What are the absolute MAX rate limits for email and SMS from Communication Services (regular azure and govcloud)?

Question

Hello.

We've encountered the rate limits for email (50 Recipients/30emails per min) and SMS...

We are currently evaluating ACS to determine if it will suit our needs, also we are evaluating on regular azure, but will move to GovCloud once email/sms becomes available there.

The rate limits mentioned above are effectively too low to consider this service, but the documentation states we can increase that limit if we ask for it, after the email domain is established, which we arent at that point yet.

We are anticipating that our system has to send email blasts to thousands (up to 40k+) of addresses at a time and also potentially send many emails per minute (thousands), with your rate limit, we could not effectively do what we need to do, and time is of the essence, so we cant just put everything in a queue, and wait until everything gets send, because more emails are coming. All of this would be 'internal' communication, and rarely any emails would go out of the known environment, which also makes me worried about you description of 'Once you have established a sender reputation by sending mails, you can request to increase the sending volume limits.'

Questions:

1. Is there a real max limit on recipients/emails, or can they be increased as needed?
2. What are other criterias that we can comply with in govCloud that would allow such increases?
3. Same questions for SMS.

Answer 1

@Chris Niemann Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A, apologize for any inconvenience caused on this.

Based on the shared information, I understand that you want to use Azure communication email service and SMS services in your application to send larger sms or emails to larger volume of participants/recipients.

1.Is there a real max limit on recipients/emails, or can they be increased as needed? 3.Same questions for SMS.

Currently we have set of limitations in email service and sending sms in ACS and all related limitation were called out here in this public documentation here.

Also, all the limits mentioned here are for development sandbox environment for production scenarios or sending huge volumes you need to raise a support ticket and our support team will review your application and help you out increasing the limits based on probability and also suggest you if any other service fits for your requirements.

2.What are other criterias that we can comply with in govCloud that would allow such increases?

As per the documentation, currently Azure communication service is in preview in us government regions and also these are the current limits for us gov region as well. regarding the criteria the right help to get more information about this is by raising as support ticket to ACS team.

Feel free to reach back to me if you have any further questions on this.

Answer 2

@Chris Niemann According to the Azure Communication Services documentation, there are rate limits for sending emails and SMS messages ¹². The rate limits for email are currently set to 25 emails per subscription in a 60-minute period of time ³. The rate limits for SMS messages depend on the type of message and the scope of the operation ¹. For example, the rate limit for sending a toll-free message is 200 message units per minute ¹.

If you need to send more emails or SMS messages than the rate limits allow, you can request an increase in the rate limits by contacting Azure Support ¹. However, the rate limits are subject to change based on various factors such as sender reputation, message content, and recipient behavior ¹. Therefore, it is recommended that you follow best practices for sending emails and SMS messages to maintain a good sender reputation and avoid being flagged as spam ¹².

In addition to requesting an increase in the rate limits, you can also comply with other criteria to improve your chances of getting an increase. For example, you can ensure that your messages are relevant and targeted to the recipients, and that you have obtained the necessary permissions to send the messages ¹.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.