Contacts and subscribers

A contact is a record in your database. A subscriber is someone with a subscription status in your email system. Not every stored contact is an active recipient. Check which statuses count towards a provider’s billing allowance.

Campaigns and sends

A campaign is a message or coordinated mailing. Sending one campaign to 200 people normally involves 200 individual email deliveries, not one. Our workload examples call these sends. Provider reporting can distinguish attempted, accepted and delivered messages, so check the report definition.

Broadcasts and automations

A broadcast is a campaign sent to a selected audience. An automation follows a trigger and configured steps, such as a welcome message after signup. A generous broadcast allowance does not tell you how many automation steps or triggers a plan includes.

Groups, tags and segments

Groups and tags commonly organise contacts through assigned labels. Segments commonly select contacts using conditions. Names and behaviour differ between products: verify whether membership changes automatically and what happens when a contact meets more than one condition.

Daily and monthly allowances

A monthly allowance limits the total across a month. A daily cap limits what you can send on a particular day. Having unused monthly capacity does not remove a daily restriction. Check the reset time and whether unused capacity carries over.

Verification and authentication

Verification can confirm control of an address or domain. Authentication refers to mechanisms that help receiving systems check a sender. A working reply mailbox alone does not prove that a separate newsletter service is configured to send for that domain. Follow the service’s account-specific setup guidance.

Unsubscribe and suppression

An unsubscribe records that a recipient no longer wants the relevant subscription. Suppression prevents sending to particular addresses. Preserve the meaning of these statuses when moving between tools; importing an address does not by itself establish that it should receive campaigns.

Affiliate links

A publisher may receive commission after a qualifying action through an affiliate link. We label our commission links. A link to a provider’s pricing documentation can instead be an ordinary source link. Affiliate approval does not mean a provider endorses our conclusions.