Thread

I’m new to sending out large emails via EE’s PHP Mail interface. How big is too big of a list? Mine’s around 5,000. Should I look at another option before I jump into this? I plan to batch them in groups of 300 as suggested in the Email Config settings.

FYI, I’m on EE2.1 (love it!) and am using a VPS. I’ve launched emails via PHP Mail on this server in EE for lists as large as 1,200 in the past, but I’m getting nervous about the larger emails. I’ll need to look into sendmail if that’s a better option, but I’m guessing my host won’t allow it. SMTP is not a viable option at this point, either.

Any input appreciated. Thanks!

Slipher

Sorry - I could’ve sworn I posted this in Tech Support and not Pre-sales…

Let’s just move it.

Thank U!

Slipher, when you have 5,000 people on a mailing list, I’d tend to look for third party tools that are built specifically for managing lists. I don’t have one I recommend, but I’m sure others in the community might have an idea. What does your host say about the possible resource load?

I’ve sent out a html mailing earlier today for a list of about 2000 subscribers for a client (batched in 500 mails), and watched the load on my server, which was really, really insignificant. I don’t think 5000 is really a problem either. Some hosts/server setups have limits on mails per account per hour, so make sure you don’t exceed those. I normally set a limit of 400 mails per account per hour, but raise them when I need to send out large bulk mail.

Sue: Thanks for the feedback. It’s actually not the list management I’m concerned about. It’s the server load, and you make a great point about checking resource load - I will do that. The 5,000 is a grand total and will be managed in smaller sub-lists and batches.

Benjamin: Thanks for sharing. That’s good to know about the 2,000 and your load limits. I should point out that I don’t use my VPS as a general mailserver, so outside of HTTP and (occasional) FTP traffic, my server hasn’t encountered resource issues (yet). Again, I’ll check on limits per account per hour - good to know.

Thanks again!

Andy

One other question I have - how does the batching work in EE? For example, under Email Configuration, when I specify 300, does it mail a batch of 300, then stop or wait or what? I’ve never used this feature and was curious…

Yes exactly, it hands off the specified number of mails to the server, then pauses before the next batch.

Perfect, thanks!

Sounds like you’re questions have been answered. Don’t hesitate to post again as needed.