SMTP for course sellers comes down to two problems the course platforms create: contact caps or per-contact billing, and launch weeks that send 3 to 4 times normal volume in 5 days. At 50,000 contacts sending 8 times a month, Kit costs roughly $380, ActiveCampaign $500 to $600, Kajabi Pro $499 bundled, Amazon SES with Mautic about $100, and a dedicated SMTP server with MailWizz a flat $100 to $150 after a $549 one-time setup. Below about 10,000 contacts the bundled email in Kajabi or Systeme is fine. Above 50,000, or if your course is in the make-money-online category, you want sending you own.
Where the course platforms cap email
Every platform either caps contacts, caps what email can do, or both. None of them cap emails sent in the usual sense, which hides the real limit until you cross it.
| Platform | Email included | Contact limit | Rough price | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kajabi | Full broadcasts and sequences | 2,500 / 25,000 / 100,000 | $179 / $249 / $499 per month, less on annual | Verified on Kajabi's pricing page at time of writing, check current |
| Teachable | Student announcements only, no sequences | Students, not leads | $39 to $499 per month | Marketing email needs a separate tool |
| Thinkific | Notifications and basic student email | Students only | $49 to $499 per month | No lead nurture, no launch sequences |
| ClickFunnels | Broadcasts and workflows | 10,000 to 25,000 on standard plans | $97 to $297 per month | Contact overages above plan cap, check current |
| Systeme.io | Broadcasts and campaigns | 2,000 free, unlimited on top plan | $0 to $97 per month | Shared pool, deliverability is the trade |
| Kit (ConvertKit) | Full ESP | Per subscriber | Roughly $380 per month at 50,000 | Price climbs with every subscriber, active or not |
| ActiveCampaign Marketing Plus | Full ESP and CRM | Per contact | Roughly $500 to $600 at 50,000 | Quote-based near 200,000 |
Teachable and Thinkific do not really do marketing email, so you buy Kit or ActiveCampaign anyway. Kajabi and ClickFunnels bundle it, but a free challenge that adds 20,000 leads pushes you into the next tier. Above Kajabi's 100,000 Pro cap there is no published price at all.
Policy for the make money online sub-niche
Most courses have zero policy risk. Excel, Spanish, watercolour, CrossFit coaching, all fine everywhere. The problem category is anything promising income: dropshipping, Amazon FBA, day trading, affiliate marketing courses, "start your agency", and anything with a downline.
| Provider | Stance on income and business opportunity courses | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | Acceptable use policy lists work-from-home, make-money-online and lead-generation offers as restricted, MLM as prohibited | Account review or closure, often mid-campaign |
| SendGrid | Reviews accounts in high-complaint categories, no blanket ban | Approval possible, suspension if complaints exceed their internal line |
| ActiveCampaign | Prohibits MLM and misleading get-rich-quick claims, other income courses allowed | Fine with compliant earnings claims, review on complaints |
| Kit | Prohibits MLM and pyramid schemes, allows most creator courses | Generally the friendliest ESP for creators |
| Amazon SES | No content category list, judged on complaints and bounces | Under 0.1% complaints you are left alone |
| Dedicated SMTP server | No shared pool, no policy team | Receiver rules and the law still apply in full |
Read each provider's current policy page yourself, they change. The restriction protects other customers on the shared IP: a biz-opp course at a 0.3% complaint rate hurts everyone in the pool, so the provider closes it before Gmail does. On your own IPs the only reputation at risk is yours, which removes the policy conflict. It does not remove the FTC, CAN-SPAM, or Gmail's 0.3% line.
The launch spike maths
Course email is not a steady newsletter. It is quiet for weeks, then a launch sends most of a month's volume in 5 days. Take a 50,000 list on a normal cadence of 2 emails a week, so 100,000 a week and about 800,000 a month.
| Week | Emails sent (50K list) | Peak day | Multiple of normal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal week | 100,000 | 50,000 | 1x |
| Pre-launch, 3 free videos | 150,000 | 50,000 | 1.5x |
| Open cart, 7 emails in 5 days | 350,000 | 100,000 to 150,000 on cart close | 3.5x |
| Cart close day alone | 2 to 3 emails to non-buyers in 12 hours | 100,000+ | 2 to 3x a normal day |
Scale that to a 200,000 list: 1.4 million in launch week and a cart-close day of 400,000 to 600,000 emails. On a shared pool two things happen. The ESP's throughput cap means the "closes at midnight" email is still going out at 2am, and the volume jump plus the complaint spike from 7 emails in 5 days triggers an automated review.
On your own IPs the constraint is capacity. A warmed dedicated IP carries 25,000 to 50,000 a day comfortably. For the 50,000 list that means 3 IPs at roughly 35,000 each covers the 100,000 to 150,000 cart-close day if you spread it over the morning and evening. For the 200,000 list you need 10 to 15 IPs or a two-day cart close. Plan the IPs for launch week, not the average month. Whether 7 in 5 days is right for your list at all is covered in email sending frequency best practices.
Split transactional from launch mail
Course access emails are the one stream that can never be late. A student pays $997, the login email goes to spam because the launch drew complaints that morning, and you have a refund request and a chargeback risk.
| Stream | Examples | Subdomain | IP | Volume share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactional | Login details, receipts, lesson releases, password resets, certificate | access.yourschool.com | Own IP or a transactional relay | 5 to 10% |
| Launch and nurture | Open cart, cart close, evergreen webinar, weekly content | mail.yourschool.com | Bulk IPs, 3 to 15 depending on list | 90 to 95% |
Keep the platform's own transactional sending where it is. Teachable, Thinkific and Kajabi all deliver enrolment email reliably. What moves to your own SMTP is the bulk side: launches, nurture and the evergreen funnel. Mautic or MailWizz in front of the server picks up new leads by webhook from the checkout, and SMTP server for CRM and marketing automation shows the wiring.
Compliance for course and income emails
| Rule | Applies when | What you must do |
|---|---|---|
| CAN-SPAM (US) | Every commercial email | Physical postal address, honest subject line, opt-out honoured within 10 business days, up to $53,088 penalty per email |
| FTC Endorsement Guides | Any testimonial or case study | Results must be typical, or state clearly that they are not, and disclose paid or affiliate relationships |
| FTC Business Opportunity Rule | Courses sold as a way to start a business with the seller's help | Written disclosure document before payment, earnings claims backed by evidence |
| Refund terms | Every sale | State the refund window in the offer email, not just the checkout, and honour it |
| GDPR (EU students) | Any EU contact | Consent for marketing to leads, legitimate interest is defensible for existing students on related content, easy withdrawal |
| Gmail and Yahoo bulk rules | Above 5,000 a day | SPF, DKIM, DMARC, one-click unsubscribe, complaints under 0.3% |
The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide is short and worth 10 minutes. The part course sellers miss is that it makes you liable for email your affiliates send about your course, so a joint-venture launch with 20 partners is 20 compliance risks with your name on them. On earnings claims the rule is simple: if you cannot prove it, do not write it. "Sarah made $40,000 in 3 months" needs Sarah's numbers and a line about typical results.
What it costs at 50K and 200K contacts
Eight sends a month is a realistic course cadence: 2 nurture emails a week, with launches on top. Prices are rough and change often, verify each before deciding.
| Provider | 50,000 contacts, 400K emails/month | 200,000 contacts, 1.6M emails/month | Billing model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kit | ~$380 | ~$1,200 to $1,500 | Per subscriber |
| ActiveCampaign Marketing Plus | ~$500 to $600 | Quote, typically $1,500+ | Per contact |
| Kajabi Pro (bundled) | $499, or $399 on annual | Not available, 100K cap, custom quote | Per contact tier |
| Amazon SES + Mautic | ~$40 send + $25 IP + $40 VPS = ~$105 | ~$160 send + $50 for 2 IPs + $60 VPS = ~$270 | Per email |
| Dedicated server + MailWizz | $100 to $150 flat, $549 one-time | $200 to $300 flat, higher tier one-time | Flat |
Kajabi's $499 also buys the course hosting and checkout, so if you are on Kajabi anyway its email is free until the contact cap. The SES figures assume someone can run a Linux box and read a bounce log at 11pm on cart-close night. Over a year at 200,000 contacts, Kit or ActiveCampaign runs $15,000 to $20,000 against $3,000 to $4,000 on infrastructure you own. What it costs to send 500,000 emails a month works the same comparison at a slightly different volume.
Deliverability specifics for course funnels
Evergreen webinar sequences are your friend. An automated funnel that sends day 0, day 1, day 3 and day 5 emails to whoever opted in today produces steady daily volume, which is exactly what keeps a dedicated IP warm between launches. A business that only mails during launches has cold IPs every time cart opens.
Suppress after 3 unopened in the launch. Cart-close emails to people who ignored the first 4 are where the complaints come from. Drop anyone with no open on the first 3 launch emails from the remaining sends. On a 50,000 list that cuts the cart-close send to roughly 25,000 to 30,000 and typically halves the complaint rate. Add a permanent rule: no open or click in 120 days means suppression.
Warm before the launch, not during it. If your IPs have been carrying 15,000 a day of evergreen traffic and you need 100,000 on cart close, start raising daily volume 3 weeks out by about 20% every 2 to 3 days. Google's sender guidelines do not publish a ramp rate, but a 5x jump in one day from any IP draws deferrals and sometimes a temporary block on the day you can least afford it.
Decision by list size
| List size | Recommendation | Monthly cost | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10,000 | Bundled email in Kajabi, Systeme or ClickFunnels | $0 to $250 | Not worth a second tool, launch spikes are small |
| 10,000 to 50,000 | Kit, or ActiveCampaign if you need the CRM | $150 to $600 | Convenience still beats infrastructure, unless you are in the income niche |
| 50,000 to 150,000 | Dedicated SMTP server with 3 to 8 IPs, MailWizz or Mautic in front | $100 to $250 | Per-contact billing now costs $500 to $1,500, and launch throughput is yours |
| Over 150,000, or any size in the biz-opp niche | Dedicated SMTP server, 10 to 15 IPs, transactional stream kept separate | $200 to $400 | Kajabi has no price, ESPs may review you, and cart-close needs 400,000+ in a day |
The income-course row is the exception to the size rule. I have seen a 12,000-contact dropshipping course lose its Mailchimp account on day 2 of a launch, and the appeal took longer than the cart was open. Publishers face the same per-contact maths without the spikes, and SMTP server for newsletter publishers covers the pacing that applies to your evergreen sends.
How BulkEmailSetup helps
We build dedicated SMTP infrastructure that a course business owns outright: server, IPs, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and PTR configured, a separate transactional stream for access emails, bounce handling wired into MailWizz or Mautic, and a warm-up plan timed to your launch calendar. There is no shared pool, so an income course is judged by Gmail on its complaint rate rather than by a policy team on its category, and unlimited contacts means a 30,000-lead free challenge does not change your bill.
Basic is $549 one-time, covering 1 SMTP server, 3 dedicated IPs, 25,000 emails/day and unlimited contacts. Higher tiers scale to 15 IPs and 200,000 emails/day, which is what a 200,000-list cart-close day needs. See pricing, or compare it against your renewal using the 500,000 emails a month cost breakdown.
Frequently asked questions
Does Kajabi limit how many emails I can send?
Kajabi caps contacts, not emails. At the time of writing Basic is $179 a month for 2,500 contacts, Growth is $249 for 25,000 and Pro is $499 for 100,000, each with unlimited marketing emails. A 50,000-contact list needs Pro, and above 100,000 you are on a custom quote. Check current pricing before budgeting.
Can I use my own SMTP server with Teachable or Thinkific?
Not for marketing. Teachable and Thinkific send course notifications and simple student announcements from their own infrastructure and do not expose an SMTP setting for broadcasts. The usual setup is to keep enrolment and lesson emails on the platform, export or sync contacts by webhook or Zapier, and run launches and nurture from a separate tool such as Mautic or MailWizz on your own SMTP.
Will an ESP suspend me for selling a make money online course?
Possibly. Mailchimp's acceptable use policy lists work-from-home, make-money-online and multi-level marketing offers as restricted or prohibited, and SendGrid and ActiveCampaign review accounts in that category. A course on Excel or photography is fine everywhere. A course promising income is where the policy risk sits, and it is a shared-pool problem rather than a legal one, as long as your earnings claims comply with FTC rules.
How many emails does a course launch send?
A typical open-cart launch sends 5 to 7 emails in 5 days, plus 2 or 3 cart-close emails on the final day to non-buyers. On a 50,000 list that is roughly 350,000 emails in one week against 100,000 in a normal week. The peak day, cart close, can be 100,000 to 150,000 emails in 12 hours.
How much does it cost to email 50,000 course leads 8 times a month?
Roughly $380 a month on Kit, $500 to $600 on ActiveCampaign Marketing Plus, $499 on Kajabi Pro bundled with the course platform, about $100 on Amazon SES with a Mautic server, and a flat $100 to $150 on a dedicated SMTP server with MailWizz after a $549 one-time setup. Verify current prices, the per-contact platforms change tiers often.
Do FTC earnings claim rules apply to course emails?
Yes. Any email that states or implies how much a student can earn has to be truthful and backed by evidence, testimonials have to reflect typical results or say clearly they do not, and business opportunity sellers may fall under the FTC Business Opportunity Rule, which requires a disclosure document before the sale. CAN-SPAM adds a physical address, a working opt-out honoured within 10 business days and a penalty of up to $53,088 per email.
Should course access emails and launch emails come from the same server?
No. Login details, receipts and lesson releases are transactional and must arrive within seconds. Launch and nurture mail is bulk and draws complaints in cart-close week. Put them on separate subdomains and separate IPs, so a launch that pulls a 0.4% complaint rate cannot delay a receipt.
