An Omnisend export lists contacts with their channel subscriptions, so a row can have a phone number and a dead address or an address and no phone. The contact count and the mailable count are different numbers.
Getting the addresses out of Omnisend
Audience, apply filters, then Export. Omnisend produces a CSV of the selected contacts.
Before any campaign to a segment you have only ever texted. The email channel on those contacts has never been tested, and the first send is otherwise a discovery exercise.
What Omnisend does with the file you bring back
The import rules decide what a re-import actually changes, which is worth knowing before you upload.
The short version
- Imports match on email and merge into the existing contact record.
- A non-mailable email channel stays non-mailable through an import.
- Custom properties import alongside and are the right home for a verification verdict.
- Omnisend's billing help says subscribed and non-subscribed contacts both count toward your plan, and unsubscribed contacts don't. Check how your bounced contacts are classed before you assume they are free.
The mistake to avoid
Some addresses come back unresolved, and that is a fact about the receiving server rather than a gap in the check. We label those and never bill for them. What that means, and why roughly 28% of business addresses land there, is set out on our page about catch-all domains.
27,000 checkout contacts who never subscribed
Say your store's Omnisend audience holds 52,000 contacts: 21,000 subscribed, 27,000 non-subscribed and 4,000 unsubscribed. Omnisend's billing help says both subscribers and non-subscribers are billable, and only unsubscribed contacts are excluded. Your billable figure is 48,000, and more than half of it never opted in to anything.
Those 27,000 came from guest checkouts and abandoned carts, typed fast on a phone by someone who wanted a parcel and not a newsletter. Check them and suppose 3,900 are invalid. Removing those contacts takes the billable count to 44,100. Whether that moves you down a tier depends on where your plan's boundaries sit, and the billing page shows them. For the check itself, the 50,000 pack is $89.
Why non-subscribed contacts are charged, and where they bounce
Omnisend's explanation for billing non-subscribers is that they can still receive automated messages such as order confirmations and cart reminders. That tells you where their bounces come from. A campaign never touches them, so campaign reports look clean while the automations fail quietly. Open the automation reports and look at the bounce figures for cart recovery and order confirmation. If they're well above your campaign numbers, the checkout form is the source.
Growth is handled in a specific way too. When the audience passes your tier mid-cycle, Omnisend prompts you to upgrade, prorated for the days left, and you have to accept before sending a campaign that exceeds the tier. A big sync from a new sales channel the day before a promotion can leave you approving a plan change under deadline.
One thing we couldn't confirm from their help pages is how a bounced address is counted, since the billing article names unsubscribed contacts only. Ask support before assuming bounces fall off the bill.
Questions people ask
Should I verify contacts I only message by SMS?
Verify the email address anyway and store the verdict. The first time you decide to email that segment, the work is already done rather than being discovered mid-campaign.
Does verification reduce my Omnisend bill?
Only if you remove the contacts entirely. A contact with a dead email address and a working phone number still counts, so the decision is about the whole record.
Where do verification results live in Omnisend?
As a custom property on the contact, which segmentation can then filter on.