The published limits
SiteGround's acceptable-use article for its email service (last updated 13 March 2026 when checked) sets the caps per hosted site, per hour. It recommends SiteGround's own Email Marketing service for bulk sending such as newsletters and Google Workspace for heavier business communication.
| Plan | Emails per hour from a site | Recipients per message | How recipients count |
|---|---|---|---|
| StartUp, GrowBig, Ecommerce, Coderick | 400 | Up to 80 | Each recipient is one send toward the hourly quota |
| GoGeek, Cloud | 800 | Up to 80 | Each recipient is one send toward the hourly quota |
| Mailbox storage | 10 GB combined across all email accounts on a shared or Ecommerce plan |
Which course emails count
Anything WordPress sends through the server counts: plugin notifications, password resets, order receipts and admin alerts. LearnDash's Emails settings include Course Purchase Success, Group Purchase Success, New User Registration and an optional Purchase Invoice. A store plugin, a membership plugin, a forms plugin and admin copies of each notification add to that.
The recipient rule matters for admin notifications and group emails. An email to a course group of 30 students counts as 30 sends, and a notification copied to three staff addresses counts as three.
Worked example: launch hour on GrowBig
Assumptions for illustration: a cohort opens at 10:00 and 180 people buy in the first hour. Each purchase triggers a new-user registration email, a course purchase success email and a purchase invoice from LearnDash, a payment receipt from the checkout plugin, and an admin notification copied to two staff addresses.
| Per buyer | Sends for 180 buyers | |
|---|---|---|
| New user registration | 1 | 180 |
| Course purchase success | 1 | 180 |
| Purchase invoice | 1 | 180 |
| Checkout plugin receipt | 1 | 180 |
| Admin notification to 2 staff | 2 | 360 |
| Total in the hour | 6 | 1,080 |
Reading the example
1,080 sends is 2.7 times the 400-per-hour GrowBig cap and still above the 800 GoGeek cap. Even cutting the admin copies leaves 720, above GrowBig's cap. The emails most likely to be delayed or rejected are the ones students need immediately: login details and receipts.
A drip schedule has the same shape. A lesson-unlock email to a 1,000-student cohort sent by one scheduled task is 1,000 sends, two and a half hours of GrowBig's allowance, and it competes with every receipt and password reset in the same window.
Steady state is a different picture. A site that enrolls 20 people a day and sends a weekly drip to 300 students stays well inside 400 per hour, provided the drip is spread out.
When to move transactional mail off the server
- Your busiest realistic hour (launch, cart close, webinar reminder) would exceed about half your plan's hourly cap, leaving no room for password resets.
- You send cohort-wide drip or announcement emails from WordPress.
- You already see delayed receipts or "too many recipients" style errors.
- You send to Gmail at volume: Google's sender guidelines require SPF or DKIM for all senders, and SPF, DKIM and DMARC plus one-click unsubscribe on marketing mail for senders of 5,000 or more messages a day, with spam rates kept below 0.3 percent.
- You want delivery logs per message for support cases ("I never got my login").
How to make the switch without breaking anything
Keep marketing and transactional mail separate. Newsletters and launch sequences belong in an email marketing platform (SiteGround points bulk senders to its own Email Marketing service). Receipts, logins and course notifications belong in a transactional sending service connected to WordPress by an SMTP or API plugin.
Authenticate the sending domain with the provider's SPF and DKIM records before switching, send a test of each notification type, and keep the From address on your own domain. If LearnDash's sender fields are empty it uses the site admin email and site title, so set them explicitly. Finally, look at what still sends from the server, such as forms and admin alerts, and route those through the same plugin so the hourly cap stops mattering.
Questions before you decide
Does SiteGround have a daily email limit?
The acceptable-use article checked on 29 October 2026 states hourly limits (400 or 800 per site) and an 80-recipient cap per message, but no daily limit.
Does using an SMTP plugin with my SiteGround mailbox avoid the limit?
The published limit applies to email sent from a site hosted on the plan. Sending through a separate transactional email provider is the reliable way to remove the server cap from the equation.
Is GoGeek enough for launches?
It doubles the cap to 800 per hour. In the worked example a 180-buyer launch hour still produced 1,080 sends, so a dedicated sending service is safer for launches of that size.
Sources & verification
Product details and prices can change. Check the linked provider before buying.
- SiteGround KB: Acceptable use of SiteGround's email service Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- LearnDash: Emails settings (docs.nexcess.com) Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- Google Workspace Admin Help: Email sender guidelines Accessed 29 Oct 2026
- SiteGround: WordPress hosting plans Accessed 29 Oct 2026
Sources link directly to providers. Product buttons may use separately labeled affiliate links. Read our disclosure.