Mailboxes
Unlimited mailboxes on every plan, and each one sends at its own pace. Unlimited mailboxes doesn't mean unlimited sending: your plan's monthly emails and each mailbox's daily limit both apply.
Ballast is cold email software with every feature on every plan. Connect unlimited mailboxes, send sequences at a pace your domains survive, and handle replies in one inbox, priced by the emails you send.
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Daily limit
Each mailbox sends at most its daily limit of campaign emails. The default is 30. You can set anything from 1 to 500, and Ballast warns above 50: past that, providers start to notice. More volume should come from more mailboxes, not more email per mailbox.
The count resets at midnight in the mailbox's time zone. If the provider itself says the mailbox hit its sending limit, Ballast stops using it until that midnight.
Ramp-up
New mailboxes start slow. With ramp-up on (the default), a mailbox sends 5 emails on its first day and 2 more each day after, until it reaches its daily limit. At the defaults that's 13 days to full speed. The mailbox shows which day it's on and how many days are left.
Change the start and the daily step in the mailbox's settings, or turn ramp-up off for a mailbox that has been sending for months. Ramp-up only paces your campaign emails. Warmup is separate and off until you turn it on for a mailbox: it trades a few emails a day with other mailboxes in the Ballast pool, opens and answers them, and moves them out of spam. See warmup.
Gaps between emails
After each email the mailbox waits a random time before the next one, 4 to 10 minutes by default, so sends don't arrive on a fixed beat. Set the shortest and longest wait in minutes (at least 1). At the defaults a mailbox can't send more than 6 to 15 emails an hour, so a short sending window also caps the day.
A lead always gets every step from the same mailbox, so follow-ups land in the same conversation.
Health and status
| Status | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Sends and reads replies. | Nothing. |
| Paused | You paused it. Campaigns skip it. | Resume it in its settings. |
| Error | The login stopped working: the daily check failed, or the server refused 3 sends in a row. | Update the password, or press Reconnect for Microsoft. The next good test makes it active again. |
| Quarantined | More than 5% of its recent emails bounced. | Find the cause (usually a bad list), then an owner or admin lifts the quarantine. |
- Ballast logs in to every active or failing mailbox once a day, so an expired password shows up before a campaign needs it.
- The bounce check looks at the mailbox's sends of the last 7 days, at most the last 200, and never trips before 50 sends. Lifting a quarantine starts a fresh sample. More in Sending safety.
- If reading the inbox fails, the mailbox shows the error and when replies were last read.
- Each mailbox also shows its domain's grade from Domains.
Sender name and signature
Each mailbox has a sender name (what leads see in their inbox) and a signature. Put the signature variable in your emails and each mailbox fills in its own. Owners and admins change mailbox settings.
Why the limits are what they are
Gmail and Outlook set their own sending limits and watch how fast a new mailbox grows, which is why Ballast ramps each mailbox up. The background is in Gmail sending limits for cold email.
New workspaces
In its first 7 days a workspace can connect up to 5 mailboxes. It keeps them after that, and the cap goes away.
Adding mailboxes: Connect a mailbox.