Suppression & unsubscribe
The suppression matrix, severity ladder, and hosted unsubscribe.
Suppression is how Send & Retain protects a project's sending reputation. Every send checks the suppression list; suppressed recipients are skipped (and the attempt is still logged).
Reasons and what they block
| Reason | Blocks | Removable |
|---|---|---|
complaint | Everything | Never |
bounce | Everything | Yes |
manual | Everything | Yes |
unsubscribe | Lifecycle only | Yes (resubscribe) |
Transactional email — receipts, password resets — still delivers to
unsubscribed contacts. It's blocked only by bounce, complaint, or manual.
One row per address
A suppression covers the whole project: one row per contact address, no
per-stream scoping. An unsubscribe stops all lifecycle email; every other
reason stops everything.
Severity ladder
Reasons have a severity order:
complaint > bounce > manual > unsubscribeA stronger reason is never downgraded by a weaker one — if a complaint already suppressed an address, a later unsubscribe won't loosen it.
Automatic suppression
Bounce and complaint webhooks suppress automatically, so you can't keep mailing an address that bounced or reported spam. Complaint suppressions are permanent.
Hosted unsubscribe
Lifecycle emails carry RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe headers plus a footer
link, both pointing at a hosted page Send & Retain owns. Either one adds a
single unsubscribe suppression covering all lifecycle email — a recipient who
asks to stop hearing from you gets exactly that, whichever route they took.
The page confirms the result and offers an undo. Resubscribe removes only an
unsubscribe-reason suppression; it can never clear a bounce or complaint.