Wondering why your emails only send to some of your intended contacts? This article explains what may be causing this email recipient discrepancy.
Troubleshoot email recipient discrepancy
If you are attempting to send an email campaign to your list of contacts, you may find that the list of recipients is smaller than your list of contacts.
For example, you have a list of 1500 contacts in your Contacts tab:
But only 1200 recipients when drafting your email campaign:
Tip: If none of your contacts are receiving emails, not just fewer than expected, check that your Marketing Settings are complete before troubleshooting further. A missing From Name, From Email, or Marketing Contact Address can block delivery entirely. See Troubleshoot email sequences not sending.
Marketing emails and subscribers
You are likely seeing the result of the important difference between sending marketing emails and transactional emails.
To comply with various rules, laws, and regulations such as the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR, your marketing emails will only send to subscribed contacts.
Learn more about the difference between marketing emails and transactional emails for details.
In the example above, 300 of the 1500 contacts are unsubscribed. This will result in the total number of 1200 subscribers that are eligible to receive your marketing email.
A discrepancy can also occur if you are attempting to send an email campaign to a specific segment of your contacts but only a few contacts in the segment are set to receive the email.
If your recipient list contains unsubscribed contacts, you will see a difference between the number of recipients you have selected to send your email and the total number of contacts in your contact list.
It is important to note that your email campaign specifies the term "subscribers" when determining your email recipients.
Subscribers are contacts who have provided the appropriate permissions to be subscribed to receive your marketing emails.
Note: If a contact is not subscribed to receive marketing emails they will not receive emails in an email sequence. Learn more about Subscribers for details. If your subscribers are not receiving your sequence, your emails may be getting marked as spam. Learn to improve your sender reputation and improve your email deliverability.
If you would like to add custom messaging to encourage email subscription upon offer checkout, or choose to automatically sign up customers to your email list when they purchase a paid offer, you can do so in your checkout page opt-in settings. Learn how to update your checkout page opt-in settings here.
Learn more about contacts, customers, and subscribers to better understand subscribed and unsubscribed contacts.
Check Email marketing category subscriptions
If you have Email marketing categories enabled, a contact can be subscribed overall but opted out of the specific category an email belongs to. These contacts show a Partially subscribed marketing status and won't receive emails sent under a category they've opted out of, even though they'd still receive emails sent under a category they remain subscribed to.
To check this:
Open the Contacts tab from the Dashboard.
Open the contact's profile and check the Info section for their status in each of the five categories.
Compare that against the category assigned to the Email Broadcast or Sequence you sent. Learn more about Email marketing categories.
Scheduled broadcasts: why your recipient count changes between scheduling and sending
For scheduled Email Broadcasts, recipient filters — including segment membership and subscription status — are evaluated at the time the broadcast actually sends, not at the time you schedule it. The count shown when you schedule is an estimate based on your list at that moment.
This means:
Contacts who subscribe between scheduling and send time will be included if they meet your filter criteria.
Contacts who unsubscribe or are excluded between scheduling and send time will be removed.
The final delivered count may be lower or higher than the estimate you saw when scheduling.
If you need to lock in a fixed recipient list, export your segment as a CSV, import it as a tag, and send the broadcast to that tag.
Broadcast shows "Delivering 0 of X" or appears stuck
If your broadcast shows a status of "Delivering 0 of X" or appears to be stuck in the queue, it is most likely waiting to start processing. Large contact lists can take several minutes to begin sending. Refresh the page after a few minutes before troubleshooting.
If the status remains at 0 after 30 minutes, check:
Marketing Contact Address is missing. Go to Settings → Marketing Settings and confirm your Marketing Contact Address is filled in. A missing address silently blocks all broadcast delivery — not just sequences.
Broadcast was cancelled after scheduling. Confirm the broadcast status is still "Scheduled."
All recipients are ineligible. If every contact in your recipient list is unsubscribed, opted out of the category this broadcast belongs to, or doesn't match your segment's criteria, the broadcast will show 0 delivered.
Opted out means the contact is on your list but has turned off emails for that category
Doesn't match your segment means they were excluded before the send list was even built. Review your segment criteria and each contact's email preferences before resending.
Additional resource
If you accidentally unsubscribe a contact, a contact unsubscribes by mistake, or someone forgets to subscribe when signing up for your course, you can resubscribe them. Learn more about resubscribing contacts.