) allowed.  Message will be reattempted later””

    1. Ibrahim, it appears that sama-aldahna.com is pointed to GoDaddy, and your ‘max emails per hour’ setting may be incorrect. I would recommend contacting them to have this raised to more than 1 email per hour.

  3. I sent out our annual family newsletter to 139 recipients n three batches: 60+58+21. I received notice that 9 of the first batch and 7 from the second batch had exceeded the number of emails allowed. All information I could find in the support section states the maximum is 250 per hour. Where is the problem?

    1. Hello Wofgang,

      Apologies for the confusion with the email limitations. You can have a max of 50 recipients per email. I will make sure that the limitations article is updated wit this information. Apologies for any confusion. You can still send the message to more than 50 people, you just to have break it up into two groups.

      I hope this helps to answer your question, please let us know if you require any further assistance.

      Regards,
      Arnel C.

  4. our email has been compromised for sometime and I thought it was fixed after 72 hrs but it was not. It’s very frustrating that no email was sent or able to be sent because some unknown was using the email account to send a lot of spam that exceed the hourly limit, we pay for the account but we can’t use it for our own business!1 Please help!!!

    1. Hello Michelle,

      Sorry to hear about the trouble you are having. If your account was compromised and sending spam, I first recommend changing your email password in cPanel. This should stop the outgoing spam, since it is usually caused by a weak password. You will then be able to continue sending email within an hour.

      If you are still getting the “exceeded the max emails per hour” after an hour, you may have additional problems, such as a hacked website form, or coding issue. In this case, I recommend contacting Live Tech support, so they can review your email logs in real-time for issues.

      If you have any further questions, feel free to post them below.
      Thank you,

      -John-Paul

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