diff --git a/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py b/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py
index 022d36a643..df48fa5941 100644
--- a/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py
+++ b/zerver/lib/bugdown/__init__.py
@@ -1970,8 +1970,9 @@ def do_convert(content: Text,
         # Throw an exception if the content is huge; this protects the
         # rest of the codebase from any bugs where we end up rendering
         # something huge.
-        if len(rendered_content) > MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH * 2:
-            raise BugdownRenderingException()
+        if len(rendered_content) > MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH * 10:
+            raise BugdownRenderingException('Rendered content exceeds %s characters' %
+                                            (MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH * 10,))
         return rendered_content
     except Exception:
         cleaned = privacy_clean_markdown(content)
diff --git a/zerver/tests/test_bugdown.py b/zerver/tests/test_bugdown.py
index 9e055f7773..68c46b836a 100644
--- a/zerver/tests/test_bugdown.py
+++ b/zerver/tests/test_bugdown.py
@@ -1261,7 +1261,7 @@ class BugdownErrorTests(ZulipTestCase):
 
     def test_ultra_long_rendering(self) -> None:
         """A message with an ultra-long rendering throws an exception"""
-        msg = u'* a\n' * (MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH // 5)  # Rendering is >20K characters
+        msg = u'* a\n' * MAX_MESSAGE_LENGTH  # Rendering is >100K characters
 
         with self.simulated_markdown_failure():
             with self.assertRaises(bugdown.BugdownRenderingException):