Are soft bounces bad for my reputation?

Less than hard bounces, but a high, persistent soft bounce rate still signals a poorly maintained list. Addresses that soft-bounce on several sends in a row are usually abandoned.

Why is my bounce rate high on an old list?

Email addresses decay. People change jobs, companies change domains and providers close inactive accounts, so a list that was clean a year ago will have new invalid addresses today.

How is the cleaning cost estimated?

It uses VeriDock's current plans and picks the cheapest one that covers your list in a single month, including any overage. Unknown results are never billed, so the real cost is often a little lower.

Free tool

Email bounce rate calculator

Enter the numbers from your last campaign to get your hard and total bounce rates, an honest read on whether they are a problem, and what it would cost to clean the list before you send again.

Emails sent

Hard bounces

Permanent: the address does not exist.

Soft bounces

Temporary: full mailbox, server busy.

Addresses on your list

Used to estimate the cost of cleaning it.

Hard bounce rate: 3.20%
Total bounce rate: 4.70%
Delivered: 9,530

Needs attention

Between 2% and 5% is high enough for mailbox providers to notice. Clean the list before the next send.

Verifying 12,000 addresses costs about $26.5 on the Starter plan for one month. Remove the 320 hard-bounced addresses from this send now: they will not recover.

How bounce rate is calculated

Bounce rate is bounced emails divided by emails sent, times 100. Most email platforms report hard and soft bounces separately, and the hard bounce rate is the one that matters most for your reputation.

Hard bounce: a permanent failure. The address or domain does not exist. Remove it immediately.
Soft bounce: a temporary failure, such as a full mailbox or a busy server. Retry, and remove the address if it keeps soft-bouncing.

What counts as a good bounce rate

There is no single official threshold. Mailbox providers do not publish one, and each email platform sets its own review rules. A widely used rule of thumb is that hard bounces under 2% are healthy, 2% to 5% needs attention, and above 5% is a serious problem that can get a sending account reviewed or paused.

A clean, permission-based list that is verified at signup usually stays well under 1%.

How to bring it down

Remove every hard-bounced address now. Sending to it again only adds another bounce.
Verify the rest of the list before the next send, especially if parts of it are more than six months old.
Verify new addresses at the point of signup, so bad data never reaches the list.
Use double opt-in for marketing lists if bounces keep coming back.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

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Email bounce rate calculator

Enter the numbers from your last campaign to get your hard and total bounce rates, an honest read on whether they are a problem, and what it would cost to clean the list before you send again.

Emails sent

Hard bounces

Permanent: the address does not exist.

Soft bounces

Temporary: full mailbox, server busy.

Addresses on your list

Used to estimate the cost of cleaning it.

Hard bounce rate: 3.20%
Total bounce rate: 4.70%
Delivered: 9,530

Needs attention

Between 2% and 5% is high enough for mailbox providers to notice. Clean the list before the next send.

Verifying 12,000 addresses costs about $26.5 on the Starter plan for one month. Remove the 320 hard-bounced addresses from this send now: they will not recover.

How bounce rate is calculated

Hard bounce: a permanent failure. The address or domain does not exist. Remove it immediately.

Soft bounce: a temporary failure, such as a full mailbox or a busy server. Retry, and remove the address if it keeps soft-bouncing.

What counts as a good bounce rate

A clean, permission-based list that is verified at signup usually stays well under 1%.

How to bring it down

Remove every hard-bounced address now. Sending to it again only adds another bounce.

Verify the rest of the list before the next send, especially if parts of it are more than six months old.

Verify new addresses at the point of signup, so bad data never reaches the list.

Use double opt-in for marketing lists if bounces keep coming back.