The case for shrinking your mailing list
How cutting inactive subscribers can boost your newsletter, plus a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
I removed more than 1,000 free subscribers from the Freelance Writing Network in July.
A year ago, that would have been unthinkable. Not least because it would have left me with slightly more than zero subscribers in total.
Removing subscribers can be a great way to see how far you’ve come. That number would be an incredible total for many newsletters, but it only made up 8% of my total audience at this point.
And ‘audience’ is doing some heavy lifting there. Because these people weren’t actually reading. And if they’re not reading, what’s the point in them being there? Because trimming your email list actually has a few positives, too.
Today I’m sharing with you why I cut them, and for paid subscribers, exactly how I did it and the metrics I used.
Why I did this now
If you’ve followed the FWN for a while, you might have seen how rapidly it still grows. Since January 2025, I’ve grown at a rate of at least 1,000 free subscribers per month on average.
But while that number sounds exceptional, of those new subscribers, only 30–35% of them are really sticking around or reading properly.
It’s easy to look at big subscriber numbers and think that you are or someone else is doing well. But if you dig into the data and find a huge chunk of your list hasn’t opened an email in months, those numbers are just for show. I’d rather have an audience that’s engaged than one that’s inflated.
Why you should consider doing the same
Hanging on to people who never open an email hurts you more than it helps. It drags down your open rate, which isn’t just a vanity metric. A low open rate can make email services more likely to file you under ‘Promotions’ or, worse, ‘Spam.’ Once that happens, even your most loyal readers might stop seeing you.
Pruning your list gives you a far clearer picture of your real audience. It means your open rates are a better reflection of who’s reading. And it can improve deliverability so that more of your engaged readers actually see your work.
Keeping subscribers who never read also gives you inaccurate analytics. Think of it like this: Imagine I have an email list of 1,000 people, with a 50% open rate and a 10% click rate. But if 200 of those subscribers never open my emails, the analytics aren’t even accurate.
If I remove those 200 subscribers, my open rate becomes 62.5% and my click rate becomes 12.5%. And then I’d know how my emails are really doing!
When is the right time?
If your open rate has been falling for months despite consistent posting, that’s a sign you should consider having a trim. As is finding a big block of subscribers who haven’t opened anything in three to six months. At that point, you’re carrying dead weight.
It never hurts to have a look through the filters to find out about who is and isn’t engaging. The truth is that most readers are somewhere in between: sometimes active, sometimes not. Some will read every post. A few most likely don’t even know they’re still subscribed. And those are the ones we’re targeting.
Removing them feels brutal in the moment, but it makes your list healthier. The numbers you see afterwards will finally match reality, and you can focus on growing your newsletter with people who actually care.
Proceed with caution!
I’m going to share a separate post soon with some advice on this, because any email marketing expert would advise you run a re-engagement campaign before just cutting a chunk of readers.
Unfortunately, that’s not easy on Substack, which is one of the worst for email sequences and re-engagement. You have to do everything manually, which can be quite a painful (and honestly confusing) process.
As well as this, Substack’s metrics aren’t always completely accurate. Sometimes, users will have inboxes set up in a way to avoid tracking, meaning they could be opening but Substack can’t see it. It’s not a perfect system, so be sure you’re absolutely ready to remove if you decide you want to.
Also remember: some readers dip in and out. You might not see them for months, then they suddenly reappear (and perhaps even pay - I know because it’s happened to me). Remove them too quickly and you might lose that chance.
If you want the exact step-by-step I used and the retention metrics that convinced me to do this, that’s in the paid-only section below.