You send a newsletter to 50,000 email addresses. Reviewing your Non-Delivery Report the next day, you find 250 hard bounces, 30 soft bounces, and 20 pending bounces still being retried. Hard bounce rate: 250 / 50,000 × 100 = 0.5%. Soft bounce rate: 30 / 50,000 × 100 = 0.06%. The hard bounces signal a list quality issue; the soft bounces are worth monitoring for recurring patterns.
Emails Bounced (NDR)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2026
What is Emails Bounced?
Emails Bounced is the count of emails that were not successfully delivered to recipients' inboxes, recorded as Non-Delivery Receipts from email servers. Bounces are categorized as hard (permanent failure), soft (temporary failure), or pending (awaiting retry).
Alternate names: Non-Delivery Receipt, NDREmails Bounced Formula
ƒ Count(Emails Bounced)
How to calculate Emails Bounced
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What is a good Emails Bounced benchmark?
According to Mailchimp, the average hard bounce rate across all industries is approximately 0.4–2.5%, and the average soft bounce rate is approximately 0.1–0.6%. Rates vary by industry, list age, and list collection method. (Source: Mailchimp Email Marketing Benchmarks — verify publication date and confirm current figures before publishing.)
How to visualize Emails Bounced?
Emails bounced is relatively straightforward to track. Use a summary chart to visualize your current values in comparison with a previous time period. Make sure you track other metrics alongside bounces, such as bounce rate, open rate, and CTOR.
Emails Bounced visualization example
Summary Chart
Here's an example of how to visualize your current Emails Bounced data in comparison to a previous time period or date range.
Emails Bounced
Chart
Measuring Emails BouncedMore about Emails Bounced
Types of email bounces
Email bounces fall into three categories, each with a different cause and response.
Hard bounces indicate a permanent delivery failure. Common causes include invalid or non-existent email addresses, abandoned mailboxes, or a recipient domain that no longer exists. Most email platforms automatically suppress hard bounce addresses from future sends to protect your sender reputation.
Soft bounces indicate a temporary delivery failure. The recipient's email server may be down, over capacity, or rejecting messages due to security filters. Soft bounces are retried before being marked as failed.
Pending bounces sit between a send attempt and a confirmed soft bounce. The email has not yet been delivered but is still being retried. If retries fail, the message is reclassified as a soft bounce.
Why Emails Bounced matters
Bounce rate is one of the clearest indicators of list health. A growing bounce rate usually means one of three things: your list collection process is capturing invalid addresses, your list has aged without regular cleaning, or a technical issue is blocking delivery.
Email service providers monitor bounce rates closely. Consistently high rates can trigger sending limits, damage your domain's sender reputation, or result in your account being flagged for spam. Keeping bounce rates low protects your ability to send at scale.
Hard bounces vs. soft bounces: what to do
The appropriate response depends on the bounce type.
| Bounce type | Cause | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|
| Hard bounce | Permanent — invalid address, non-existent domain | Remove immediately from all future sends |
| Soft bounce | Temporary — server down, mailbox full, security filter | Monitor; remove if bouncing repeatedly |
| Pending bounce | Temporary — delivery still being retried | Wait for resolution; treat as soft bounce if unresolved |
Most email platforms handle hard bounce suppression automatically. For soft bounces, set a threshold — for example, remove an address after three consecutive soft bounces.
Best practices for managing bounced emails
Validate addresses at the point of collection. Use double opt-in or real-time email validation to prevent invalid addresses from entering your list.
Clean your list regularly. Remove addresses that have not engaged in 12 months and suppress any address that has hard bounced.
Monitor bounce rates by campaign and segment. A spike in bounces for one segment can point to a targeted issue rather than a list-wide problem.
Review your sending infrastructure. High soft bounce rates sometimes reflect issues with your sending domain, IP reputation, or authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).
Set automated suppression rules. Configure your email platform to automatically suppress hard bounces and flag repeat soft bouncers for review.
Common challenges
Misclassifying bounce types. Some email platforms classify bounces differently, making cross-platform comparisons unreliable. Confirm how your platform defines each type before drawing conclusions.
Ignoring soft bounces. Because soft bounces are temporary, they are easy to dismiss. Recurring soft bounces from the same address often signal a permanent problem and should be treated accordingly.
Purchased or scraped lists. Lists not built through opt-in collection tend to have significantly higher bounce rates and can damage your sender reputation quickly.
Emails Bounced Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a hard bounce and a soft bounce?
A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure, typically caused by an invalid or non-existent email address. A soft bounce is a temporary failure, such as a full mailbox or a server that is temporarily unavailable. Hard bounces should be removed from your list immediately; soft bounces should be monitored and removed if they recur.
What is a good email bounce rate?
Industry benchmarks vary, but a hard bounce rate below 2% is generally considered acceptable. Soft bounce rates below 1% are typical for well-maintained lists. Rates above these thresholds suggest list quality issues or technical delivery problems.
How do pending bounces work?
A pending bounce occurs when an email cannot be delivered immediately due to a temporary issue. The sending platform retries delivery automatically. If the email still cannot be delivered after multiple retries, it is reclassified as a soft bounce.