Removing Unsubscribed Members - Best Practice or Not?

Using Ghost
1

Whenever an existing subscriber unsubscribes from the blog, Ghost still keeps them around in the system. I can see them by filtering on “Newsletter subscription - Unsubscribed”.

As a result, on the dashboard I see the number of “Total Members” is greater number of “Newsletter Subscribers”

I was wondering why Ghost keeps the unsubscribed members around, if I am not going to email them in the future. Is there a specific reason for this?

In addition, the pricing tiers count the number of “Total Members”, instead of “Newsletter Subscribers”. For example, if I have 1001 members and 950 subscribers (because 51 unsubscribed) I will be paying for the higher plan even if I’m only sending the newsletter to 950 subscribers.

As a result, I was thinking of deleting all the unsubscribed members from the system. Is this something recommended / not recommended / doesn’t matter? What’s the best practice?

Any information is really appreciated.

Thanks!

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What do to do with the ones never opening a newsletter
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It will depend on your specific situation. Ghost sites can have member content without ever sending a newsletter (for comments, member-only web content, etc), or maybe just announcement newsletters in which case members are still very valuable whether they are subscribed to a newsletter or not.

Ultimately you’ll need to decide for yourself if deleting members that don’t want to read your content via newsletter makes sense for your site.

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3

Got it, that was helpful! Thank you.

4

Belatedly… software_writer, how are you filtering “Newsletter subscription - Unsubscribed”? I can’t see where/how to do this.

5

From the members list, hit the gear button (top right) and select filter.

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6

I was also wondering over this. Do they also have a a choice to also “un member” themselves when unsubscribing?

7

I do a daily newsletter and I’m dealing with this question as well. I think it’s kind of shady on Ghost’s part because they know that over 1,000 subscribers means you pay more. What I’m doing is essentially emailing those who have unsubscribed and let them know they’ll be removed from the rolls.

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8

As @Kevin mentioned, a member doesn’t always mean a newsletter subscriber. Some members prefer to read directly on website. And if you have member-only posts, being a member -ragardless of subscribing to a newsletter or not- is needed to be able to read those posts.

There are some Ghost websites that I’m a member of but not subscribed to their newsletters. Instead I track them with RSS and can read the member-only posts by logging in.

When you consider removing “unsubscribed members” please also consider people like me :blush:

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