---
title: "Quota and failure-rate email alerts"
description: "Get emailed before you hit your plan limit and when your Flow actions start failing. Configure thresholds and add up to two extra confirmed recipients."
canonical: "https://docs.workflow-transactional-email.app/notifications-and-alerts"
---

# Notifications and alerts

The app can email you when something needs attention, so you are not relying on a customer telling you their confirmation never arrived.

## Where to find the settings

Open **Settings** and pick the **Notifications** tab. The **bell icon** on the Dashboard's **Events** card opens the same settings.

![The Notifications tab in Settings with the four alerts and the recipients](https://cdn-dev.eu.codecreationlabs.cloud/crm-tool/uploads/SjJ78gKLnLlocopCui3Cs62dJbGZ7F1n/6593a3307585ae92.png)
*Settings, Notifications: each alert with its switch and thresholds, and who receives them.*

## The four alerts

| Alert | Default | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Email sender stops working** | On | Emails you when a sender can no longer send, and tells you the fix |
| **Quota warning** | On, at 80% | Emails you when plan usage crosses your chosen threshold |
| **Quota exceeded** | On | Emails you when usage hits 100% and actions start being blocked |
| **High failure rate** | Off | Emails you when an unusual share of actions fail in a short window |

### Email sender stops working

Fires the first time an email fails because of the sender itself, so you hear about it before a day of missing emails. The email names the sender and the exact step to fix it:

| Cause | What to do |
| --- | --- |
| Google or Microsoft 365 no longer lets the app renew its access (access removed, password change, admin block) | Reconnect the account under **Email Senders**. The dashboard also shows a **Reconnect required** banner. Normal token expiry is renewed automatically and never triggers this |
| SMTP username or password rejected | Check the credentials and run **Test Connection** |
| Your mail server blocks our sending server | Ask your email host to allow the IP address named in the email |
| An email address was entered as the SMTP host | Enter the server name, such as `smtp.example.com` |
| Port and encryption do not match | Use port 465 with SSL or 587 with STARTTLS |
| Gmail is not enabled for the Google account | Enable Gmail for that user, or connect another account |
| Microsoft paused sending for the mailbox: a personal Outlook.com or Hotmail mailbox reached its daily sending limit, or Microsoft asks for account verification | Sign in to the mailbox in Outlook and follow Microsoft's instructions. The limit resets daily; personal mailboxes allow only a few hundred recipients per day, so for more volume connect a Microsoft 365 business mailbox or an SMTP server |
| Your mail server stops answering (down, firewalled, wrong port) | After three consecutive failed connection attempts the alert names the host and port to check |

**Test Connection** and the test send show the same fix next to the error. If no recipient is set up, the alert goes to the mailbox that stopped working. A Microsoft mailbox that is paused for sending still receives mail, so the alert reaches it.

### Quota warning

The threshold slider runs from 50% to 99% in steps of 5. Set it lower if a month of blocked sends would hurt, higher if you would rather not hear about it until it matters.

### Quota exceeded

Fires when you hit the limit and Flow actions begin failing. Worth leaving on regardless of plan.

> [!NOTE]
> Both quota alerts are unavailable on the **Unlimited** plan, since there is no quota to cross. Failure-rate alerts still work.

### High failure rate

Off by default, because a sensible threshold depends on your volume. Three settings:

| Setting | Range | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Failure threshold** | 5-75% | 20% |
| **Window (minutes)** | 5-1440 | 60 |
| **Minimum volume** | 1 and up | 50 |

The minimum volume suppresses noise: without it, one failure out of two actions on a quiet morning reads as a 50% failure rate. Set it to roughly the number of actions a normal window carries.

Broken logins and sender setup errors already have their own alert above. This one catches everything else, such as an API you call through an HTTP request that starts rejecting it, so it is worth turning on once you are sending regularly. Marketing emails that were skipped because the recipient unsubscribed are not failures and never count here.

## Recipients

The **shop owner email** - the address Shopify has verified for your store - is included by default. You can turn it off if alerts should only go to specific people.

You can add up to **2 additional recipients**. Each has to confirm:

1. Enter the address and click **Send confirmation**.
2. They receive an email with a confirmation link, valid for **7 days**.
3. Once clicked, the recipient shows as **Confirmed**.

Until then they show **Pending confirmation**, and you can **Resend** or **Remove**.

> [!WARNING]
> If you turn the shop owner email off and have no confirmed recipients, nothing can reach anyone. The modal warns you when that happens - do not leave it in that state.

Every alert email carries its own unsubscribe link, per recipient. Unsubscribing removes that recipient, or turns off the shop owner email if it matches.

## How often they fire

Alerts are deduplicated so a problem does not flood your inbox:

- Quota alerts: once per month per plan limit.
- Failure-rate alerts: once per 6-hour window.
- Sender alerts: once per day per sender. A sender that stays broken is reported again the next day.

## Related

- [Settings](https://docs.workflow-transactional-email.app/settings.md) - the other tabs of the Settings page.
- [Sending health](https://docs.workflow-transactional-email.app/sending-health.md) - the dashboard card that lists sender problems, broken links and the failure rate.
- [Plans and usage](https://docs.workflow-transactional-email.app/plans-and-usage.md) - what the quota is measured against.
- [History and troubleshooting](https://docs.workflow-transactional-email.app/history-and-troubleshooting.md) - investigating the failures an alert reports.