Customer Insights - Journeys vs Outlook: Email Sending Limits & Thresholds

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Customer Insights – Journeys vs Outlook: Email Sending Limits & Thresholds (with Microsoft references)


Why this matters

Not all Microsoft email products are built for bulk marketing. Customer Insights – Journeys (CIJ) is engineered for high-volume, permission-based messaging; Outlook/Exchange is optimised for person-to-person or team email. Understanding the limits prevents throttling, suspension, or missed deadlines.

Customer Insights – Journeys (real-time marketing)

Deliverability thresholds (policy-based):

  • Hard bounces: limit 8% (Microsoft’s preferred rate is <2%).

  • Spam complaints: limit 0.3% (≈ 1 in 1,000).
    These are enforced by CIJ’s deliverability protection and can trigger suspension if exceeded. 

Throughput (how fast messages send):

  • Directional guidance based on your licence/quota, e.g. ~140,000 interactions/hour at standard quotas, and up to 500,000/hour with a burst add-on (where available). Actual speed varies with licence and journey complexity.

CIJ doesn’t expose a “messages per minute” mailbox limit (like Exchange). It governs throughput per hour and deliverability thresholds tied to your quota and reputation.

Outlook.com (consumer Outlook)

  • Daily recipients: 5,000 (for Microsoft 365 subscribers).

  • Recipients per message: 500.

  • Daily non-relationship recipients: 1,000.
    Figures can vary by account reputation and are lower for non-subscribers.

Outlook for work (Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online)

Core sending limits (per mailbox unless stated):

  • Recipient rate limit: 10,000 recipients/day.

  • Message rate limit: 30 messages/minute (excess is throttled).

  • Recipients per message: customisable up to 1,000.

  • Tenant External Recipient Rate Limit (TERRL): per-tenant cap on external recipients/day; trial tenants capped at 5,000/day.

  • Microsoft’s guidance: Exchange Online isn’t suited to bulk-mailing scenarios; use a specialist bulk service when needed.

Quick comparison

Capability / Limit Customer Insights – Journeys Outlook.com (consumer) Exchange Online (work)
Primary use Marketing at scale Personal email Business/1:1 and team email
Key controls Deliverability thresholds (8% bounces, 0.3% complaints) Daily & per-message caps Per-mailbox & tenant send caps
Speed model Throughput/hour (e.g. ~140k–500k/hr) 5,000/day; 500/message 10k/day, 30 msg/min, up to 1,000/message
Bulk suitability Yes (purpose-built) No Not for bulk marketing (by design)

When to use what

  • Use CIJ for newsletters, journeys and promotions where you need consent, analytics and high throughput. 

  • Use Exchange/Outlook for operational or team communications; its limits intentionally discourage bulk sends.

Microsoft references

  • Email policies & suspension standards (CIJ): hard-bounce 8%, complaint 0.3%. Microsoft Learn

  • Fix a high bounce rate (CIJ): “acceptable” ~2%, threshold up to 8%. Microsoft Learn

  • Throughput guidance (CIJ): interactions/hour by quota; burst add-on. Microsoft Learn

  • Outlook.com sending limits: daily and per-message caps. Microsoft Support

  • Exchange Online sending limits: 10k/day, 30 msg/min, recipients/message; TERRL. Microsoft Learn

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