In edrone, every contact usually has one of three subscription statuses: Subscribed, Unknown, or Unsubscribed.
The system also has a fourth status: Archived. Archived is not a subscription status. It's related to email deliverability — for example, when an email address no longer exists or messages keep failing to deliver.
What is the Archived status?
Archived is a special contact status. It means a contact has been archived and is excluded from billing.
Contacts with the Archived status:
are not counted in your pricing plan
do not increase your billable contact base
stay visible in your CRM
do not need to be deleted from the system
Why was the Archived status created?
We created the Archived status to make it easier to manage your contact database — without having to delete anyone. It helps you:
Protect your domain reputation and deliverability. Sending messages to contacts who can't receive them can hurt your domain reputation. Archiving limits sending to addresses that generate delivery errors.
Avoid paying for inactive contacts. Archived contacts aren't included in billing, so they don't add to your subscription cost.
💡 Quick Win: the more inactive addresses move to Archived instead of staying active, the less you pay — without losing any contact history.
Keep contacts in your CRM. edrone is a CRM, so deleting a contact means losing its history, data, and behavior insights. Archiving keeps the contact in the system while excluding it from billing.
Keep the door open for the future. Not every contact should be deleted right away. Some customers become active again, or reach you through another channel. Archiving keeps their data safe without affecting your bill.
When does a contact move to Archived?
Contacts are archived automatically, based on email delivery errors. A contact can be archived when:
an email gets a soft bounce — for example, the recipient's inbox is full — and this happens 7 times in a row, over a period of at least 14 days. A successful delivery or any customer interaction (like clicking a link) resets the count.
the email address doesn't exist, which causes a hard bounce.
📌 Tip: the exact bounce thresholds are managed automatically by edrone's system — you don't need to track them yourself.
What is a soft bounce?
A soft bounce is a temporary email delivery error. The most common causes are: a full inbox, a timeout during delivery, spam filtering, or a temporary error on the recipient's server.
In practice, this means continuing to send to that address can hurt your deliverability and your domain reputation.
What is a hard bounce?
A hard bounce is a permanent email delivery error. The most common causes are: the email address doesn't exist, the recipient's domain doesn't exist, the address was entered incorrectly, or the recipient's server permanently rejects messages.
In practice, this means continuing to send to that address can hurt your deliverability and your domain reputation.
How should you use the Archived status?
Treat the Archived status as a safe way to keep your contact database clean. Instead of deleting inactive contacts or contacts that generate delivery errors, let the system archive them. This way:
you don't pay for them in your billing
you don't send them any more emails
you keep their history in your CRM
you protect your domain reputation
How can I check which contacts were archived?
You can check the number of contacts with the Archived status in the CRM, Billing, and Customers sections.
In the Customers section, click the "Archived" filter tab — next to All, Subscribed, Unsubscribed, and the other tabs — to see the list of archived contacts and their profiles.
In Billing, go to the Payments and usage page and find the "Billed contacts" panel. It shows two numbers: "Counted in your bill" (your active, billed contacts) and "Stored at no cost" (your inactive, archived contacts — free of charge).
📌 Tip: open the menu (⋮) on the "Stored at no cost" panel to select "View archived contacts" or "Download CSV" and export the full list.
How can I restore an archived contact?
You can restore a contact with the Archived status if you have a good reason to activate it again. Restore contacts carefully — sending again to an address that previously generated delivery errors can hurt your deliverability.
A contact is restored automatically when we detect any customer activity toward your store.
You can also restore a contact manually, from the "View profile" drawer.
Should you restore contacts from the archive?
As a rule, we don't recommend restoring archived contacts in bulk. It's worth doing only when:
you're sure the email address is correct
the contact has become active again
the customer updated their data
you have a good business reason to restore the contact
⚠️ Important: if a contact was archived because of a hard bounce or repeated delivery errors, it's best to leave it archived. This protects your domain reputation and the deliverability of all your messages.
Remember: we're also working on smart, automatic restoration of archived contacts. This feature is still in development and isn't available yet — we'll share more details once it's ready.
Need more help?
If you have any further questions about the Archived status, please do not hesitate to contact us at hello@edrone.me