Module 9 · Lesson 18 of 25

Gmail's expectations in 2026

Part of KumoMTA: High-Volume Sending Engine — Throttles per Destination (Gmail / Yahoo / M365).

Gmail accepts huge volumes from senders it trusts. From new IPs, it's brutal.

What Gmail wants:

  • Connection rate: 20/s sustained for warm IPs (drop to 5/s during warming).
  • Message rate: 250/s per IP for warm; 50/s warming.
  • Connection reuse — pipeline many messages per TCP session (idle_timeout = 60s).
  • DKIM signing with 2048-bit key, aligned with From.
  • DMARC p=quarantine or p=reject for bulk senders sending >5000/day (Yahoo+Gmail joint requirement).
  • One-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058) on every bulk message.
  • Maintain complaint rate <0.3% (visible in Postmaster Tools).

KumoMTA shape:

["gmail.com"]
connection_limit = 20
max_connection_rate = "20/s"
max_message_rate = "250/s"
idle_timeout = "60s"
ehlo_domain = "mail.example.com"

🎯 Postmaster Tools is non-optional. Sign up, prove the domain, and check the IP/Domain Reputation panels weekly.

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Pulse · self-hosted sending

Own the infrastructure your pipeline depends on.

One install script on your own server. Pulse sets up the MTA, mailboxes, certificates and dashboard; you add domains and start sending.

# on a fresh Ubuntu server
$ cd pulse && sudo ./install.sh
→ docker compose up · kumomta · stalwart · caddy
→ dashboard ready on https://pulse.yourdomain.com
$

Also from us:Beat — monitoring that tells you the fixConsulting — $65/hr, no retainer