Scaling Mass Email Delivery Beyond the Salesforce Limit

A national mass-tort firm had built a mass email feature in Salesforce to send large batches of emails directly tied to their records. The feature gave users control over the entire send: they could select the email template, choose the sender address, and, when needed, attach a Docrio-generated document based on the Salesforce record. That meant a single send could go out as a personalized email with a personalized PDF attached, all from within Salesforce. Docrio, the app behind those PDFs, is Litify's document generation and management tool for law firms and legal teams. Because Litify is built on Salesforce, Docrio plugs directly into the same records, so users can create, manage, and collaborate on documents without leaving the platform.

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The feature worked well and caught on across the client's business. But as more people used it, the number of emails going out through Salesforce grew too, and that exposed a limit that had never been an issue at smaller volumes.

Salesforce caps mass email at 5,000 per day for the whole organization when messages go out through its standard email tools. As the client sent more email, that limit stopped being a distant number and became a real problem: on a busy day, a single round of mass sends could reach the cap and stop their email from going out.

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The goal of this engagement was to:

• Remove the dependency on Salesforce's email limit, so send volume could grow without being throttled or blocked.

• Ensure the feature continued working exactly as users expected, including template selection, sender address selection, and optional Docrio document merge.

• Use tools the client already had, instead of bringing in an unfamiliar new vendor or a separate system to maintain.

The client was already using SendGrid for other email needs, so it was a natural fit to take on the mass email traffic that Salesforce had been limiting. We changed how the feature sends email. Instead of going out through Salesforce, each email now goes directly through SendGrid.

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Here's what we did:

• Routed email delivery through the SendGrid API, so emails no longer counted toward Salesforce's 5,000-email daily limit.

• Kept the existing Docrio document merge process unchanged, so PDFs continued to be created from Salesforce record data exactly as before.

• Included the generated Docrio PDF as a SendGrid email attachment, so users kept the same personalized email-and-document experience.

• Kept email template selection and sender address configuration within Salesforce, and mapped those selections to SendGrid behind the scenes.

• Updated only the email delivery mechanism, so record selection, template management, user permissions, and the overall workflow continued to work exactly as before.

• Ran document generation as a batchable job with the batch size set to 1. Docrio merges, converts, and finalizes each PDF on its own servers, and every step in that sequence requires a callout that can take significant time, so a larger batch would have risked Salesforce governor limits.

• Added a retry mechanism that reruns the full generation process for any record that fails at any step.

• Completed the entire implementation in a couple of weeks.

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From the users' perspective, nothing changed. They continued using the same interface and process they were familiar with. The only difference was what happened behind the scenes: instead of Salesforce sending the email directly, SendGrid handled the delivery.

By moving email delivery to SendGrid, the client circumvented Salesforce's 5,000-email daily sending limit from their mass email feature. They can now send emails using the implemented feature at the volume their business requires, without worrying about Salesforce’s daily sending caps.

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The solution delivered several key benefits:

• Eliminated the risk of reaching Salesforce's daily email sending limit during high-volume campaigns.

• Delivered the same user experience, including email template selection, sender address selection, and Docrio PDF merge.

• Leveraged the client's existing SendGrid investment, avoiding the cost and complexity of introducing another email platform.

• Created a scalable email delivery solution that can support future business growth.

• Delivered the largest-to-date send of 973 emails in a single run since production deployment.

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The result is a mass email solution that combines Salesforce's record-driven personalization and document generation with the scalability and reliability of SendGrid. Users continue working exactly as before, while the business can send email at the volume it needs.

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The solution came down to a simple idea: move email delivery to a platform the client already trusted while leaving the rest of the application untouched. No new vendor, no user retraining, and no disruption to existing workflows - just a scalable solution that removed a critical business limitation.

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Running into Salesforce email sending limits with your own mass email solution? We'd be happy to discuss your options. Reach out to us at https://www.echots.com/schedule-a-call.