What bounce rate pauses a Smartlead campaign?

The one you set. High Bounce Rate Auto Protection is enabled per campaign in setup, and you choose the percentage. Smartlead calculates the rate against total leads.

Can RocketVerifier pause bad leads in Smartlead?

Yes. The integration can pause or unsubscribe leads that verify as undeliverable before the next sequence step sends.

How do I handle catch-all leads in Smartlead?

Every catch-all lead gets a 0 to 100 score and a verdict. Keep send_safe, test send_with_caution in small batches and drop avoid.

How much does it cost to verify a campaign?

1 credit per lead, with unknown results and duplicates free. Pay-as-you-go credits never expire.

How to Clean a Smartlead Lead List

How to clean a Smartlead lead list

Quick answer

To clean a Smartlead lead list, connect Smartlead to RocketVerifier, pick a campaign and verify every lead, then pause or unsubscribe the bad ones before the next step sends. Smartlead's High Bounce Rate Auto Protection pauses a campaign at the bounce rate you set, measured against total leads. Verifying first keeps campaigns under that line and your sending inboxes healthy.

Smartlead bounce and complaint limits

From Smartlead's own help center and policies, checked November 1, 2026.

Smartlead published sending limits
Metric	Limit	What happens
Bounce rate	Your chosen threshold	High Bounce Rate Auto Protection pauses the campaign when it is reached. You enable it in the campaign setup and set the percentage. Source
How the rate is measured	Bounces divided by total leads	The denominator is all leads in the campaign, not emails sent. A webhook fires when the pause triggers. Source

How Smartlead handles bounces and imports

Auto bounce limit reached is one of the documented reasons a campaign pauses.
Bounced leads can be downloaded from the campaign Inbox tab by filtering the sequence status to Bounced.
Smartlead does not document a soft bounce suppression count.

Clean your Smartlead list with the integration

No exports. Results are written straight back to Smartlead.

1
In RocketVerifier, open Dashboard, Integrations, Smartlead, paste your Smartlead API key and click Connect.
2
Choose the campaign whose leads you want to verify.
3
Turn on write-back: results go into lead fields, and bad leads are paused or unsubscribed before the next step sends.
4
Preview the breakdown, then sync now, or schedule a re-check for long-running campaigns.

Smartlead integration details

Or clean it by file

1
Verify the lead CSV in RocketVerifier as a bulk job before you upload it.
2
Keep deliverable and catch-all send_safe leads, and remove undeliverable, disposable, role_based and catch-all avoid leads.
3
Upload the cleaned CSV to the Smartlead campaign.
4
After a send, download bounced leads from the campaign Inbox tab and add them to your RocketVerifier suppression list.

Bulk email verification

What to keep and what to remove

What to do with each RocketVerifier result
Status	Sub-status	Action
deliverable	none, alias	Send.
risky	catch_all, send_safe	Send.
risky	catch_all, send_with_caution	Test in a small batch first.
risky	catch_all, avoid	Remove.
risky	role_based, possible_trap, toxic	Remove from cold sequences.
undeliverable	any	Remove and block.
unknown	greylisted, blocked, smtp_timeout	Hold and re-verify later. Never charged.

Tips for Smartlead

Turn on High Bounce Rate Auto Protection and verify first. The pause is the safety net, not the plan.
Because Smartlead measures bounces against total leads, an unverified lead list can trip the pause early in a sequence.
Use the bounce threshold webhook to alert your team, and re-verify the campaign before resuming.

Sources

Last reviewed November 1, 2026