Recovering from email limits

If your recent bounce rate has climbed too high, BetterUnite temporarily limits large marketing sends to protect your sender reputation. Being limited does not mean you have to stop emailing — it means your unproven contacts are throttled while your best contacts keep flowing. This article walks through exactly what you'll experience and how to keep sending and recover.

First, the good news — some of this is handled for you

Invalid addresses are already removed. Every hard-bounced address is suppressed automatically and won't be emailed again — there's no list to manually clean. You can see what was removed under Email → Deliverability → "Addresses removed automatically."
Your rate recovers on its own. The bounce rate is measured over a rolling 30-day window, so as the campaign that caused it ages out, your rate falls with no action from you. The Deliverability panel shows the date this happens and what your rate will become.

You can still send — your best contacts don't count against the limit

While you're limited, contacts who are known-good can be emailed freely, no matter how many there are. The limit applies only to your remaining, less-proven recipients:

Bounce rate over 15%: up to 1,000 other recipients per send
Bounce rate over 20%: up to 250 other recipients per send

So a send to 8,000 engaged contacts plus 300 newer ones goes through — the 8,000 are exempt and the 300 fit under the cap. Sending only to your engaged audience always goes through, however large it is.

Who counts as known-good?

Any contact who meets any of these — and isn't unsubscribed or already removed for bouncing:

Opened or clicked one of your emails in the last 90 days
Donated in the last 12 months
Was added to your account in the last 30 days

How to send while you're limited

Go to Email → Deliverability. Under "Safe audiences to send to now" you'll see live counts for each known-good audience.
Click "Send to this audience" on the one you want. This starts a new email, lets you pick your template, and sets the recipients to that audience for you.
Finish your email and send. Because everyone in that audience is known-good, the send goes through even if it's larger than the cap.
Want to reach a few more people? Add a small batch of newer contacts — up to your current cap — then watch your rate come down before widening again.

What you'll see if a send is still too large

If a send includes more unproven recipients than your cap allows, it won't go out, and you'll see a message like:

"Recently engaged contacts, recent donors, and newly added contacts don't count against the limit — but this send still reaches 2,600 other recipients, over the 1,000 allowed. Remove 1,600 of them, or send only to your engaged audience, until deliverability improves."

To fix it, either trim the newer/unproven contacts down to the cap, or send just to your known-good audiences using the steps above. Nothing is lost — your email stays saved as a draft.

When does the limit lift?

Automatically. As your clean sends land and the high-bounce campaign ages out of the 30-day window, your rate drops. Once it falls back under 15%, full sending resumes on its own — there's no button to press and no need to contact support. Aim to get your bounce rate below 5%, and ideally below 2%.

Tips to recover faster

Lead with your known-good audiences. Every clean, well-received send helps your rate recover.
Don't re-import addresses that previously bounced.
Clean new imports before uploading — watch for typos, role addresses, and old contacts.
Add newer contacts gradually rather than all at once.
Check your bounce type. If most bounces are "block" rather than "hard," cleaning your list won't fix it — review your content, domain authentication, and how quickly you're increasing volume.

You can review your current rate, the campaign driving it, when it improves on its own, and your safe audiences any time under Email → Deliverability.