How suppression works

Addresses that bounce or complain are skipped automatically, so one bad address can't hurt the rest of your sending.

Overview

Sending to addresses that bounce or complain damages your sending reputation. Transactional Email keeps a suppression list for your account and skips those addresses automatically: a send to a suppressed address returns suppressed (Suppressed) and nothing is sent.

Suppression is automatic and always on. It’s per HubSpot account and per email address.

What gets suppressed

Event	What happens	How long
Hard bounce — the address doesn’t exist or permanently rejects mail	Suppressed right away	Until a Super Admin clears it
Soft bounce — a temporary failure, such as a full mailbox	Mail servers retry first. After 3 soft bounces in a row, the address is suppressed	30 days, then it’s cleared automatically; the contact’s properties update on the next successful send to their primary email address
Complaint — the recipient marked your email as spam	Suppressed right away	Until a Super Admin clears it

A delivered email resets the soft-bounce count, so occasional soft bounces never add up to a suppression.

How you can tell

The contact record. The contact’s Transactional email suppressed property is set to Yes, and Transactional email suppression reason says why. You can use both in HubSpot lists, reports, and workflows. See Contact properties and timeline events.
The timeline. A bounce or complaint adds a Bounced or Complaint event to the contact’s timeline.
The send log. Searching the address in App Home’s Send log shows Bounced (for soft bounces too) or Marked as spam on the original email and Suppressed on later attempts.

Clearing a suppressed address

Clear an address only when you know it can receive email again — for example, the customer fixed their mailbox, or a complaint was made by mistake.

Open Settings → Sending. In HubSpot, go to Marketplace apps → Transactional Email and open Settings.
Enter the address under Suppressed email address.
Click Clear suppression.

A confirmation says the address can receive transactional email again, and the contact’s Transactional email suppressed and Transactional email suppression reason properties are cleared. Only Super Admins can clear addresses; everyone else sees the Sending tab read-only.

When a contact’s address changes

Suppression belongs to the email address, not the contact. If you update a contact’s email to a new, working address, sends to the new address go out normally, and the next successful send to that primary address clears the contact’s suppression properties.

Common questions

Does Transactional Email honor HubSpot unsubscribes? No. HubSpot’s email subscription preferences apply to marketing email, and transactional email isn’t marketing, so the app doesn’t check them. That’s also why the content review and the Acceptable Use Policy keep templates strictly transactional.

Are suppressed sends counted against my allowance? No. Nothing is sent.