Gmail vs Google Workspace for cold email

Distro can send from both a free Gmail account (an address ending in @gmail.com) and a Google Workspace account (a Gmail mailbox on your own domain, such as you@yourcompany.com). The connection works the same way for both. The differences that matter for cold email are your sending address, control over your domain, admin settings and Google's limits.

How Distro treats the two

In Distro, both are connected the same way: from Outreach → Sending accounts, with Google sign-in and the same two Gmail permissions. Under Google accounts on the Sending accounts page, each connected account is labelled:

• Personal Google account for @gmail.com and @googlemail.com addresses.
• Google Workspace for any other address hosted by Google.

Everything else is identical: campaigns, follow-ups, reply detection and the Inbox work the same way. Each connected Google account counts as one sender mailbox on your plan, whichever type it is.

Side-by-side

Google publishes the exact daily sending limits for each account type and can change them. Check Google's current documentation, and read Gmail sending limits explained for how Distro's limits fit with Google's.

Which one should you use for cold email?

For business outreach, most teams send from an address on a domain they own, which in Google's world means a Google Workspace account. A few reasons:

• Credibility. Prospects see your company name in the address, not a personal @gmail.com address.
• Domain control. You can set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your domain, which mailbox providers use to check that mail claiming to come from you is genuine. See What is SPF and how does it work?.
• Room to grow. Google's limits are higher for Workspace, and you can add more mailboxes or aliases on your domain as you scale.

A free Gmail account still works in Distro and can be fine for testing or very small, personal outreach. Keep volume modest and warm it up gradually. See How to prepare a new sending account.

Workspace admin settings that can affect Distro

In a Google Workspace organization, an administrator controls some settings that individual users can't change. Common ones:

• Third-party app access. Admins can block or limit apps that access Gmail data. If your admin blocks apps by default, Google may stop you at sign-in until Distro is allowed. See Connect your Google account to Distro.
• Aliases. Only an admin can add an alias (an extra address) to your Workspace user. See What is an email alias?.
• Sending as other addresses. Admins can limit whether users may send as addresses outside the organization.

The exact names and locations of these settings are in the Google Admin console and change over time, so ask your admin to follow Google's current documentation.

Can I connect both?

Yes. You can connect several Google accounts, mixing Gmail and Workspace, up to your plan's sender mailbox limit: 1 during the free trial, 5 on Growth, and unlimited (fair use) on Scale. Each address you add as a sender, including verified aliases, can be chosen per campaign.