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!

1 Like
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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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Got it, that was helpful! Thank you.