How often should I clean my Klaviyo list?

Run a comprehensive list clean every 90 days. Monitor engagement metrics monthly and suppress obviously unengaged profiles (hard bounces, repeated soft bounces, spam complainers) as they appear. Before major campaigns like Black Friday, do a thorough clean to maximise deliverability.

Should I delete or suppress unengaged contacts?

Suppress rather than delete. Suppressed profiles do not count towards your billing and cannot receive marketing emails, but their data is preserved. If they re-engage through a purchase or website visit, you can unsuppress them. Deletion is permanent and loses all historical data.

What is an unengaged profile in Klaviyo?

An unengaged profile is someone who has not opened or clicked any email in a defined period, typically 90 to 180 days. The exact threshold depends on your sending frequency. If you send weekly, 90 days of non-engagement is a strong signal. If you send monthly, 180 days is more appropriate.

Will cleaning my list reduce my email revenue?

In the short term, your attributed revenue numbers may decrease because you are sending to fewer people. In practice, the people you suppress were not engaging or purchasing anyway. Your deliverability will improve, which means more of your emails reach the inbox for engaged subscribers, often resulting in higher total revenue.

How does list cleaning affect deliverability?

Sending emails to people who never open them signals to inbox providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) that your emails are not wanted. This damages your sender reputation and can cause more emails to land in spam. Cleaning your list improves your engagement ratios, which improves deliverability for everyone on your list.

Klaviyo List Cleaning Guide: How to Maintain a Healthy Email List

A large email list is not inherently valuable. A large, engaged email list is. Sending emails to people who never open them does not generate revenue — it damages your deliverability, inflates your Klaviyo bill, and makes your performance metrics look worse than they are.

List cleaning is the process of identifying and suppressing unengaged contacts so your marketing reaches the people who actually want to hear from you. This guide covers how to do it properly in Klaviyo without losing valuable subscribers. We include list cleaning in every Klaviyo email marketing services engagement we manage.

Why list cleaning matters

There are three compelling reasons to clean your list regularly:

1. Deliverability

Inbox providers (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) monitor your engagement rates. If a large percentage of your recipients never open your emails, these providers conclude your emails are not wanted and route more of them to spam. A clean list with high engagement rates keeps your sender reputation strong.

2. Cost

Klaviyo charges based on active profiles. Every unengaged profile you keep is costing you money without generating revenue. A brand with 50,000 profiles could save £100 to £200 per month by suppressing the 20 to 30 per cent of profiles that never engage.

3. Accurate metrics

Unengaged profiles drag down your open rates, click rates, and conversion rates. After cleaning, your metrics will better reflect the true engagement of your active audience, making it easier to benchmark and optimise.

The three benefits of email list cleaning — List cleaning improves deliverability, reduces costs, and provides more accurate performance metrics.

When to clean your list

There are several triggers for a list clean:

Every 90 days as a scheduled maintenance task
Before major campaigns (Black Friday, Christmas, sales events) to maximise deliverability
When deliverability drops — if your inbox placement rate falls below 95 per cent
When open rates decline significantly below your historical average
After a large import from another platform or data source

Identifying unengaged profiles

In Klaviyo, create a segment of unengaged profiles using these criteria:

Standard unengaged segment

Has not opened an email in the last 120 days AND
Has not clicked an email in the last 120 days AND
Has not placed an order in the last 180 days AND
Has not visited your website in the last 90 days

Additional suppression candidates

Hard bounce profiles (permanently undeliverable)
Repeated soft bounce profiles (3+ soft bounces)
Spam complainers
Profiles with invalid email formats
Role-based emails (info@, sales@, admin@) that are unlikely to be individuals

Building a sunset flow

Before suppressing unengaged contacts, give them a chance to re-engage through a sunset flow. This is a two to three email sequence that attempts to win back the contact before removing them from your active list.

Sunset flow structure

Email 1 (Day 0): We miss you! Subject: We have not heard from you in a while. Content: Acknowledge the lack of engagement, remind them of your brand value, include a compelling reason to stay (exclusive offer, new products).
Email 2 (Day 5): Last chance. Subject: Is this goodbye? Content: Be direct — you will be removed from the list unless they click to stay. Include a one-click re-subscribe button.
Suppress non-responders (Day 10): Anyone who did not open or click either email is suppressed from your list.

Sunset flows typically re-engage 3 to 8 per cent of the unengaged segment. These recovered contacts are worth keeping. The rest should be suppressed without hesitation.

Sunset flow structure for Klaviyo list cleaning — A sunset flow gives unengaged contacts a final chance to re-engage before suppression.

Suppression vs deletion

Klaviyo offers two options for removing contacts: suppression and deletion. Always choose suppression.

Action	Effect	Reversible?	Data preserved?
Suppress	Profile cannot receive marketing; does not count for billing	Yes	Yes
Delete	Profile and all data permanently removed	No	No

Suppressed profiles retain their historical data (purchase history, engagement history, profile properties). If they later make a purchase or re-engage through a form submission, you can unsuppress them with their full history intact. Deletion loses everything permanently.

Impact on deliverability

List cleaning has a direct, measurable impact on deliverability. Here is what typically happens after a thorough clean:

Open rates increase by 5 to 15 percentage points within the first 30 days
Click rates improve as emails reach more engaged inboxes
Spam complaint rates decrease
Gmail and Outlook inbox placement improves
Revenue per recipient increases as you are measuring against a more engaged audience

The deliverability improvement benefits every email you send — not just campaigns, but flows too. Better deliverability means your abandoned cart emails, welcome series, and other high-value flows reach more inboxes. For more on deliverability and SEO services, see our comprehensive guides.

Cost savings from list cleaning

Here are realistic cost savings from a list clean, based on typical Klaviyo pricing:

Original list size	Unengaged (est. 25%)	New list size	Monthly savings (approx.)
10,000	2,500	7,500	£40
25,000	6,250	18,750	£120
50,000	12,500	37,500	£200
100,000	25,000	75,000	£400

These savings compound every month. Over a year, a brand with 50,000 profiles saves approximately £2,400 just by suppressing the quarter of their list that never engages. For more on Klaviyo costs, see our pricing guide.

Cost savings from Klaviyo list cleaning — Suppressing unengaged profiles reduces your Klaviyo bill whilst improving deliverability.

Ongoing cleaning schedule

Monthly tasks

Review bounce rates and suppress hard bounces
Check spam complaint rates
Monitor overall engagement trends

Quarterly tasks

Run the unengaged segment analysis
Trigger the sunset flow for newly unengaged contacts
Suppress non-responders from the sunset flow
Review and update segment criteria if needed

Annual tasks

Deep audit of all suppressed profiles — any re-engaged contacts to unsuppress?
Review consent records for GDPR compliance
Evaluate whether engagement thresholds need adjusting based on your sending frequency

List cleaning is not glamorous, but it is one of the most impactful maintenance tasks in email marketing. It improves deliverability, reduces costs, and gives you more accurate data to make better decisions. Treat it as essential hygiene, not an optional task.

If your list has not been cleaned in a while, get in touch. We include list auditing and cleaning in our Klaviyo email marketing services and can help you build an ongoing maintenance process.

Klaviyo List Cleaning Guide: Maintain a Healthy Email List