If you have a website with a forum or a mailing list, you could run into some serious problems if you host with Bluehost. Frankly, Bluehost sucks as an e-mail provider, as they limit the number of e-mails you can send an hour to 50. While it might be possible to get them to increase that number slightly, if you have a forum or mailing list with 500 or more members, it’s a huge hassle to have to stagger the notices or e-mails throughout the day. This limit applies to all websites on your account, so if you send 25 e-mails from one domain and 25 from another, you won’t be able to e-mail anyone through any other e-mail in your account for a whole hour.
Bluehost makes no mention of their e-mail limits on their Products page, leaving many people surprised to find that they can’t contact their members or subscribers how they wanted to. Leave your story here and tell us if you’ve had a problem with Bluehost’s e-mail limits.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I just thought I’d throw this up as a warning to anyone looking to sign up with one of BlueHost’s “unlimited domains, unlimited everything” plans. If you’re planning to use an account in the domain to send newsletter to your mailing list, forget about it. While BlueHost boasts of up to 2500 pop accounts on a single hosting plan, you’re only allowed to send up to 50 emails per hour for the whole account. You go anywhere over that and your email will be shut down.
Like many BlueHost customers, I discovered this the hard way. After moving six domains to my new account and updating the contacts, I mapped out my schedule. I have opt-in mailing lists from two of those domains to whom I send out newsletters, updates and various communications about once or twice a week. Ten hours ago, I sent a newsletter to a 2000+ mailing list, the number of which that actually went out I’m not certain as customer support is less than credible during our conversations.
Anyway, after sending the email, I was immediately locked out of my email account. Called up support who informed me of the 50-email limit, which they say allows them to prevent spam from being sent through their servers. To be honest, I’ve never even encountered anything similar from my previous hosts – I guess you can say BlueHost is truly one of a kind in that respect.
Ten hours in, I’m still trying to resolve my email issue. Customer support said they can upgrade my email privileges to 400 per hour but no more than that. I was asked to open a ticket requesting for more, which I did. I just checked up on it 15 minutes ago – its status was RESOLVED, although I received absolutely no communication regarding it.
To verify if they gave me my requested email privileges (since they say it’s resolved), I tried re-sending the newsletter with a note apologizing to my recipients in case they receive it twice. Suffice to say, my email account is blocked again. I’d call BlueHost again but I’m really just too tired – I think I made a serious mistake signing up with these guys.
FYI…. By default Bluehost allows 150 outbound emails per hour. They have for a number of months. A simple phone call will allow you to get this increased to 750 outbound emails per hour. If you need more than that then you have to have a VERY GOOD REASON. Simple emailer programs like Dadamail which is FREE will allow you to batch you emails to keep you under that limit.
If you have a newsletter that is going out to a number of users (more than 200), then you should seriously look into using something like Dadamail to send it for you instead of BCCing everyone using Outlook. Dadamail has tons of features that Outlook cant even touch too.
yes, BlueHost sucks. Can hardly ever successfully send to CC and BCC (around 20). Even TO: is very very slow. Their support said I should move my web hosting busioess from POP3 mailer I use (Outlook) to Squirrel Mail!!! Guess whose moving his business to some other host…. ME!
I just took ..hosting space from BlueHost…till now ..I’m Happy with their Services..Let’s see what happens in future..
But this blog.. bluehostsucks ! is amazing… I think Customers hardly satisfied …tell me which Hosting Company can give 100% customer satisfaction. I guess ..NO ONE !
Hi,
Do you know which hostig company allows you to send more than 100 emails every hour ?
Dreamhost allows 100, what about others ?
thanks.
We use to be happy with bluehost and I use to recommend it to my friends but lately… they have shut me down several times and I told I would be moving my services from their site…
Mail services have always been very crappy.
Do not sign up with them. They have shitty service.
Lately I’ve found that several of my clients are not getting my emails! I sent one particular client an email to three different address and she never received it. I sent an email to her from my gmail account and she got it instantly. I sent a test email to my own hotmail account and it never got there. I don’t receive and bounce backs or undeliverable messages so I guess there’s a black hole. Bluehost tech dept. says there is nothing wrong and can’t be responsible for other servers not accepting their emails. Communicating with my potential customers is crucial for my business and I’ve never had this problem with my previous host of seven years. Anyone know why this could be an issue?
I give hostmonster email servers 4.99/5
Default limit:???
Maximum limit: 750 per account per hour upon request (5 minutes of live chat)
Maximum with Pro subscription: 2000 per account per hour
Common this is shared hosting $4 to $10 per month… If you’re not happy you can go for a VPS for no more than $5/mo and set everything by yourself and have your site hacked or (D)DoSsed in no time… Or you can buy a managed dedicated server only to realise that you only use/need 10 email/hours at most
I meant bluehost not hostmonster – anyways the companies are both owned by Matt and I’ve used them both – so the review is still valid. Sorry for this error
I signed on to BlueHost mainly to run an alumni website and mailing list .. and then found that they restrict each mailing list to 100 email addresses! That does not work for me. My two mailing lists have about 200 members each.
I am kind of surprised that this “100″ limit (not the number of mails per hour, but the total members of a discussion list) has not been discussed at all either here or in BlueHost’s forums. Or have people found some way around that?
I use bluehost and haven’t had a problem with emails.
i have a mailing list of 2000, a five minute chat with bluehost rep upped me to 750 emails an hour. I used dadamail and everyone gets the email.
however i did have to find out the limit the hard way. They should state the limit in their contract.
I cannot seem to see my sent mail…where the heck is it in bluehost?
Bob