How to suppress unengaged profiles in Klaviyo and lower your active profile count

Why the Klaviyo bill follows active profiles

• Klaviyo says billing is based on reachable contacts, and that unsubscribed and suppressed contacts do not count (How Klaviyo pricing works). Any profile that can be emailed is an active email profile, including someone who only left an address at checkout (Understanding active profile management).
• Your plan has to cover your active profile count. If the count goes above your plan, the account moves to a plan that fits at the next billing cycle (How Klaviyo pricing works). Klaviyo says these details apply to month-to-month customers.
• Suppressing a profile does not delete it. It stays in your account, cannot receive marketing email, and no longer counts toward the email plan (email suppressions and bulk deletes).

Step 1: find the profiles that stopped engaging

Klaviyo describes inactive profiles as ones with a long, sustained stretch of no website visits, purchases or email engagement, and suggests this segment. In Klaviyo, go to Audience, then Lists & segments, then Create, then Segment, and add these conditions joined with AND:

• Person can receive email marketing
• Created is at least 180 days ago
• Has Received Email at least 5 times in the last 72 weeks
• Has Opened Email, Clicked Email, Active on Site, Viewed Product, Checkout Started and Placed Order: each 0 times over all time

Klaviyo also ships this definition as the Sunset (Email) segment in the Segment library. Creating the segment does not suppress anyone. Klaviyo notes that the suppression recommendations on its Suppressed profiles page use stricter rules: created at least 365 days ago, with no suppression added in the last 90 days.

Klaviyo sources: How to create a sunset flow (segment and Segment library), Understanding active profile management (inactivity segment).

Step 2: send one last attempt with a sunset flow

Klaviyo recommends a sunset flow as a final effort to win someone back before you suppress them, so that people who respond stay active.

1. Go to Flows, then Create flow, and search for "sunset".
2. Pick the pre-built "sunset unengaged subscribers" flow, set your sunset segment as the trigger and click Use template.
3. Edit the emails.
4. Turn the flow on, and check that the emails and the final Property update action are live, because unconfigured actions stay in draft.

The flow does not suppress anyone by itself. Profiles that reach its last Property update action are marked Unengaged = true, and you suppress them in the next step. Klaviyo says to keep the flow to one final attempt: repeatedly emailing inactive profiles can hurt your sending reputation.

Klaviyo source: How to create a sunset flow.

Step 3: suppress the ones that stay silent

1. Create a segment with the condition Properties about someone, Unengaged, is true. Name it so it is clear it is meant for suppression, and review its members.
2. Go to Audience, then Lists & segments. Next to that segment open the action menu and choose Suppress current members.
3. If Klaviyo shows two options, Suppress inactive profiles keeps subscribed profiles that have not marked your emails as spam and have clicked an email or bought in the last 6 months, while Suppress everyone suppresses every eligible member. Klaviyo lets you download a CSV of the profiles that would stay active before you confirm.
4. Click Suppress profiles. Processing can take some time.

Who can do it: Klaviyo says the Owner, Admin and Manager roles can suppress profiles, and you need permission to edit profiles. The action covers the current members only, not people who join the segment later. Email suppression does not stop SMS or push messages.

Klaviyo sources: How to create a sunset flow (the Unengaged segment and the suppress step), How to manage email suppressions and delete profiles in bulk (the two options and the CSV), Understanding active profile management (roles).

Step 4: make the plan follow the count

This step decides whether the bill changes. Klaviyo says a lower active profile count does not necessarily lower your bill: deleting or suppressing profiles does not change your plan by itself, unless auto-downgrade is on or you downgrade by hand. You have two ways.

Option A: turn on auto-downgrade

1. Select your account name in the lower left, then go to Billing, then Preferences.
2. If your Email upgrade preference is Automatically upgrade, change it to Flexible overages or None and click Update first. Auto-downgrade cannot be used with auto-upgrade. Read what each option does before you choose: with None, sending stops when you reach your plan's email limit until you upgrade, use flexible overages or the cycle renews.
3. In the Profiles auto-downgrade section, select Auto-downgrade profiles and click that section's Update button.

Klaviyo then checks your active profile count shortly before your billing cycle renews, and an eligible downgrade takes effect for the next billing cycle. So reduce the count before that check. It works for the Profiles & Email plan, and you need to be an Owner or Admin with billing permissions, on a paid plan that is not billed through a contract.

Klaviyo source: How to choose your upgrade preference.

Option B: downgrade by hand

Click your account name in the lower left, then Billing, then Change plan, and pick the lower Profiles & Email plan. Choose a plan that covers all your active profiles; your count can equal the plan's limit. Klaviyo says a downgrade does not take effect immediately: the lower price and limits start at your next billing cycle, there is no refund for a downgrade in the middle of a cycle, and you cannot downgrade while an invoice is outstanding. If you upgrade before the downgrade takes effect, that cancels it.

Klaviyo source: How to add or change a plan in Klaviyo.

Before you suppress: what to watch for

• Suppressing too early can cost sales. Klaviyo warns that suppressing profiles that may still come back means you cannot nurture them to a purchase. Compare their inactivity with your normal buying cycle first.
• A suppressed profile stays suppressed. Even if the person starts a checkout or buys later, they remain unable to receive marketing email until the suppression is removed. If you suppress a profile by hand, unsuppress it, and want to suppress it again, you must wait 90 days from the original suppression.
• Suppress or delete. Deleting removes the profile and its history and cannot be undone. Suppressing keeps the data for analysis.
• Other plans. Klaviyo says its Advanced KDP billing counts total profiles, including suppressed ones. This guide is about the Profiles & Email plan.

Klaviyo sources: Understanding active profile management, email suppressions and bulk deletes.

Want this done for you every month?

Klaviyo gives you every step above. What it leaves is the monthly repeat and the question of what it saved. We are planning a small tool that would find the profiles that meet Klaviyo's own inactivity definition, suppress them once you approve the list, and show the estimated saving on your plan. It does not exist yet; this is a demand test. Join the list if you would use it.

Planned price, not final, and nothing is charged by joining: about $19 a month, or a one-time clean-up for $9 to $15.