Bulk e-mail users, message rate limit 30 messages per minute

Question

Hi,

We have some normal user mailboxes configured for external applications that send out bulk e-mail.
This application now runs into the message rate limit of 30 e-mails / per minute.

Users that send out the bulk e-mail now need to send and receive manual in the external application to send out the next batch of e-mail after the limit is expired.

Do we have options to work around the message rate limit for bulk e-mail needs?

Thanks!

LEVD

Answer 1

Hi @van Daalen,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

According to your description, your problem is that bulk email is limited by a message rate of 30 emails per minute.

According to the official documentation, the message rate is limited to 30 messages per minute, and this limit is fixed and cannot be adjusted or changed.

When outbound message volumes surpass the message rate limit, any excess in message submission will be throttled and successively carried over to the following minutes. This will typically not block the sender's account, but Exchange Online isn't suited to accommodate bulk-mailing scenarios.  For this use case, it is recommended to use options 2 and 3 in the links below instead. How to set up a multifunction device or application to send emails using Microsoft 365 or Office 365 | Microsoft Learn

If the answer is helpful, please click on “Accept answer” as it could help other members of the Microsoft Q&A community who have similar questions and are looking for solutions.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Answer 2

I'm sure it's not the answer you are looking for, but - do not use Exchange Online for sending bulk messages. Microsoft is very serious about limiting such scenarios, just days ago they also announced a tenant-wide limit: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/exchange/introducing-exchange-online-tenant-outbound-email-limits/4372797

So if you continue with this, you risk blocking your entire tenant, not just the user sending bulk messages. Use the alternatives mentioned in the blog post above, or any of the solutions out there that specialize in sending bulk/marketing messages.