Overview
Each step in your campaign sequence has a wait time attached to it, for example "3 days after the previous step." This wait time controls the earliest a message or an email becomes eligible to send - not the exact moment it goes out.
Real-world delivery fits that eligibility window around your sending limits, sending hours, and any steps that depend on prospect action.
Why Follow-Up Steps Don't Fire on the Exact Day
A few things can shift the actual send later than the day you've set:
Daily sending limits - if you've hit the day's cap, remaining messages roll over to the next day
Sending windows / business hours - messages only send within your configured sending times, not overnight
Dependent steps - a follow-up that depends on a prior action, such as a LinkedIn connection being accepted, waits for that action before it can proceed
So the number of days you set on a step controls the earliest it can go out. Your limits and sending windows determine exactly when it actually does.
Let's look at an example sequence to help you better visualise how the sending window works in practice.
This is your campaign sequence:
And this is your campaign schedule:
Based on the above, we can see that the campaign is set to send emails Mon-Fri between 9am and 5pm GMT/BST. The follow up email step is set to send 5 days after the first email has been sent.
If we start the campaign and then send the first email on Monday the follow up step will be scheduled for sending in 5 days, however, note that the 5th day falls on a Saturday, which is outside of our selected sending window. This means that the follow up email will actually be sent on the following Monday as that is the next available sending day according to our schedule.
Now, if we send the first email on a Wednesday instead, then the follow up step will be sent on the following Monday, exactly 5 days after the first step.
To summarise, the wait steps follow the calendar days regardless of the sending window, but the actual emails/messages will only be sent on days that are part of the sending window. If the next steps falls on a day outside of the sending window (such as weekend), the system will automatically wait until the next day within the sending window.
Daily Sending Limits Explained
Each campaign has its own independent daily send limit - limits are not shared across campaigns and must be set individually. For example, two separate campaigns each set to 25 can send up to 50 messages a day in total.
The platform also coordinates the timing - sends are spaced out so they don't go out back-to-back and look automated.
By default, every new campaign you create is set to 25 emails per day.
You can adjust your daily limits from the default values - there's no hard ceiling on the number itself, however we recommend keeping it modest because of deliverability: sending too many cold emails from one mailbox in a day is the fastest way to get a domain flagged as spam, which hurts inbox placement for everything you send from it afterwards.
The healthier way to scale your outreach volume is to add more sending mailboxes rather than pushing a single mailbox harder. We also recommend building up sending volume gradually over the course of a few weeks to a month.
Start by setting your limit to 5-10 emails per day per mailbox and slow increase the number by 5 emails every 2 weeks. This way you will reach the recommended maximum of 20-25 emails per day per mailbox within your first month of running a campaign.
Setting Your Daily Limit
Access the Campaign
Click on the Settings tab
Open the Volume section
Set your desired daily limit and click Apply email settings
NOTE: If you have multiple mailboxes connected to a campaign, your daily limit is split evenly across them. For example, with 2 mailboxes connected and a daily limit of 50, the system will send 25 emails per mailbox per day.