What is the best practice for determining how many soft bounces before suppressing a user?

Email marketer from Email Geeks warns about being careful when reacting to "soft bounces" due to potential misleading SMTP responses.

Email marketer from Email Geeks defines a soft bounce as a rejection that is not a permanent reason.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign suggests using automation to track soft bounces and automatically suppress contacts after a set number of occurrences, tailored to specific business needs.

Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests researching bounce data to optimize the soft bounce threshold, hypothesizing that most recipients who recover do so within the first few attempts.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Tips Forum recommends segmenting soft bounces and tailoring suppression rules based on bounce type (e.g., mailbox full vs. temporary server issue), rather than a blanket approach.

Email marketer from Email Geeks says they use a threshold of 7 consecutive soft bounces before suppressing an email.

Email marketer from Reddit suggests suppressing users after 3-5 soft bounces to avoid deliverability issues, noting this threshold depends on sending frequency.

Email marketer from Litmus recommends a proactive approach to bounce management, including implementing a double opt-in process and regularly cleaning email lists to remove inactive or problematic addresses.

Email marketer from HubSpot advises monitoring soft bounce rates and implementing list cleaning practices to remove unengaged subscribers and those generating consistent soft bounces.

Email marketer from MailerLite encourages marketers to monitor bounce rates regularly and adjust their sending practices to maintain a healthy sender reputation.

Email marketer from EmailOnAcid explains that soft bounces are temporary and that ESPs retry delivery. They advocate for analyzing bounce reasons to improve list hygiene and adjust suppression strategies.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests considering consecutive 5xx errors over a period of days before suppressing an address, recommending X=3 and Y=15.

Expert from Spamresource.com suggests that when a soft bounce occurs, it should only trigger an immediate block if the specific return code indicates a high probability of continued failures. Otherwise, implement a progressive back-off strategy, reducing the sending frequency gradually. After a reasonable number of retries without success, then consider suppressing the user.

Expert from Email Geeks says picking a reasonable number and going with it won't hurt, factoring the sending rate into it. Daily sending is 7, monthly probably not.

Expert from Email Geeks explains the risk of suppressing regular recipients due to temporary soft bounces.

Expert from Email Geeks states that hard/soft/block bounces are arbitrary categorizations by the send platform.

Expert from Word to the Wise shares that deciding when to suppress addresses due to soft bounces isn't clear-cut, but monitoring trends and patterns of bounces is crucial. Consider the type of soft bounce and adapt accordingly.

Expert from Email Geeks notes Brevo does 4 soft bounces, SalesForce 5, and Klaviyo 7 before considering it a hard bounce. Some others leave it up to the list owner.

Expert from Email Geeks agrees that soft bounces turn into hard bounces, at least in SFMC where the customer doesn't see 4xx errors while they are happening and if it never clears after 72 hours SFMC gives up and treats it as a hard bounce.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that by the time a 4xy delivery failure is reported, it's actually a 4xy converted to 5xy because the mail has been retried MULTIPLE times and it's been deleted from the queue making the bounce hard but is returned as soft.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that MailChimp treats an email address as a hard bounce after 15 consecutive soft bounces or 7 with no history.

Expert from Email Geeks defines a soft bounce as a rejection or deferral that will likely fix itself.

Documentation from SendGrid explains that it automatically handles bounces. For soft bounces, SendGrid retries delivery for up to 72 hours. If the email is still undeliverable after this period, it is considered a hard bounce.

Documentation from SparkPost shares soft bounces are temporary delivery failures. They recommend reviewing bounce codes, monitoring rates, and adjusting sending policies based on observed trends.

Documentation from Amazon Web Services outlines that Amazon SES distinguishes between hard and soft bounces. They advise monitoring bounce feedback and suppressing addresses that consistently soft bounce to maintain a good sender reputation.

Documentation from Mailjet shares that soft bounces are temporary delivery failures (e.g., mailbox full). Mailjet automatically retries these for a certain period. They recommend monitoring bounce rates and adjusting sending practices accordingly.

Documentation from Postmark shares they track bounces and categorize them. They recommend monitoring bounce rates and taking action when they exceed acceptable thresholds to ensure deliverability.