Every Way to Send Email in Salesforce
Individual email lets users compose messages directly from Lead, Contact, or Case records with templates, merge fields, and basic tracking. List Email sends personalized templates to up to 200 manually selected contacts or 5,000 total per day. Flow-triggered email automates sends based on record changes or scheduled triggers—as Salesforce Ben’s guide explains, the improved Send Email action supports rich formatting. Email Alerts are the legacy automation via Workflow Rules. Marketing Cloud Email Studio handles high-volume B2C sends, while Account Engagement (Pardot) serves B2B with lead scoring and drip nurtures. The Email-to-Salesforce setup guide covers logging emails from Gmail or Outlook via BCC routing.
Salesforce Email Limits by Edition
Every licensed org can send to a maximum of 5,000 external email addresses per day (Enterprise/Unlimited editions). The daily limit resets at midnight GMT. List Email caps manual selection at 200 recipients per send. Maximum email size is 25 MB, subject lines are capped at 3,000 characters, and the body at 32,000 characters. As Mailtrap’s tutorial documents, Apex emails, Flow sends, and email alerts all share the same daily pool. Once the cap is reached, remaining emails queue until the next day. For organizations needing to exceed these limits, the MassMailer product page explains how native AppExchange tools bypass the 5,000-per-day restriction.
Email Logging, Tracking, and Einstein Activity Capture
Enhanced Email stores sent emails as EmailMessage records linked to Leads, Contacts, or Cases—queryable via SOQL and reportable natively. Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) auto-syncs Gmail/Outlook emails but stores data on AWS outside Salesforce. As Salesforce Ben warns, EAC creates “ghost records” that cannot be included in reports or SOQL and are deleted after 6–24 months. Email-to-Salesforce uses a BCC address to log emails from any client as permanent Salesforce records—the setup guide covers activation and testing. For engagement analytics (opens, clicks, bounces), native capabilities are limited—detailed tracking requires Marketing Cloud or a CRM-native AppExchange tool.
Templates, Personalization, and Automation
Lightning Email Templates offer drag-and-drop building with merge fields and rich formatting. Classic templates support text, HTML, and letterhead formats. Marketing Cloud adds dynamic content blocks, AMPscript, and Einstein Content Selection. For automation, Flow Builder’s Send Email action triggers personalized messages on record changes, scheduled events, or user interactions—no Apex required. The Retirement Planners of America podcast describes how a financial services firm automated client communications while maintaining domain reputation. The Opal Group case study shows how targeted campaigns to custom Salesforce objects streamlined conference marketing—a workflow native List Email cannot support.
Common Challenges and Why Organizations Outgrow Native Email
The 5,000-per-day limit is the top constraint when sales, marketing, and support share the same org. List Email’s object restrictions limit sends to Leads, Contacts, and Campaign Members—organizations emailing custom objects (registrants, donors, patients) cannot use native mass email. Native tracking and deliverability tools are basic, and there is no built-in email verification. The Sandy Hook Promise podcast illustrates how a nonprofit needed a simple, affordable email directly in Salesforce without Marketing Cloud complexity. The University of San Andres case study shows how a university scaled student communications past native limits.
How CRM-Native Tools Extend Salesforce Email
Unlike Marketing Cloud or external ESPs that store data outside Salesforce, native tools like MassMailer operate entirely within the platform—no data sync, no external database, no separate login. The Advanced Portfolio Management podcast describes how a financial services firm scaled prospecting directly from Salesforce. CRM-native tools provide unlimited sending beyond 5,000/day, mass email to any object, including custom objects, built-in email verification, and engagement tracking that writes opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes as permanent records with native bounce management and opt-out compliance.
Key Takeaways
- Salesforce email includes individual sends, List Email, Flow automation, Email Alerts, Marketing Cloud, Account Engagement, and Email-to-Salesforce BCC logging—see the setup guide
- All editions enforce a 5,000 external email per day limit; List Email caps at 200 manual recipients; EAC stores data on AWS for 6–24 months outside Salesforce reporting
- Native mass email only works with Leads, Contacts, and Campaign Members—custom object sends require Marketing Cloud or a native AppExchange tool
- Organizations from financial services to education to nonprofits overcome native limits with CRM-native solutions
- MassMailer removes the 5,000/day cap, sends to any object, and writes every engagement event as a permanent Salesforce record
Your Salesforce email should do more than the basics. MassMailer removes the daily limit, sends to any object, and tracks every engagement event as a permanent CRM record. Start with the Email-to-Salesforce setup guide or see how Opal Group streamlined event email.
