Why unsubscribed contacts should not count toward your plan

An unsubscribed address still has operational value: keeping it prevents accidental re-imports and protects the recipient from future mail. But that does not make the address an active marketing contact.

A fair contact meter counts only subscribed people who can receive a campaign. Suppressed addresses should remain stored at no charge, permanently, because deleting them weakens the safety system and creates an incentive to forget consent history.

The implementation detail matters. Count active contacts in both the billing display and the import gate, and apply suppressions before sending. If those paths disagree, customers see confusing limits and the product can make claims its enforcement does not match.