Send bulk mail to around 14,000 users with Godaddy web hosting

Question

I have a Linux starter web hosting plan with Godaddy. I need to send email to around 14000 users from the MySql database only once to inform them about the site's new functionality.

Can I do this using mail() of PHP or is there any limit on the number of mails I can send using mail() function on Godaddy?

Solution

Here is a page that lists many hosting companies and their mail sending limits.

Host: GoDaddy

Limitations: 250 per day on regular hosting, 1000 on dedicated/virtual servers

Your Frequency: 5 emails / 30 minutes, 40 emails / 1 hour (if you have more than 1000 subscribers) For GoDaddy's own SMTP:

• Server : relay-hosting.secureserver.net
• Port : 25
• Secure method : No
• Authentication : No

Your from and reply-to email should belong to your own domain.

If you want to send your emails from PHP through GoDaddy SMTP, you would have to send your 14,000 emails over 14 days while doing no more than 40 per hour.

GoDaddy does appear to have mailing list functionality. It sounds like it would be easier to add your users to a mailing list and send it that way. The draw back is that that allows for limited customization for each user.

There is a document that show how to import an existing email list into Godaddy from CSV, but I was not able to find any information about their mailing list size limits.

Comments

[Simon Hayter]

You'd be better of using a 3rd party bulk sending service as sending that amount of emails can trigger spam alerts on gmail, hotmail, yahoo and so on.

[Somil]

Can I add 14k users to the mailing list? I mean is there any limitation on the maximum number?

[Martijn]

Or, you look for documentation on their site, if not found-> ask them and make it very clear you only need this once.

[Stephen Ostermiller]

I found the information for importing a list and I added that link to my answer. I was unable to locate any mailing list size information on their website.