An effective email marketing strategy begins with a healthy and well-maintained email list. Maintaining good email hygiene is critical to achieving long-term deliverability and campaign success.

This guide covers the benefits of list cleaning, what gets cleaned, and how to complete the process in Omnisend.

The fee includes real-time email verification across your entire list. This identifies:

These issues damage the sender's reputation and cause suspensions. While there's an upfront cost, you save money by removing contacts you're paying to store but can't reach.

List cleaning isn't a one-time task. New signups can include typos, disposable emails, or bot submissions. Previously active subscribers become inactive over time. Even after manually deleting old contacts, new issues accumulate.

List cleaning removes faulty and outdated emails from your contact audience. A smaller list of engaged subscribers who read and interact with your content is more valuable than a larger list of subscribers who never open your emails.

If you see a warning like "You might be blocked from sending campaigns," some of your contacts need review to maintain list hygiene and deliverability.

Cleaning protects your sender reputation and ensures messages reach real people.

If your account is suspended due to a high bounce rate, you must complete list cleaning and unsubscribe poor-quality contacts before sending can resume.  Follow the steps below to restore sending.

If you have inactive contacts who were previously active customers, consider sending a re-engagement campaign before removing them.

How to re-engage:

This gives valuable customers one last chance while protecting your sender reputation.

Follow these steps to clean your email list in Omnisend.

Step 1. Navigate to Reports→ Deliverability.

Scroll down to Email list hygiene → click Go to email list cleaning.

Step 2. Choose whether to clean your full list or individual segments. You can select multiple segments and clean them all at once.

Step 3. Confirm the price by clicking Clean My List. Cost is $0.20 per 100 contacts, calculated automatically. 

You can pay with Google Pay, bank payment via Link, or credit card. Save your payment details for future cleanings.

Step 4. After analysis, choose how to handle poor-quality contacts:

Step 5. If you selected manual unsubscribe, you'll see a detailed breakdown. We recommend cleaning poor-quality contacts immediately.

Click Show Contacts below each category to view the full list.

You can tag, unsubscribe, and download contacts in bulk.

Select the groups you want to clean → click Unsubscribe contacts. Your list is now cleaned.

After cleaning, protect your list by stopping bad contacts at signup:

These tools reduce future cleaning needs and keep your list healthier.

List cleaning optimizes your audience by keeping valid contacts and removing emails that no longer work. It improves ROI, performance metrics, and deliverability while reducing costs.

The invoice appears in Billing History under Account Settings. The invoice appears within 24 hours of cleaning.

Can I clean my list manually (free)?
There's a way to remove obvious problems, but it won't catch spam traps or disposable emails like paid cleaning. Go to Audience → Segments → Create from Scratch → Add filter: Opted out → Reason: Bounced or Message Delivery Failed → Select all → Unsubscribe.

What does the "Unknown" category mean?

"Unknown" means the verification service couldn't confirm validity, usually due to a timeout. What to do: Review these contacts manually. If you recognize them as legitimate customers, keep them. If most appear suspicious or unfamiliar, unsubscribe them to protect deliverability. When in doubt, it's safer to remove them.

I paid for cleaning – why is my account still paused?
After cleaning completes, you must confirm unsubscribing poor-quality contacts by clicking Show contacts → Unsubscribe. Without this confirmation, no cleanup occurs, and your account stays paused. Go to Reports → Deliverability → List Cleaning → Show contacts under Poor Quality → Select all → Unsubscribe.

What's the difference between unsubscribing and deleting contacts?

We recommend unsubscribing to protect customer data while reducing costs.

Does cleaning delete my customer data?
No. Cleaning unsubscribes contacts (removes them from billing, keeps history) instead of deleting (permanent loss). Unsubscribed contacts won't receive campaigns but remain in your account for reporting and as a suppression list.

Do I need to clean my list if my bounce rate is already low?

Yes. Even with a low bounce rate (<1–2%), inactive subscribers harm deliverability, increase spam complaints, and cost money since you're paying for contacts who never engage. List cleaning removes these contacts, improves engagement rates, and reduces costs – even if your bounce rate looks healthy. Think of it as preventive maintenance, not crisis management.

Why am I getting a list hygiene warning after I just deleted contacts?

Deleting old contacts doesn't prevent new bad emails from entering your list. New signups may include typos, bots, or disposable addresses. Previously active subscribers can become inactive over time. List cleaning identifies these current issues – it's ongoing maintenance, not a one-time fix.

How do I prevent fake emails from bots?
Enable double opt-in + Google reCAPTCHA on signup forms. Block suspicious domains (e.g., .xyz, .tk) in audience import settings. For ongoing protection, monitor signup patterns and use List Cleaning quarterly.