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Why is my subscriber showing as "Bounced"?
Why is my subscriber showing as "Bounced"?

Learn about why and where "Bounced" shows up in your account.

Updated over a week ago

Are you seeing subscribers show up in your account as "Bounced"?

There are various reasons why a subscriber shows up as "Bounced" in your account. Ultimately, it means we were unable to deliver emails to that subscriber.

You can find your bounced subscribers in your Kit account here: https://app.kit.com/subscribers?status=bounced

Alternatively, go to Subscribers under the Grow tab in the navigation. Then, click the Confirmed Subscribers drop-down menu and change it to Bounced Subscribers.

There are two types of bounced emails: hard bounces and soft bounces.

Hard bounces

Hard bounces indicate permanent issues, like the email address not existing (whether it was typed incorrectly or simply no longer exists). Subscribers with this type of bounce receive the "Bounced" status.

If a subscriber has a permanent bounce, you'll see their status as "Bounced" in their subscriber profile:

You'll also see their "Bounced" status when searching for them in your subscriber list:

Bounced subscribers will be unsubscribed from your email list and will no longer receive emails from you. This is for your benefit so that your deliverability does not suffer. It also helps keep your open and click rates higher.

Soft bounces

Soft bounces indicate a temporary issue, like the subscriber’s inbox being full. We'll keep the subscriber in the “Confirmed” status and attempt to send them future emails.

Which email caused the bounce?

You can see which email failed to send by going to the subscriber's profile and looking at their email history.

Bounced emails have an orange circle under the "Email Type" column.

NOTE: If you see emails with gold circles in the profile of a subscriber with the "Confirmed" status, this means those emails experienced soft bounces and were not a good enough reason for us to unsubscribe the subscriber. The subscriber is still active on your list and can still receive your emails.

Can I un-bounce a subscriber?

Un-bouncing a subscriber is possible in cases like the following:

  • You think a technical issue caused your email to the subscriber to hard-bounce when it shouldn't have

  • You've replaced a bounced subscriber's email address in their profile with a working one because the subscriber shared their updated email address with you, for example. In this situation, the subscriber still won't receive your emails until the "Bounced" status is removed from their profile.

Contact our support team for help with un-bouncing subscribers. They'll look into the matter and re-activate subscribers where appropriate.

Am I paying for bounced subscribers?

No way! Bounced subscribers don't count against your total subscribers or toward what you pay. You are charged for only confirmed subscribers within your account.

In other words, no action needs to be taken with your bounced subscribers. You don't need to worry about deleting them. 👍

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