Which Klaviyo profiles count toward my bill?
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An active profile is anyone Klaviyo can still email. That number, not the size of your list, is what Klaviyo bills.
That sounds generous, and in one way it is. The people you can no longer reach fall off the bill by themselves. A hard bounce? Free. Someone who unsubscribed? Free. The catch runs the other way. Klaviyo bills anyone it can still reach, whatever their consent status, whether they read your emails or not.
| Status | Paid or not paid | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribed and reachable | Paid | Whether they open or not |
| Never subscribed (gave an email at checkout) | Paid | Still reachable. Klaviyo itself says to take care when contacting them |
| Stopped engaging, not suppressed | Paid | Klaviyo's inactive segment, "unlikely to return as customers" |
| Unsubscribed globally, or marked an email as spam | Not paid | |
| Hard bounce | Not paid | Suppressed by Klaviyo |
| 7 soft bounces in a row | Not paid | Only soft bounces in the past 2 years count |
| Manually suppressed | Not paid | |
| Suppressed in your previous email tool | Not paid | If the suppression came over with you |
| Deleted | Not paid | Gone from your account, and the record that says do not email goes with it |
So who are you paying for that you can't really reach? Picture a shop whose checkout has captured every buyer's email for three years. Half of those people never opened a thing. Every one of them is on the bill.
Silent subscribers cost more than money. A large group that never engages can drag placement down for everyone on the list. The usual path is a last try at winning them back, then suppressing whoever stays silent, which keeps their record.
Suppress, do not delete. A deleted profile takes its status with it. Klaviyo warns that a deleted person can come back as a brand new profile the next time they fill in a sign-up form, back on the bill, with nothing to say they once left. If you ever do delete, keep your own do-not-email record first. Here is what a delete does in each tool.
One more catch: suppressing does not lower your Klaviyo plan on its own. That is a separate step.
Want a second pair of eyes on who to suppress? Our free SOS hotline will look at it with you.
Ask an AI. Copy this into ChatGPT, Claude or a similar assistant, fill in the blanks, and keep going with your own case:
I use Klaviyo on the [plan name] plan with about [number] active profiles. Roughly [number] have not opened or clicked in [number] months, and about [number] came from checkout without opting in. Who am I paying for that I can't really reach, and what is a safe order to win them back, suppress the rest and move to a lower plan?Sources. Klaviyo's own help centre, read 17 Oct 2026, re-checked 23 Oct 2026. Klaviyo reworded these pages after our first read (How Klaviyo billing works was updated 20 Oct 2026), so every quote here is in its words of 23 Oct 2026:
- How Klaviyo billing works: "Any profile, regardless of consent status, that can be emailed through Klaviyo is considered an active profile." "Your Profiles and Email plan is based on active profiles, meaning profiles that can receive email through Klaviyo." It counts "those who are added by general engagement (such as sharing their email on a store's checkout page but not actually opting in)."
- Understanding suppressed email profiles (updated 30 Mar 2026): "Suppressed email profiles do not count toward your email plan's active profile limit." The reasons: "An email hard bounced", "An email soft bounced 7 consecutive times", "Spam complaint", "Manually suppressed", "The person was suppressed in a previous email service provider". On global unsubscribes and spam marks: "These profiles do not count toward your email plan's active profile limit." A never subscribed profile may have "placed an order or abandoned a checkout on your site", and "you should exercise caution when contacting them."
- Understanding active profile management in Klaviyo (updated 30 Mar 2026): inactive profiles "are unlikely to return as customers, but still count toward your email plan", and "you can take action to suppress them so they do not count towards your email plan's active profile count."
- How to manage email suppressions and delete profiles in bulk (updated 11 Mar 2026): "a person can enter your Klaviyo account as a new profile if they engage with your website again (e.g., submitting a sign-up form)."
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