SES + Zoho. Do we have max email limitation?

Joan1211

Joan1211

Member
I am not sure that this question is related to the configuration of my VPS, so I am opening a new topic.

I am still struggling with email solution for my self hosting forum.
I have found many tutorials, however i have one question I cannot answer..

If I buy email addresses to Namecheap or to Zoho, and I use SES for transactional email. Will I be limited by the maximum number of emails sent daily by Namecheap/Zoho ? (It is 500 email per hour with Namecheap. it would be definitely enough for me, but I want to avoid being limitated. And more important I want to know how this works)

I asked to their chat support and the agent asked me... "What is a transactional email?"
I understood that it was going to be complicated. 😂


At the end he told me that yes, I will be limitated even though I am using SES. (Except if I configure my own mail server on a dedicated server)
So I went to Zoho. And after 24 hours and 2 message, still no answer from their support.

Therefore I am asking here.. will I be limited by SES ( which actually has no limitation, it's just few $ per 1000 mails) or will I be limitated by Namecheap or Zoho?

Thank you
 
Your transactional emails will be sent by Amazon SES at their rate if you configure correctly.
ZoHo/NameCheap will ONLY be used for any personal email accounts you use for your site (like a specific admin email and a specific user email for your domain for your forum account) and usually the bounced/unsubscribe accounts... those last two only RECEIVE email... they don't send them.
 
But where does come from the email address used with SES for transactional? I have to create it somewhere...

When I subscribe to Zoho/Namecheap, I create 3 address:

No-reply@mydomain.com
Bounced@mydomain.com
Unsubscribe@mydomain.com

I understand that bounced and unsubscribe will only receive email.
But no-reply@mydomain.com is used with SES.

When I configure SES, I will verify this address and assuming that all is configured correctly, this address will be used to send transactional.

With Namecheap, I can read:
Screenshot 2023-02-03 at 10.11.27.webp

I try to understand if this limit still applies when using SES to send email with an address bought at Namecheap.
All this is really confusing.
 

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Your Amazon SES should be running on a sub-domain... mine is mail.astrowhat.com.
ALL transactional emails are processed through that setup.
For my "normal" emails... I also have entries for my main domain name on the base domain.. and THOSE are hosted through ZoHo.

Screen Shot 2023-02-03 at 2.49.15 AM.png
Those emails consist of my normal user account email, my admin email and the bounced/unsubscribe emails.

And then my DNS entry for my SES account.

Screen Shot 2023-02-03 at 2.49.32 AM.png

The Amazon SES account is NOT free if not using their other services... but honestly.. the cost will be minimal for most beginning sites.. and even when you get larger considering the deliverability aspects of the email.

The NameCheap/ZoHO is TOTALLY separate from the SES emails.... think of the NameCheap/ZoHo as personal email accounts.. unless YOU send email from them... it won't matter, as it's highly unlikely you will send that many in a month... the bounce and unsubscribe are RECEIVE only, they never send.. the SES handles ALL the transactional email that XenForo script sends. I also have a no_reply address set up in ZoHo.. that is the one that I use to authenticate with SES.

As to the transaction email send address.. that is handled in the Amazon SES setup for verified identities. You REALLY need to read the documentation... or engage someone who has done this before. At one time, i would be willing to for free... but between my astrophotography captures and processing and volunteer work in the field (and also IT related volunteer work) I simply don't have time to provide extensive 1-on-1 help with it.
 
Last edited:
TickTackk said:
I'm going to advise not using Zoho. Why? because you cannot send zip attachments via email. due to "security" reasons.

Sauce: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/can-t-send-zip-attachments
Click to expand...
For use as a a bounced/unsubscribe/admin email, they work fine.... and if one HAS to send a ZIP or similar attachment containing the "naughty extensions", one can place it on a shared drive location and provide the link to it. Same way for any developer or anyone sending you attachments... the days of "attaching" files should be LONG over with due to malware attachments. There are a plethora of file sharing locations that one can use and simply link to that file. I know two medical clinics that strip attachments out and allow the email through if they contain any of the below extensions in any format. One of those got hit by ransomware and to recover it cost them almost $35K.... which ate well into their profit margin.... all because an employee was checking their personal email and opened an attachment.

And it's not so much a ZIP file that has the issue... it is if the ZIP file contains any files with the following extensions:
ade, adp, apk, appx, appxbundle, bat, cab, chm, cmd, com, cpl, dll, dmg, exe, hta, ins, iso, isp, jar, js, jse, lnk, mde, msc, msi, msix, msixbundle, msp, mst, nsh, pif, ps1, scr, sct, shb, sys, vb, vbe, vbs, vxd, wsc, wsf, wsh, terminal.
Is it a little overboard.. yep, but again, for simple use that one normally would utilize it for it's not that big of a deal for many.
 
Tracy Perry said:
For use as a a bounced/unsubscribe/admin email, they work fine.... and if one HAS to send a ZIP or similar attachment containing the "naughty extensions", one can place it on a shared drive location and provide the link to it. Same way for any developer or anyone sending you attachments... the days of "attaching" files should be LONG over with due to malware attachments. There are a plethora of file sharing locations that one can use and simply link to that file. I know two medical clinics that strip attachments out and allow the email through if they contain any of the below extensions in any format. One of those got hit by ransomware and to recover it cost them almost $35K.... which ate well into their profit margin.... all because an employee was checking their personal email and opened an attachment.

And it's not so much a ZIP file that has the issue... it is if the ZIP file contains any files with the following extensions:
ade, adp, apk, appx, appxbundle, bat, cab, chm, cmd, com, cpl, dll, dmg, exe, hta, ins, iso, isp, jar, js, jse, lnk, mde, msc, msi, msix, msixbundle, msp, mst, nsh, pif, ps1, scr, sct, shb, sys, vb, vbe, vbs, vxd, wsc, wsf, wsh, terminal.
Is it a little overboard.. yep, but again, for simple use that one normally would utilize it for it's not that big of a deal for many.
Click to expand...
I could deal with them doing this for the free accounts, but it seems its everything. That's nuts.
 
fly said:
I could deal with them doing this for the free accounts, but it seems its everything. That's nuts.
Click to expand...
Unless they've changed... the new free accounts were web based only, so they can't be used for this. No SMTP/POP3/IMAP access. I was lucky and have a grandfathered 5 email free account that can do POP/IMAP/SMTP access.
This isn't that abnormal honestly. Even the paid version of GMail can be set up by the admin to do this for ANY of their accounts.
 
Thank you @Tracy Perry for your help. I actually have a developer but he was not available these previous days and while waiting for him, my intention was to understand the process and how this works. I usually do the steps by myself, and when there is something im locked, i ask him to do it, and to record his screen for me to learn.

Well now all is configured. But after requesting to be moved out of the sandbox, the request has been denied. 😂 😂 😂 😂


No question asked, no clarification requested. They just said that my mail will have negative impact on their services.


I have tried to do my best to describe my needs and followed their guide point by point, but it seems that it was not good enough and they didn't like it.
 
If it is a fairly new domain, that may be one of the issues... my domain had been in existence for at least 4 years before I moved over to them.
 
I was using SES to send my XF outbound email, until Amazon deleted my entire SES config without an explanation. Their support was helpful, but they didn't have any idea and asked that I set it back up. It wasn't a surprise; my users are great but they don't understand the impact of what they do on their respective email services, Amazon likely didn't want to mess with it anymore. My site and domain are nearly twenty years old.

Today, I use Postmark. It is a few dollars more per month than SES, but worth it. I can handle any server/app setup and config, but run for cover when it's email related :LOL:

Either way, it doesn't impact my normal email service. They don't see the outbound emails from my XF site, just the outbound email I personally send from my devices.
 
I finally managed to exit the sandbox. It took me few days and 4 messages to ask them to reconsider my request, with every time some extra information on how I will handle email option, email notification, bounced messages etc.

I had from the very first request wrote a very detailed description, following exaclty their documentation, but they refused it. I can think of any reason: new domain, new website not yet finished, too many detailed, or at the opposit not enough.:unsure:

I read many complains of people saying that when you ask to exit the sandbox you need to give all information, but you also need to be the shortest possible. Some other people say that it's better to give the more details possible.
Anyway, their 2 first answers were negative, but what made me a bit struggling is that they didn't provide any option on what I should improve to be accepted. Tthey already took their decision.

After insisting politely, a manager came to me with an acceptance.:giggle:
I feel like the 2 first time were handled by a robot and the last one was manual.

Meanwile I have tested Zeptomail (I configured everything but I ask 3 questions by mail, after one week I still have no answer, :cautious: not a great support)

I also tried Sendiblue, this was a great experience. And also Sendgrid.

The problem is that I am intending to open a forum for the company I am working at, and we will be using our company mail, which is handled by Microsoft. And none of the services I tried give me the possiblity to receive email on the professional address.

Therefore I was pushing with AWS even if I admit that its really hard to configure, and I dont even have all the option that other service offer. For exemple I cannot read the recipient address, or the Subject of the mail.

Sendigblue offers also to have the content of the mail that has been sent.
Maybe AWS offers that with their SNS (simple notification service) but frankly, this is not user friendly at all.

I guess i can close this topic, thank you for your help!;)
 
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