- A ceiling is a count your plan caps: how many contacts, lists, sequences, domains, members you may have. It refuses creation, never sending.
- A balance is a stock you consume: sending units. It refuses sending, never creation.
The ceilings
| Ceiling | Counts |
|---|---|
| Contacts | Every contact of the organization, all lists combined — including unsubscribed ones |
| Lists | Every list |
| Sequences | Every sequence, paused ones included |
| Declared domains | Every domain declared, verified or not |
| Members | Every member of the organization |
Unsubscribed contacts still count. Their record is what stops you writing to them again;
deleting them to free room would let a later import re-create them as subscribed. Room is bought,
not reclaimed.
The balance
Every email sent consumes one unit — campaigns, sequence steps and test sends alike. Your plan allocates units monthly; packs top them up. Before a send starts, the balance is checked against the resolved audience. Short, and the send is refused with the exact number of units missing. A scheduled campaign refused this way goes back to draft and the organization's owners and admins are notified — see why a send is refused. The usage screen shows both worlds at once: emails this month against the allocation, and contacts, domains and members against their ceilings.Buying the emails you are short of
When a campaign asks for more emails than your balance holds, the refusal screen shows the exact shortfall — and, on plans where it is available, offers to buy just that. The price comes from your plan: each plan has its own rate per thousand emails, and larger plans pay less. You are charged for what is missing, not for a fixed pack — 3,273 emails short means you pay for 3,273 emails. Two rules shape what you are offered:- A minimum charge. Below it, card payments are refused by the payment network. When your shortfall costs less than that minimum, you are charged the minimum and credited the full number of emails it buys — always more than you were short of, never less.
- A ceiling. Past a certain share of your monthly allowance, buying extra is no longer offered and only a plan change is: at that scale, the plan is the cheaper answer.
What does not consume, and what does
- A test send consumes a unit — it is a real email — but appears in no statistic.
- A recipient skipped at departure (unsubscribed, suppressed, topic declined) consumes nothing.
- A preview or a render check consumes nothing: nothing leaves.